BUSINESS MARKETING

Maersk Line: B2B Social Media Case study

Submitted to: Submitted by: GROUP-A8

Rishitha -18022
Dr. R Sugant
Vikas J -18026
Sudarshan -18063
Anshuman -18094
Sai Srinivas Nunna -18161
Thripthi -18187
Q1. Why do you think Maersk line was so successful in social media? what do you think
are Maersk line’s key drivers for success?

 Maersk line saw social media as strategy to assist marketing efforts for the company
 They moved away from traditional conservative view of that industry and tapped the
social media platform
 First mover advantage - Their social media approach was unique; Maersk line was
the first shipping company to move into social media with a presence on all types of
platforms
 They tapped all the major social media platforms that people engaged on a daily basis
 Engagement- Engaging in different platforms with tailored content and approach the
right target audience in each of its platform. Such engagement with customers also
humanised the brand
 They maintained Continuous interaction with people and potential customers
 They avoided outsourcing this activity like other companies and this helped them get
better hold on their social media approach and benefit of being flexible
 Sharing photos and rich history made a huge impact on their social media presence and
in-turn improved its brand image/awareness.
 Their Facebook page had huge followers with their employees engaging in it too
 Social media was used smartly to tell followers the positive as well as negative stories
unlike any other company, it also had interactive Q and A section which increased the
engagement on the page
 One of the success factors include saving of company money in terms of customer
service as the social media fans would answer issues to the customers
 On the whole, Maersk has completely transformed the way they interact with
customers, vendors, partners, and employees.
The key drivers for success include-
 Visual engagement through pictures
 Crisis management by quick response on rumours and negative aspects of the company
 Consistent presence online
 Segmenting different social media platforms for different types of audience
 Maintaining a low cost

Q2. It clearly identifies the different platform that it wants to utilize & the purpose,
audience and focus for each platform
Ranking social media from list to most corporate
Segment -4 target audiences
 Fans
 Customers
 Experts
 Employees
4 key area of focus
 Communication
 Internal usage
 Customer service
 Sales
Channel & reach 1.1 million likes 116000 followers 1225 followers
Target Audience Fans including NGO, Fans, employees, Employees
potential employee, experts, trade press,
supplier, regulatory shipping
bodies professionals
Purpose Create engagement Share news with the Sharing stories,
through stories & industry, humanize opportunity for
visuals in a the brand employees to blog
conversation way
success Platform suitable for Platform suitable for It is an easy to use
general audience & quick resharing. blog site with
raising brand extensive social
capabilities.

Q3. How do you think Jonathan Wichmann calculated the 1500 percent ROI on
Facebook? Do you agree with his calculation? Why or why not?
No, there are 600000 FB fans and average value of Facebook like for B2B was @ $3.6 per year
based on various studies. They spent $1,00,000 US as per Exhibit 6 per year.
So, ROI = [(600000 fans* $3.6)-100000]$ / 100000 $ *100
= 2060% on Facebook

Q4. How do you think Maersk Line’s competitors will react to the company’s success in
social media?
Ans: when compared to its competitors, Maersk Line has around 400 thousand FB likes and
around 81 thousand twitter followers, which is much higher than its competitors.
There are different ways in which the competitors can react:
 They may continue to believe that the traditional and low-profile container line industry
does not fit social media programmes
 Industry marketing managers know the importance of social media, but the metrics to
measure the effectiveness of the same is seen to be difficult
 Competitors will learn from Maersk Line’s success and implement the same.
Digital and social media is becoming very vital in the B2B sphere, and hence the competitors
will react as per mentioned in the third opinion.
  The competitors will have to put together a team focused on social media strategy
 They need to establish main objective
 Counterattack – i.e. concentrate on target market differently, as per it works out
 Share relevant industry and company news for lead generations
 Portray the core competencies of their company
 Measuring the impact of the campaigns

Q5. What are the challenges facing Maersk Line in social media going forward?
 Redefining real-time marketing - Organizations rely on the correct time to approach
the right consumers and not immediately. Here, Maersk must share quality content on
the appropriate channels with the right audience
 Greater information density - It will be a challenge for companies to reduce
background noise to catch scarce customer attention. Maersk will have to get a
consistent and coherent picture of the product for better impression
 Content marketing will continue to grow - Engagement and metrics for social media
performance will continue to be prioritized by businesses and metrics for social media
success. Maersk must incorporate social media marketing with strategic marketing
activities and adjusts the organizational structure to support improvements in marketing
 Visual web – Visual platforms such as Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr will become
more common as channels for customer engagement. Maersk should keep up to date
with changes in social media and implementing technologies that involve consumers,
for example. CRM and tools for digital marketing.

Q6. What should Maersk Line do next? What areas should the company focus on and
why?
Ans: Maersk Line should focus on augmented social media marketing in the overall business.
Internally focus on Employee usage by building the employee engagement.
Externally by focusing on communication by develop the brand awareness, Sales by generating
leads through expertise and mainly on customer service by encouraging customers through
good conversation.

 Wichmann was of the view that handling social media should be a personal task from
within the company and should not be outsourced to any agencies. This is highly crucial
for it to be authentic and connecting to people.
 Keep a watch on people who visit the social media. People’s behaviour on social media
is an unstructured data that can be useful for Analytics. For e.g., Bread Crum navigation
is a tool that helps in Diagnostic analysis. This will also help in finding out which
platform is preferred by what kind of consumers.
 Wichmann created 4 areas of emphasis while starting the social media journey –
communications, customer service, sales and internal usage. The most impactful of
these would be communication, customer service and internal usage. The company
should assign appropriate platform to focus on each emphasis. For selling, social media
is of relatively lesser importance and can be used more for creating awareness and
engaging customers.
 Maersk uses YouTube and Vimeo for uploading videos. Similarly, Maersk Line Social
would also contain the same videos. It should gradually start making its own hub
stronger and share links to other platforms rather than sharing same content multiple
times.
 The most corporate platforms (LinkedIn and Twitter) must be given highest priority for
generating revenues, hearing complaints and recruiting employees. The other platforms
such as Facebook must be used for communication and analytics of customer’s
behaviour. Accordingly, content should be created to cater to these audiences.
 Forrester’s research says that 56% of B2B social media users are creators, i.e., they
publish posts and upload media. These people are the ones who carry the brand image
forward and can be the best advertisers for the company. Maersk should appreciate their
efforts publicly.