Maersk

Why the Maersk Social Business Case Study is so Interesting

I know Maersk, shipped many a textile fiber or chemical intermediate on them while I was with DuPont. This to me, is in part why they make such an interesting social business case study. They are a shipping line! Can you think of a more hardcore B2B? Can you think of one that might be less interesting on social? Maersk set the bar high with their social media campaign, but, they also started transforming themselves into a social business.

“Social media is about communication, not marketing. It’s about engaging, not pushing. And social media is definitely not just about the media side. For a company like ours, social media creates more value when it challenges the way we think and interact. In fact, social media is a mindset, a way of thinking and working together. It’s based on the fact that we are social animals, and that means we can only benefit from sharing our thoughts and ideas with each other.”

Maersk uses Social Media Platforms as they are intended

It took Maersk a little bit of learning, but, they did learn to craft their message by platform. Maersk has an impressive line-up including Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, YouTube, Flickr, Tumblr, and Sina Weibo. Maersk uses Twitter for fun, posting photos of seals hanging out on the prow of their ships and LinkedIn for more serious Corporate Communications. Maersk is photos heavy which helps to drive sharing and engagement.

Maersk harnesses the power of their employees to blog and create content. They also support user generated content, yes, a shipping line has user generated content. There are people who actually like to “spot” container ships and take photos. This all before the Captain Phillips movie about the 2009 hijacking by Somali pirates of the US-flagged MV Maersk Alabama. Today Maersk solicits and supports such content across their platforms. In fact, Maersk has socially generated product ideas worth billions of dollars from their social forums such as a container that can fold up when not in use saving 90% on space.

Maersk has also broadened their presence by geography and language. The local accounts do not repost corporate communications. Instead they add value to their local communities and create richer customer service experiences and the opportunity to listen to the voice of the customer for yet more million and billion dollar ideas on how to improve their business. Want to improve your bottom-line through social business? Call me.

Maersk Line in Social Media

Video Case Study of Maersk’s Social Media produced internally describing how they created a milestone in the B2B space. The video documents some of their growth on Facebook, how they earned over a million dollars off of a Twitter campaign #WinterMaersk, and the goals of their campaign. The main goal was simply to get closer to their customers, and they succeeded!

Interview with Jonathan Wichmann, former Head of Social Media at Maersk

Jonathan Wichmann breaks down the approaches that Maersk used to get their social business initiative off of the ground.

https://vimeo.com/68531923