Born to Brand – Adam Metz, Metz Consulting

This is one of several in a series of interviews, all part of a larger book project tentatively titled “Social Media Success: What these Folks Know that You Don’t.” (Also see my interviews with Louis Gray, Francine Hardaway, and commentary.)

Adam Metz is the Principal of Metz Consulting, a San Francisco-based management consulting firm that works with brands to to acquire, monetize and retain what he terms the "social customer." I first met Adam when was the Social Media Director at LaunchSquad, an SF digital PR firm where I also worked. He stood out a mile with his crazy checked shirts and turbo-charged energy, even in that hyperactive environment.

At the time, he was one of the few people around who knew social media well enough to advise others about it. Turns out, he’s still ahead of the curve. Eighteen months later he’s running his own firm, working with an enviable list of clients that includes several California wineries, numerous apparel brands, Mighty Leaf Tea, SF Convention and Visitors Bureau and  a handful of consumer service brands.

Our interview is slated to take place in person, but at the last minute he apologetically calls to say he’s sick (“something that never happens to me!”). I tap out our interview from a Tully’s on Van Ness, using a combination of my iPhone and AIM to communicate with him. Throughout our interview, he IMs me links and information without ever losing the flow of conversation.

When I ask him what he does for his clients, he answers that Metz Consulting is not unlike any other management consulting firm. They help clients better serve their customers. The difference? Well, for one thing, there are still only a handful of firms that exclusively offer social customer management consulting to mid-sized consumer brands. (His best known competitor is Altimeter Group.)

There are other distinctions. He uses a combination of strategy and customer relationship management (CRM) software that automates the complex and difficult tasks associated with brand management in today’s social media saturated world. We live in a time when like it or not, customers can (and do) say anything they like about a company on very public forums such as Twitter and Facebook. As their advisor, Adam’s number one priority is getting companies to a place where they can track and monitor and engage about everything that is being said about them. This means they can respond in ways that go way beyond crisis management.

Ultimately, they learn how to tap into consumer loyalty and enthusiasm.

“We don’t feel it’s enough to write a social web strategy,” he said. “All collateral has to go to one source. One dashboard. They need to prove a successful ROI. We’re the only shop getting certified by Salesforce Oracle and Microsoft Dynamics.”

An example: one of Metz’s clients’ customers (a thirty-something man) went out to a winery on a Friday night with his wife for their sixth anniversary. Despite a reservation, the couple had to wait an inordinate period of time. They were eventually seated and then all but ignored by the wait staff. Enraged, the man tweeted about his experience. Normally, that would’ve been the end of it, but instead, says Adam, “we immediately got it to them. The chef got through, texted and tweeted a response. The couple got a free tasting dinner. And that person came back as a paying customer.”

“But why the focus on consumer brands? Isn’t high tech still where it’s at?” I ask. “I mean, don’t you miss Silicon Valley?”

“I talk to Silicon Valley companies every day. They’re partners now. Take (cloud sales 2.0 intelligence provider) InsideView. They used to be one of my clients. Now I implement their technology. There’s nothing more fun than going to wine tasting –as I’m planning to do tomorrow--and realizing, this is my client. I’m writing strategy for these folks.”

He talks of fun, but later in our conversation it comes out how dedicated he is to understanding each industry he serves. His engagements substantiate multi-million dollar returns, and he takes his clients intensely seriously. As he admits, if you see him on Muni, he’ll probably have his nose buried in BevNet or Gourmet Retailer—trade publications for the wine and food industries.

There’s another reason he’s chosen to focus on consumer brands. The word “enthusiast” sums it up. Folks often get deeply personal about their favorite beverage or hotel. To illustrate, he had me search for his dad’s favorite brand of scotch on Twitter, Lagavulin. The query yielded hundreds of tweets from around the world.

“There are more reviews on the latest Mighty Leaf tea flavor than there are on the new Dan Brown book on Amazon,” he tells me.

This is beyond brand enthusiasm—it is outright passion. Metz has clearly hit on something. And he’s not keeping it to himself. He’s working on his second book: Dance on the Volcano due out early next year on how to do a million-dollar social customer management implementation.

He describes the book in the following terms: “If Groundswell was Sgt. Pepper, this is Born to Run.” Nice analogy. Think I’ll use it in my headline.

Francine Hardaway Video

If you want to hang around blogger and businessperson Francine Hardaway, you better be on your toes. Part teacher, part tech evangelist and zero BS, she has a presence that draws attention whether she's holding court at the coastside Tech Tuesday event she organized--where folks like her friend Robert Scoble and his buddy Jesse Stay might show up--or just relaxing in her second home near Half Moon Bay, Calif.

