Maersk Line Case Study

Maersk Line Case Study

Manchen Zhang(Kara)

Wenqing Wang(Lily)

Lubna Al Mubaireek

Feng Tian (Jennifer)

Liming He(Olivia)

Introduction    

     As the world’s largest container shipping company, Maersk Line made tremendous success in social media, attracting as many as one million followers on Facebook and on other social media platforms. Its success triggers many questions and could be one excellent case for many corporations as they pursue the great promise of social media marketing.

Maersk Line’s Key Drivers of Success and Execution Evaluation

     Maersk Line’s success has depended on several drivers. The first-mover advantage, management level support and legal flexibility, differentiation strategy for each social media platform, the authenticity of storytelling manner, and good customer service and frequent interaction make Maersk Line a top winner in social media platforms. We consider Maersk Line’s execution of its social media plan and platform to be extremely successful, given its limited budget of $100,000 and few employees, their operation in social media platform is original, innovative, authentic, and customer focused.

     Maersk Line’s entry into social media is the one and only in the entire container shipping industry. The originality of social mediain both B2B marketing and the industry has made Maersk Line a pioneer company. What’s more, social media usage in the U.S. went through a rapid growth from 2011 to 2012, and made a perfect external environment for Maersk Line to operate it social media platforms.

      The Head of Social Media, Jonathan Wichmann, was able to grasp the opportunity and challenged the traditional thinking of “social media is primarily for B2C companies versus B2B companies”. He played the leading role in Maersk Line’s social media promotion, giving Maersk Line the first-mover advantage. He studied Dell and General Electric’s approach to accommodate Maersk Line’s specific needs and he developed the right social media strategy for Maersk Line in communications, customer service, sales, and internal usage. Despite the skepticism from internal and external personnel, Wichmann got the support from the management team, which enabled him to carry out the plan within one week.

      As many other B2C companies did, Maersk Line set its first step on Facebook and then expanded to other social media platforms. Strategies were tailored specifically for each different platform as they function differently and have their own usage and segmentations of audiences.

Maersk Line executed its social media plan and platforms in a very well managed way. It was creative and innovative, using a storytelling way to engage authentically with its audiences. Maersk has a unique history, and Wichmann was able to exploit this great advantage. He chose the most spontaneous and flexible approach, posting different categories of photos on Facebook and spreading out Maersk’s culture to trigger audience's’ interest. Facebook was the right and first choice. People got to know Maersk in a very natural and gradual way. Wichmann knew how to attract audience, and he executed well, too. The posts Maersk Line wrote were professional but had a whimsical touch that intrigued people to read more. Wichmann managed to gain influence by telling all stories, valuing authenticity, and treating positive and negative stories equally. It was crucial to getting the audience to see the truth, believe in Maersk Line, and form emotional attachment to this corporation.

      The interaction with audience was another driver to Maersk Line’s success. Wichmann encouraged shipping enthusiasts to post photos and comment on them. Understanding Facebook’s casual and family atmosphere, Wichmann’s strategy helped him made Facebook’s audience the capstone for his future reach. The interaction also included customer service in where, audience members posted questions on the social media platforms and both Maersk Line’s staff and other audience members were answering these questions. The frequent interaction and its ability to solve problems on time has greatly contribute to Maersk Line’s customer service reputation.

      One of the most notable achievements management Wichmann implemented in using social media platform was to serve a multiple purposes. Facebook is best for promoting Maersk Line’s brand awareness, so he communicated with audience in a visual and conversational way. Twitter is best for news sharing, so Maersk Line’s Twitter presence main purpose was to share and influence, and Wichmann managed Maersk Line Twitter account by posting a mix of more serious news. LinkedIn is a platform to reach its customers, so he used it to share business-related news and to interact with customers in its group or forums. Although LinkedIn is more corporate, Wichmann still managed to design the web page in a more accessible format, serving the main purpose of “tying our customers closer to us”. Maersk Line’s Instagram and Flickr were used for inspiring people and building brand recognition and engagement; they would affect Maersk Line’s long term beneficially. Wichmann planned differently for Google+, Vimeo and YouTube, Pinterest, and Tumblr, which drove Maersk Line’s social image success in different ways. Thus, we consider Wichmann’s execution of his social media plan and platform to have been well managed, and Maersk Line’s social presence-successful.

The Facebook Metric Calculation

    Although the awareness of Social Media impact for a brand or company has increased around the world, it is still hard to calculate the ROI that online platform can bring to us. The calculation that Wichmann used to estimate the level of Maersk Line’s Facebook success cannot fully reflect the true value of its outstanding outcomes.

   On the one hand, it underestimates the intangible value and unpredictable future profit that its activities on Facebook can bring to the company. Just as Wichmann mentioned, employee engagement, customer insights, and innovation are the intangible values that Maersk can earn from Facebook. For example, the social influence and reputation that Maersk earns from its sustainability actions and the “just be who we are” attitude can draw many potential customers’ attention, which could bring more profit in the future but is unpredictable right now.

     On the other hand, the calculation also overestimates the dollar value of the number of “likes” for Maersk Line’s posts. It is true that the engagement of Maersk Facebook page was four times higher than the average B2B brand, but only 22 percent of its fans were actual customer. Considering the real proportion of  customers who will “like” Maersk’s posts, the percentage may be even lower. From this perspective, the 1500 percent rate of return has the possibility to be an unduly optimistic estimation of the real dollar profit from Facebook.