The Business Case(-Mate) for Social Media

Andrew Knight, Director of e-Commerce for Case-Mate, does much more than write the Case-Mate blog. Case-Mate, which is a leading manufacturer of cases, holsters, skins, covers and accessories for Apple iPhone, BlackBerry, iPod, MacBook, cares about its customers and is navigating the social Web to let them know. In step with the Apple branding initiatives, every release of a new Apple iphone or application generates buzz and traffic to the Case-Mate blog. Case-Mate not only highlights customers through the blog but also leverages online surveys, e-mail, blogs, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to create a distinct brand online. All of these social media tools represent new ways for customers to express what they think and how they feel about your brand. In this increasingly digital age, new media is becoming mainstream, creating new challenges and opportunities for brands to communicate with their customers.

We have to accept that word of mouth marketing is incredibly effective and traditional marketing is no longer the status quo. Are your customers recommending your products to their friends? Customers are going to talk about your brand whether you like it or not. Why not create a forum for your customers to do this? The effort invested in social media is for the long term.

In this podcast Knight offers practical and tactical measures you can take to get started online and learn how use social media including Twitter and blogging to engage your customers and solve their customer service issues. Knight talks about his panel on social media at the Customer Feedback Week conference (along with co-panelist Southwest Airlines) and takes us through some examples of how he and Case-Mate have seen success. Knight also discusses how he is leveraging new media to listen and interact with customers and how he considers the customer experience a competitive advantage on the same level as the Case-Mate products.