Buzzin' with Sam Adams Brewery

Have you experienced the buzz with Sam Adams beer? No, not that buzz... the groundswell buzz (okay, maybe the other kind of buzz, too)!  

If you haven't already been, I highly recommend taking a trip into Boston to visit the Samuel Adams Brewery and take a FREE (...which really means a suggested donation of $2...) brewery tour! Free beer, a free tasting glass, and a forced exit through the gift shop: trust me, it's well worth the trip. But perhaps you don't like beer or don't drink beer, aren't old enough to drink, or have no way of getting to Boston.  If so, fear not: the Samuel Adams Brewery has done an exceptional job transforming themselves into an organization that engages, energizes, and taps into the groundswell. 

It's hard to know for certain because I don't actually work at the Sam Adams Brewery (though I'd like to ever since one of the tour guides told our tour group that employees get to drink free beer all day), but I think it's a safe bet that the decision-makers utilized tips and tricks from Li & Bernoff, whether they knew it or not. 

The Groundswell Transforms! 
Part Three of Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies by Charlene Li & Josh Bernoff focuses on how the groundswell can transform companies.  Just as social media cannot be defined by the technologies of the moment as they are ever-changing, neither can the groundswell.  For companies, embracing the groundswell is so much more than adopting the necessary technologies and practices; rather, it is a total mental and cultural shift.  According to Li & Bernoff, 

"...one of the benefits [we've seen] of engaging with the groundswell is that your organization goes through a mental shift: you become so engaged with your customers that you walk in step with their needs and wants. The key to transformation is taking an idea that typically starts with a few employees who understand the groundswell and making it an organization-wide movement.  In essence, you want to create your own mini-groundswell within the company to embrace the groundswell of customers outside it."

 Li & Bernoff  flesh out what they consider to be the three elements of  transformation:

1. Take it step by step... you have to walk before you run. A mental shift takes time and practice.
2. Remember that each step builds on the next, so make sure to build a strong foundation (i.e. a plan and vision).
3. Executive support is a must or the transformation just simply will not work. 

Also, companies should consider the following two points: 

• You can't force people to do it! Instead, companies must work with what they've got and build strategy with people who are eager and enthusiastic about it. 
• As I mentioned in a previous post, having a strong relationship with the groundswell helps companies innovate faster. Remember, customers don't take long to tell you what they want and a company can iterate and make continuous improvements with customer support.

Sam Adams does Facebook 

The Samuel Adams Facebook page serves up a one sentence mission statement that is pretty spot on: the culture at Samuel Adams is centered around a love of the beer and a wondrous curiosity for all things beer.  Amen.  

While investigating the Facebook page, it was highly evident that they have a far reach on the beer-loving community: the page has over a million followers and nearly 50,000 reviews have been submitted, giving Sam Adams an overall average rating of 4.5 stars.

And, there was of course the collection of links to their Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.   

Someone at Sam Adam's must constantly be on Facebook, because pretty much every single thing that people post to the page gets a response (and super promptly, might I add).  For the most part the posts are positive or pictures of people with their favorite Sam Adam's beer.  

Thus, I took it upon myself to try and find a negative post to see if Sam Adam's would still respond.  I scrolled through the posts for about 10 minutes and got thirsty for a beer in the process, so I decided 10 minutes was good enough for my small, self-imposed research project. The two most "negative" posts I could find weren't even that harsh and yes, they still got a response.

One poster was having trouble finding a certain type of beer in Texas.  The Samuel Adams account recommended their Find a Sam page, to which the poster responded that they had tried using it but had no luck, but that it was okay because they know there are other great Sam products out there.  No angry customer here, just a Sam fan trying to find their favorite brew. 

The other "negative" post was in regards to, once again, the absence of the poster's favorite brew.  Even though this was just a complaining post, the Samuel Adams account still responded and suggested two of their new seasonal brews.  

Longshot and the Groundswell

Low and behold, Sam Adams (which is a brand under the Boston Beer Company), has an active philanthropic and community oriented arm.  Most relevant to this discussion is their annual Longshot American Homebrew Contest.

As the story goes, Jim Koch, founder of Samuel Adams, brewed his first batch of what is now known as Sam Adam's Boston Lager in his kitchen back in the 1980's.  When the business really began to grow, Koch started a company-wide home brew contest.  In 2006, they opened it up to the public.  Each year, there are three winners (one employee and two home brewers) who win the ultimate prize: their very own brew recipe mass produced and sold nationally in a "Longshot Mix 6 pack."

For Sam Adams, it's really quite simple: they let their fans and followers come up with neat flavor combinations and have the public vote on their favorites.  Then, once the three winners are chosen, they make a ton of money off the brews that the groundswell came up with (and supported enough to vote for). And to that, I say, well done, Samuel Adams Brewery.