‘The Social Customer’ shakes up the world of business and books

Hours before Adam Metz spoke at Diesel Books on Thursday night an earthquake had jolted many books off the shelves and onto the ground. Another came about an hour later, centered just a mile away from the Oakland indie bookstore.

The quake seemed to appropriately announce a momentous day for Metz, whose book The Social Customer, is flying off shelves and into the hands of eager readers in similar fashion. The book is rapidly climbing the Amazon.com sales charts.

Diesel announced the book’s publication in an appropriately social fashion; Metz’s speech followed by appetizers, wine and cake. Addressing a crowd of about 25, Metz talked about how his working relationship with New York Times writer and Hot, Flat, and Crowded author Thomas Friedman brought him to the point of writing The Social Customer, a book that I reviewed earlier this week about how businesses can use social CRM (customer relationship management) to acquire, monetize, and attain fans, friends, and followers.

Metz read from the introduction to his book which examines himself and the social customer he writes about in the context of culture time. American punk rock bands like Black Flag, Metz says, created a DIY (do-it-yourself) culture in the mid-1980. They encouraged people to start bands and to rebel.

In appearance and demeanor, Metz himself seems like anything but a rebel. But he looks at his own 2006 YELP restaurant reviews as an act of rebellion because they challenged the authority of Zagat.

Metz’s book is full of insights into the world of social media. At Diesel, he also offered some encouragement and advice to aspiring authors.

“Writing a book is a lot easier than it looks.”

He wrote his first 90-page e-book in 60 days and says all you really need is 6 months if you work an hour a day.
Metz certainly makes it sound – and look – easy.

For Today’s Customer and Donor, a Social Approach

I just finished The Social Customer by Adam Metz about how brands can use social customer relationship management (CRM) to acquire, monetize, and retain fans, friends and followers.

Social media has transformed the way people interact with each other. Metz encourages business owners to respond appropriately and to consider their brand as a “social object.” Metz describes how some of the most successful businesses today have recognized and embraced the power of the Web-based “social customer.” Almost 75 percent of customers are social customers, Metz says. (The figure goes up to 90-95 percent for customers under age 25).

Metz outlines two types of social customer management strategies: structural strategy, which is goal-oriented, and tactical strategy which develops a humans-and-technology infrastructure that supports the structural strategy.

Using examples of businesses such as Comcast, AT&T, Tropicana, and Apple, Metz outlines different models and approaches to customer engagement.

Metz recognizes that making your brand a social object is a decision, and he talks readers through this decision early on:  Does the company want to be able to talk to its customers immediately without a third-party intermediary? Does the company want to be able to engage with customers daily? Does the company want the responsibility of living up to its “personality” everyday?  Does the company have the human resources to engage with the social customer? (Metz suggests that basic social media programs require 5,000 to 30,000 worker-hours each year.)


For a company to become a successful social object, Metz says they must accept the six foundational premises of Social CRM as established by Paul Greenberg in CRM at the Speed of Light:

• If customers like you, they will stay with you.
• If customers don’t like you, they will leave you.
• People want to control their lives.
• People are looking to fulfill an agenda.
• If you help people control their lives and fulfill their agendas (and you’re unobtrusive and provide memorable experiences), they will like you.
• If you don’t help people, they won’t like you.

The rules for social fundraising and social media in the non-profit world certainly don’t fit many of Metz’s models and approaches. For millions of thriving non-profits out there, the core foundational premise is not that people want to help themselves but that they want to help other people.

Nonetheless, like the successful business that must recognize and embrace the social customer, the successful non-profit must recognize and embrace the social supporter, the social donor and the social advocate.
Fundly has made it easy for organizations to do just that. Our social fundraising platform makes it easy for non-profits to engage with supporters and for supporters to make donations.  We think Metz would approve.

To learn more about the social customer, you can meet Adam Metz at Diesel Books in Oakland on Thursday, October 20 at 7 p.m.