You may have seen some of the uproar surrounding Murphy Goode’s decision to exclude Martin Sargent from their top 50 list of contenders for “areallygoodejob”. http://bit.ly/30gf68 Whether or not Marty is the right person for the job is not for me to say (I think he’d be a huge asset and cheap for the salary they advertised) but it’s obvious the wine company only half understands the whole social media gig.
They did a great job of getting out there and gaining traffic but they stepped on their peepee in closing the deal. What Murphy Goode didn’t get was that if you harness social media for “good”, you better not be an asshat. It ends up being like throwing a tennis ball against the wall and having it come back at you with 10x the velocity, and in the form of a clump of poo.
I’m not saying they should have hired Marty (I wish I could afford him!) and I can see how a popular web dude could dominate the votes and have that not be the right person. But if you’re gonna ask the social universe to jump in you better at least give their opinion a tiny bit of weight; Their wrath would leave you wishing you had only left a thousand women scorned instead. Their wrath is what Murphy Goode is dealing with now.
Murphy Goode probably saw a spike in sales just with the introduction of their “contest”. My guess is, they’re gonna see those sales dropping off rapidly. It’s much more expensive to lose a customer than it is to gain one. For example, if I had never bought from them before and found them with the initial stunt, I might buy 10 bottles per year. But had I been buying from them and I heard about their shitty behavior I’d never buy from them again. That’s a pretty big penalty and one that is not immediately recognized.
Personally, I love the leveling effect of social media. Sure, sometimes it goes way overboard but I think it mostly helps keep companies and individuals more honest. Because if you break from social media etiquette you may as well jump into a tank of gasoline while holding a lit torch and save yourself the hassle.