From Followers to Fans – How to Build an Online Beer Community by Ferry Wijnhoven

As the classical social media platforms start to decline it’s getting harder and harder to build and maintain a beer community. Breweries worldwide are struggling to get the attention of their audience. Newer platforms like TikTok and Snapchat don’t seem the way to go, as alcohol might be prohibited there and the right audience is just not there. Ferry Wijnhoven has built a beer community on Facebook called ‘Beer Geeks’. After more then 13 years this is still an active community, and with over 18.000 members this is the largest beer community of the Netherlands and Belgium. It’s not only about beertalk and posting a picture of beer, it’s actually so much more then that. Ferry will take you along in how to build and maintain such a community and will share some insights in the annual charity event for the group, which might be the largest collab in beer worldwide. Ferry Wijnhoven is the founder and administrator of the largest online beer community in the Netherlands and Belgium, Beer Geeks, active since 2013. With over 18,000 members, he brings the entire beer community together. Since 2022, he has been a certified international beer sommelier. With his company ‘the Beerenthusiast’ he hosts beertastings and bottleshares all over the Netherlands. Ferry has been an international beerjudge for over 5 years, judging competitions like the Dutch Beer challenge and Brussels Beer Challenge.