I live in constant motion where maximum responsibility and activity levels turbo charge acuity of mind. I have a full time media career, an agenda of constant travel, a husband and father’s commitment to intense family connection, two homes to manage, a professional spouse with a medical career, a current kitchen remodel clanging away around me, morning exercise regimens, and the usual joie de vivre dosage requirements for great food, wine, friends, adventure travel, music, skiing, fishing, golf, and a potpourri dozen more diversions that fill in remaining seconds of down time. I crave and need it all.
Wielding a crowbar this past April, I squeezed in WineZag’s several hour-a-week commitment to authentic engagement through the blogosphere. Last week I gave WineZag a Facebook page and as I sit on the Cross Sound Ferry today zeroing in on some NYC and Long Island fun over this long holiday weekend that celebrates rest for all laborers, I am satisfied to have asked and answered the questions about whether the additional time commitment of a Fan Page for WineZag makes sense or looms as the proverbial back breaking straw.
All was sorted out pretty quickly over the first five days of WineZag’s Fan Page life.
With so much information I personally process about wine every week, and only enough time to create a post or two, the Fan Page intuitively became a place to link fans with the raw info that I find intriguing or useful with minimal 
effort.
Second, 171 Facebookers became fans of WineZag’s page remarkably quickly and that number is still growing. Of course, the usual group of Facebook friends of mine and anything wine joined along with my breathing, fleshy friends and colleagues either because they are genuinely interested in the WineZag perspective or they simply support this really fun project I have submitted to. In addition, a growing number of members of the wine trade, fellow bloggers, wine journalists, and serious connoisseurs have arrived to become an extension of the WineZag blog audience and eventually might make their way over to the blog if they find themselves enjoying Fan Page content.
If that kind of community building was not enough, Dan McCarthy, Chairman and CEO of NCI and voice behind viralhousingfix.com, who has been single handedly leading a social media sea change in our consumer media company and any other company that has been willing to pay attention, shared some information a couple of days ago at the conclusion of a contest encouraging our magazine teams to increase Fan Page networks and drive up their rate of content sharing. Why grow the number of fans? There is a direct correlation between regular social media sharing, a growing fan base, and increased web traffic…all results of a valuable system to anyone relying on digital audiences, marketing, or commerce. The following chart outlines unique visitor web traffic growth for each magazine over those two months:
June July August 2 month inc.
| At Home in Arkansas | 4,211 | 5,653 | 6,486 | 54% |
| Atlanta Homes & Lifestyles | 14,763 | 15,673 | 16,664 | 13% |
| Colorado Homes & Lifestyles | 4,359 | 4,682 | 5,033 | 15% |
| Kansas City Homes and Gardens | 3,846 | 4,491 | 5,635 | 47% |
| Mountain Living | 4,948 | 5,787 | 6,482 | 31% |
| New England Home | 4,329 | 4,904 | 4,538 | 5% |
| Seattle Homes & Lifestyles | 6,622 | 7,699 | 8,054 | 22% |
| St. Louis Homes & Lifestyles | 4,244 | 4,694 | 5,191 | 22% |
To further illustrate the connection between a robust Facebook Fan Page and increased traffic for a media brand, business website, or blog the At Home In Arkansas staff deployed multiple techniques for fan base building and had the most success of all markets, driving their fan level from 1,000 to 2,500 in that two month period. As you can see from the chart, their web traffic followed and grew faster than any other market. On the flip side, New England Home paid less attention to building their fan base over this period, only grew by 40 fans to 220 overall fans, and as reflected in the chart, experienced the lowest single digit web traffic growth of all markets.
So WineZag embraces Facebook with enough conviction that the additional time commitment is valuable enough to followers and simply one more necessary step in a full social media system that provides rewards of connection and engagement with like minded people. I hope you find it a cool place to engage, add your comments, and grab some helpful information as you pursue any and all degrees of a wine-enriched lifestyle.