Maersk Line Case Study

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Overall, the incredible 1500 percent rate of return Wichmann got is acceptable based on the intangible benefits that Maersk Line received from Facebook. However, the calculation and the statistic itself are not quite accurate and reliable.

Challenges Facing Maersk Line in Social Media

Even though diversifying the company’s social media strategy has proven a successful approach, such a process naturally comes with challenges. Managing diverse social media platforms requires addressing issues of social media integration, budget and management approval, and competition and imitation.

Maersk Line’s social media strategy consists of ten social media networks and platforms, where the company is trying to generate as much engagement as possible. However, each of those platforms has been designed to serve a different purpose. For example, Facebook has been used to engage with enthusiastic fans, Twitter was for news and social commentary, and LinkedIn was for reaching communities of professionals, customers and employees. This diversity in functions introduced complications for social media integration. With a small team managing various platforms with different purposes and usability, it might be difficult to integrate the efforts to serve the overall mission of Maersk Line. Also, with a broad target audience of customers, fans, potential employees, competitors, suppliers, shipping professionals and experts, communicating the overall mission of Maersk Line and avoiding its drift could be challenging to the growth of Maersk Line’s social media strategy.

Equally, proving the feasibility of the use of social media in Maersk Line and justifying the budget and staffing request is a challenge that cannot be overlooked. If Skyum-Nielson were to support the proposed plan of expanding the use of social media, she must be able to prove to the management that investing in social media is beneficial for the future of Maersk Line. Otherwise, the current situation of her department might still meet the same level of accomplishment, but it will not grow to its full potential. Selling the communications department’s value to the management usually requires a process of measuring and presenting the positive past contribution of the department, forecasting how social media spending can influence the company’s future, and, finally, giving a good reason to have faith in her and her department’s effort.

Another challenge to address is the risk of competitors attempting to imitate the social media strategy of Maersk Line. One of the key drivers of Maersk Line’s success was the originality of its social media strategy, where the diversity of social media platforms has been embraced in the B2B industry. If competitors of shipping companies started to expand their social media presence and humanize their brand by posting photos and stories of their ships and containers on Facebook, for example, or by sharing news with their stakeholders on Twitter, then Maersk Line might face the likelihood of losing customers, professionals, and fans to competitors. Maersk Line’s campaign on social media has been and still is communicating core values such as authenticity and transparency. Competitors attempting to communicate similar values could threaten the positioning of Maersk Line’s vision and brand values, and, thus, hinder the growth of social media.

Maersk Line’s Competitors and their Social Media Presence

In the B2B industry, establishing a presence on social media has been considered a choice rather than a necessity that each company gets to make based on its own vision, objectives and resources. The value of using social media is undeniable. Any savvy marketer can recognize that social media can be beneficial for businesses in any industry with engaging content. For the shipping industry, which some may view as boring and irrelevant to people’s everyday lives, opportunities to thrive through social media exist in many forms and for many reasons. The industry, in general, has not widely embraced the practice of sharing online content such as articles, photos, and videos. This alone means that there is much room to differentiate and dominate in social media space.

Realizing that, shipping and logistics companies have started to invest in social media marketing. And while Maersk Line has been the first social media mover, its competitors have now started to follow. Companies such as Mediterranean Shipping Company, CMA CGM Group, and Hijin Shipping have maintained a modest approach to communications, yet are attempting to make a serious effort to develop their own social networks. For example, MSC has recently decided to partner with Orca Social, a B2B social media consultancy, to help establish a social media strategy.

Maersk Line’s Current Social Media Performance

According to April 2016 results from Statista, the top 10 worldwide popular social media platforms, ranked by the number of active users were: Facebook, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, QQ, Wechat, Qzone, Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter and Baidu Tieba. Apart from QQ, Wechat, Qzone and Baidu Tieba, which are the Chinese social networks mostly used by Chinese people, Maersk Line established its presence on almost every mainstream platform using differentiated approach to gain social awareness and attract more potential customers.

Comparing the performance of Maersk Line using platforms of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to their three major competitors (Mediterranean Shipping Company, CMA CGM Group and Evergreen Line) , we can see the difference shown in the table (Exhibit 1).Among these top four shipping companies, only Maersk Line and CMA CGM Group launched on all three platforms, Mediterranean Shipping Company and Evergreen Line have not touched channels of Instagram and Twitter. The data also indicates that Maersk Line has the highest number of their fans or followers, putting Maersk Line a step ahead of its competitors.

Maersk Line’s Future Plan

The internal and external conditions are always changing. To maintain its advantage in the shipping field, it would be wise for Maersk Line to think of some future actions it can take.

Internally, Maersk Line should hire more talent and train these specialized employees for each social media platform. The whole SM team can set up a common goal and divide the work based on the functions of each channel. On one hand, each social media platform should have its specialty. On the other hand, Nina, the new head of the department, should oversee all the platforms to avoid redundancy.

Externally, Maersk Line should pay