While you might not have heard of Francine or her Phoenix, Ariz.-based business incubator Stealthmode Partners, you've probably read or heard about opinions she's expressed on her own blog, or on her blogs on the Huffington Post or Fast Company. I'm guessing you also know some of the Silicon Valley personalities she knows and interacts with regularly on Twitter and other social networks. Follow her and you'll see what I mean.

I had the privilege of interviewing Francine on video. I wanted to know her secret--how has she been so successful at social media? She seems to know--and very naturally interact--with a veritable who's who of social media, from Seesmic's Loic Le Meur to Altimeter Group's Jeremiah Owyang--who put her on his "thought-leaders" list on Twitter along with Chris Brogan, Louis Gray and other big names. When I asked her how she does it, she claimed no special knowledge of social media, except that she herself is a social person, and an early tech adopter. Her approach is one that seems more about service than about her own ego. Apparently she doesn't even track her own analytics or followers.

So without further ado, here's the video--I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I enjoyed making it:

Is it time to panic yet? Five reality checks on social media

Today, we got a new reason to panic about social media. According to sources, the snake oil salesmen are swarming like locusts. As Mashable reported, there are now a whopping 15,740 people on Twitter calling themselves a social media expert, guru, consultant, or other such title. The post cites broadstuff, which claims to have calculated that Twitter will be made up almost entirely of social media experts by 2012. The number is derived from a growth rate of 3.5x every six months--thus, 30 million in the next three years. Attention getting stuff, and I have no doubt this post will be retweeted hundreds of times.

OK, enough of that. Let's get real.

Reality check #1: The geometrical progression model is not the proper one to use in this case. Any statistician worth her or his salt will tell you that. This is because we're in a particularly intense time in which social media is spreading like wildfire. As I've pointed out in an earlier post, we are in the center of what Gartner calls the "hype cycle." The hype will die down well before we get to 30 million, believe me.

Reality check #2: There is a real demand, and need for social media expertise. Altimeter Group's Jeremiah Owyang writes in Forbes that companies tightening their belts in the recession began to recognize the power of social media. "Social marketing promises lower costs and bigger returns." 

As social media observer and consultant Louis Gray points out in his recent look-back post on 2009: "In 2009, the majority of businesses woke up to social media. While there are no doubt many holdouts, and even a bigger number doing a poor job, 2009 was the year that companies realized you could get business done on Facebook, Twitter and other networks." (Italics added for emphasis.)

Another way of looking at this--social media will be integrated into overall marketing and PR strategies in the coming year for a number of businesses. This is simply the new reality we're in, and some companies are legitimately concerned their approach may not be working. They are possibly getting slammed by customer complaints that spread out of control across the web. Or, they may not able to rise above the noise due to a lack of understanding of how to get noticed in the socially-networked community. This is a radical departure from traditional, "push" marketing, and many are realizing they could use an insider to show them the ropes for some period of time.

Reality check #3: Most companies aren't going to find their social media consultants by searching Twitter. Those consultants who have a real and valuable service to offer will (for the most part) float to the top--in fact, this is already happening. Their reputations will precede them; satisfied clients will refer them. Those who are all hot air will soon flutter off into the distance, in search of the next big thing. It was like this during the dot com boom in the late 1990s. Every company knew it needed a web site, and so for a period of time, everyone was calling themselves a web designer--even those whose "skills" consisted of an afternoon of training in MS FrontPage. This too shall pass.

Reality check #4: We're just getting started with this social media thing. In that sense, no one is an expert... yet. And as you might notice, those who have the most to offer are usually the ones who shy away from titles like "expert" and "guru." After all, it's only been in the past year that its true power and potential has become apparent. How could anyone have gained true expertise in such a short period of time?

Twitter became a part of mainstream conversation really just in the last year, with celebs like Oprah and Ellen jumping on the bandwagon, and major news sources setting up accounts. And as Louis Gray points out in the above-referenced post, "real-time ended up being the word of the year in 2009." Google and Bing are now offering real-time search, and for the most part, it's improving the quality of the results. But it's really just the beginning--and anyone who claims to know for certain what's next is NOT the person you want to hire as your consultant.

Reality check #5: Because we're all learning, there is fun and adventure to be had. Rapid change can be unsettling. Frightening, even. But the truth is that there is immense potential in social media--for making more money, doing more creative work, and (best of all) being oneself in a way that was never possible. Social media is a place where dreams really can come true. No need to worship a guru--false or not. Find your own path.

OK folks, back to your regularly scheduled fear-mongering programming...