You might have seen the story out there on the web somewhere, the one about the Murphy-Goode Winery in California holding a nationwide job search looking for a person to direct their social media efforts for $10,000 a month for 6 months. Applicants had to send in 60 second videos of themselves telling why they should get the job. If this is news to you now, and you want to catch up, the story is right her…wait a minute…before I give you the link and send you off forever, let me mention that it is too late to apply for the position. OK then, click here to see the story.
Back? Here is my take. They received somewhere around 700 applications. You may hear this and say things like: “this is a stroke of marketing genius,” or “you can’t buy that kind of publicity for $60,000!”, perhaps even a “why do I never think of things like that”, and then at the end of your rant maybe throw in a “they even got on the Today show!” for good measure. And, complete with a wine pun, at first blush, I too thought along those lines. But the more I think about it, I am wondering if this is not a case of social media fervor run amok.
Consider this, the winery will have to sell thousands more bottles of wine just to pay for this hire, before it even starts paying off. (3000 more bottles if the average cost is $20.) I don’t know anything about the wine business in general or this winery in particular, except that I have never tried their wine. I am sure it is lovely. i know nothing of their sales or cash flow. That is all beside my point. I am wondering if this publicity stunt could possibly pay off?
But all that free publicity, you say. Don’t forget, they were on The Today Show. You are next going to tell me that you can’t put a price on that kind of exposure. What exposure? That would be my response. There are less than 40 articles on Google news, the winery at this point has only 189 followers on Twiiter (and no updates), and only about 1200 fans on Facebook. They had a nice response when dangling money, I just hope they get as good a response when selling wine.
Again, I am sure they make a lovely wine, and I wish them well. I hope this works out for them. But I think that it also stands as a good reminder to other business owners that social media is but one way to attract new customers. I will grant you that it is the sexiest, and the one you want to spend all your time with, but still only one of the methods you should be employing. Don’t go crazy spending money on social media until you calmly think about how it is going to pay off.
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