One brewery account I love following is Argenta Brewing located in Portland, Maine. For anyone who has ever wondered what happens in the brewhouse on a day-to-day basis or what it’s like to run a brewery, Ryan Dunlap is your guy. He’s the owner at Argenta, and you’ll see from this conversation, using social media to build his brand was on his mind before opening their doors.

What I love about Dunlap’s approach is he shows how powerful documenting what’s already happening in your brewery can be. Not only does this bring people into your world, but it’s an approach that saves you time while also serving up interesting content for your audience. Keep reading to dive into great advice and insight from Dunlap.  

A Conversation with Ryan Dunlap, Owner of Argenta Brewing

SG: What does Argenta Brewing stand for, and how do you make that come through in your content?

RD: Originally, what I really wanted when I started this place—I was really shooting for a couple things. One, to be very transparent with our customers, our staff, and our community. That stemmed from bad experiences working for other businesses myself. We’ve all had bad bosses and worked for companies that just didn’t sit right with us. So from day one, it was just being transparent about anything and everything—the good stuff, the bad stuff, any issues we’re having, and not really leaving anyone in the dark.

Part of that too was trying to treat employees well, trying to pay them as well as we can, and making sure they’re the number one priority for the business. When employees are treated well, they’re most likely going to treat customers well. It kind of trickles down like that.

The other piece was differentiating ourselves in the Portland, Maine market—making lagers versus what a lot of people were leaning into with hazy IPA styles for the past decade. If we were going to open up, even if we were making fantastic IPAs, we’re already years behind all the other great breweries in our area who are already making those styles damn near to perfection. So for us it was like, we need to do something else. Almost all of our beers are under 5%, fermented cold, clean, really drinkable. Nothing too crazy on the palate. We found a lot of people appreciate that because they’re kind of getting burnt out on crazy craft beer styles.

Homespun by Necessity

SG: What’s your approach for using social media for your business?

RD: For maybe three or four years before we even opened, [using social media] was kind of an idea in my head. I was always taking notes on things I liked at different breweries, bars, or restaurants. I noticed that a lot of hospitality businesses tended to only post very done-up pictures of their food or drinks, which I think used to work, but hasn’t really worked in a while—at least not on the scale that people wanted.

I knew we didn’t have a big budget going into this. I couldn’t blow money on marketing or get ad agencies to help us. And I knew I can make social media videos for basically free, and you can reach millions of people on a video that took you five minutes to make. So the upside is there, the downside is pretty minimal.

About five months in, I started posting much more consistently on TikTok—just Day in the Life videos of a 27-year-old brewery owner. Me brewing beer, scrubbing the floor, cleaning the bathroom—little b-roll clips. Those started to take off after I did a couple of them. That first summer in 2024, a lot of people would come in like, ‘Oh, we found you on TikTok’—over and over and over from customers. I just had real-life feedback from people who saw a video that took me 15 minutes to make for free, came in, and bought a couple of beers, bought a shirt. I realized this is real. This works.

Planting the Seed

SG: Can you share more about moments where you could point to social media and say “that did something for my business”?

RD: When someone comes in and directly tells you that’s how they found you—and if that’s happening a dozen times a week, there might be two dozen or more people who actually came in and just didn’t tell you. Even if it’s just the people who told you, that’s a dozen more people who came in that wouldn’t have come in because they didn’t know you existed.

Other things that have happened—I’ve gotten interviews, been invited on beer podcasts. Doug Veliky, the @beeraficionado on Instagram, did a video on us that got some traction. All those little things compound. The more different accounts that are talking about you, posting about you, the more likely you’re going to reach more people. Being in a tourist place, people from all over the country and world come here in the summertime. You’re planting that seed. When they do come here, you’re on their list of places to visit.

A lot of people only look at it in terms of direct sales numbers that week—post a video on Monday, how much money did we make from it? But you need to look at a business like this as something that might be around for 10 plus years. How much trust are you building with your customers that might take years to build, but will pay off a lot more in the long run? A lot of people are so focused on sales-oriented social media posts that they really neglect the brand side of things. You’re just building that trust. People see you over and over, and eventually that’s going to lead to a sale. It’s just inevitable.

Don’t Overthink It

SG: How do you create content while juggling everything else you have to do as an owner and do you have a team helping you?

RD: My thought process is coming from the standpoint of: let’s document what we’re doing every day. Let’s not try to show people a certain image.

I’m cleaning a fermenter every Tuesday. So I’ll just set up a tripod and get different shots of me cleaning the tanks—aesthetically pleasing cleaning videos that people like to watch—then figure out a way to edit it together so it’s fairly quick cuts, the video is like a minute long, put a little song over it, and then some sort of caption on screen at the beginning. Switch it up, and just do that every time. And if you notice one video seems to overperform—okay, this one got 2,000 likes and 60,000 views, why is that one different? Then you can analyze: what time was I posting it? Is the on-screen text super visible? Is the music relevant or trendy? There’s a billion factors.

The biggest thing for most of the content that’s done really well for us: don’t think about it. Just do what you’re doing, edit it, post it. That has been hands down the best strategy I’ve used. The stuff that’s done the best is literally just film yourself working.

As far as team—when we first opened, I hired someone who was kind of running that stuff for me, and the format wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for. I ended up being the one doing it because it was easier. But what I’ve learned is that being the face behind the camera as an owner—or some sort of authority figure—gives you credibility. People put the face to the brand. That’s really important, especially for a smaller company. Having that face to the brand is huge.

A Documentary Approach

SG: What advice would you give to breweries looking to do something similar?

RD: Do what feels simple, easy, and natural as far as what you want to share. I’ve gone a bunch of different directions with this. For a while I was sharing our monthly or weekly sales data—what were our best selling beers, what were our biggest expenses for the month, difficulties like that. I think that’s a fun angle if you’re willing to be transparent. From my experience, people really appreciate that we’re sharing that information.

You could do the aesthetic cleaning videos where you’re just filming yourself scrubbing the floor, cleaning a tank. You could do quick-cut pouring videos. You could talk about ingredients. It’s almost endless. You just need to pick one and try it. It might not work right away, but if you just keep trying to make it a little better every time, something is going to work, something’s going to pop on one of the apps—and then you’ll get that confidence like, okay, this is real, I can keep making content.

For a lot of people it’s just: don’t overthink it. If you’re even asking what to do, you’re already overthinking it. Pick a couple things, film yourself doing it, and go from there. Posting something is always going to be better than not.

The Takeaway for Smaller Breweries

Here’s what I want you to take from this conversation: start documenting what’s already happening in your brewery. Don’t be afraid to test out new things. Take the time to learn from your content, whether it performed well or not. And lastly, don’t be afraid of video. Video is an easy way for people to connect with you and your brewery. Even if you’re teaching yourself to edit, the first few times might take a while, but the more you edit, the faster and better you’ll get. 

But before you jump into creating, it’s important to think about what you want your audience to know about you. What do you stand for? For Dunlap, transparency is a big part of his brand, and that shows up in his content over and over again. 

Start with what makes you different from the brewery, restaurant, or bar down the street. Go beyond making quality beer and think of why you started the brewery, what you value, and what your guests already love about you. Look for ways to show people who you are and what you stand for online. That’s the key to building a brand that people love and want to consistently spend their money with.