I’m sure most of you have heard the term “social media”. More and more industries are hiring a staff person to strictly be their social media person. This means that this person will handle the media outreach for the company such as on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Linkedin, Plaxo and YouTube accounts, for example.
The wine industry has started to realize that the time is now to hire a social media person. This could be the golden opportunity that won’t cost them a lot of money and will ideally increase their wine sales. A winery that has been around for over 20 years named Murphy Goode in Healdsburg, Sonoma County put out a contest so they could hire this perfect social media person for their winery.
Murphy Goode Tasting Room
Murphy Goode wanted to hire a lifestyle correspondent who will take care of all their social media outreach needs. This person had to send in a video of why they are this perfect person for Murphy Goode to hire, and why he/she would do “A Really Goode Job”. The contest lasted about 3 months and each contestant had to submit their 2 minute video and get their readers, friends and Murphy Goode to vote for them. After over 1,000 applicants submitted their video Murphy Goode narrowed it down to 10 finalists. Hardy Wallace from Atlanta Georgia who has a wine blog called Dirty South Wine, won the contest for the six month stint!
Larry had met Hardy last year at the Wine Bloggers Conference and actually voted for Hardy’s video to win. We saw Hardy once again at this year’s Wine Bloggers Conference which was a week after his winning announcement.
Hardy Wallace
As you can imagine with all the publicity, press and piers, Hardy was flying higher than the highest kite you’ve ever seen.
Larry and I met up with Hardy while we were in the Russian River region last weekend and interviewed him after his first full day on the job. He is so nice, dang cute and extremely lovable. After watching the videos below you will see why Hardy won, and why he will do such a Murphy Goode job! Good luck Hardy!
Murphy Goode announces Hardy as the winner
Fox News interviews Hardy Wallace and Dave Ready Jr. the Murphy Goode winemaker
ViciVino.com interviews Hardy after his first day on the job at Murphy Goode Pt. 1 & Pt. 2
Larry, Lori and Hardy at Murphy Goode Tasting Room