Making videos can cost almost nothing or run into the tens of thousands of dollars. Arlington Machinery says its animation cost only about $100, but Nardone paid more than $15,000 to produce a series of videos last summer. At Mountain View Vineyard, a Pennsylvania winery that began making videos in the past year, a smartphone and a still camera have kept the costs minimal.

When marketing director Laurie Monteforte started working at Mountain View a year ago, she made it a priority to create a campaign that included videos. But the standard way of selling wine – showing smiling people gathered around a food-laden table and lifting their glasses in a toast – won’t work in a video, she says.

“Today’s audience doesn’t want commercials, where we try to sell you something,” Monteforte says.

Mountain View’s videos teach viewers how to make something with wine, such as red wine hot chocolate, or show some aspect of the winery’s operations. Last summer, owner Linda Rice demonstrated how she hand-picks Japanese beetles off of plants and drops them into soapy water, killing them without chemical pesticides.

Mountain View says its revenue is up about 30 percent in the past year, and credits about three-quarters of that gain to video and social media.

“There are so many options where people can go for wine and spirits,” Rice says. “Video and social media set us apart because people get to know us.”

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Follow Joyce Rosenberg at www.twitter.com/JoyceMRosenberg . Her work can be found here: http://bigstory.ap.org/content/joyce-m-rosenberg