Maersk Case Study

February 17, 2016

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Subject:         Maersk Line: B2B Social Media – “It’s Communication, Not Marketing”

Reasons for Social Media Success and the key drivers for success for Maersk Line:

The three key reasons why Maersk Line succeeded in Social Media:

• Seeing social media as a strategic marketing effort in a B2B, traditionally conservative industry
• First Shipping company to move in to social media with a head-start on multiple platforms
• Authentic interaction with customers and creating sticky content with moving stories

Key drivers for success:

• Showcasing Maersk Line’s rich history of ships, seascapes and ports through photos and videos
• Empower locals to post on a single global platform; User generated content ensures they are authentic and personal
• Respond quickly to rumors or accidents via Twitter or FB, improving transparency
• Support from management on integration of social media operations in to Maersk’s corporate culture
• Sharing stories on FB, Twitter and Instagram to reach out to fans and customers, while sharing industry news and service updates through LinkedIn and Google+ for business purposes
• Low costs of social media marketing leading to higher ROIs

Evaluation of how Maersk Line executed on its social media plan and platforms:

Maersk Line clearly identified the different platforms that it wanted to utilize and the purpose, audience, and focus for each platform by ranking each one of them. It also had the segments of 4 target audiences – Fans, Customers, Experts and Employees. The rationale is to assist Maersk in setting achievable engagement goals and developing appropriate content based on four key areas of focus Communications, Internal Usage, Customer Service and Sales. Maersk used Facebook and Twitter as social engagement channels, LinkedIn and Google+ as Channels for Corporate use, Vimeo and YouTube as Channels for video sharing, Tumblr and Flickr and primary and secondary channels for visuals.

Does Maersk have 1,500 percent ROI on Facebook?

With an Investment of $100,000 on marketing through Facebook, Maersk Line had 600,000 Facebook fans. But only 22 percent of them were actual customers. Hence in effect, Maersk Line had only 132,000 actual customers through Facebook. The average value of a Facebook ‘like’ for a B2B brand was $3.60 per year in earned media and Maersk engagement was four time higher than the average B2B brand. Hence the average value of a Facebook ‘like’ for Maersk would be $14.40. With 132,000 actual customers at $14.40 each, this would be worth $1,900,800. The ROI for $100,000 investment should be 1,900 percent.