By Priya W. - March 10th, 2015

Social media success tips from the most unlikely of B2B companies.

You’re a B2C company looking to take your social media marketing to the next level. So in the context of this ever expanding, highly competitive marketplace, what can you do to innovate and stand out in the marketplace? For one, you have to think differently. Thinking like any other B2C company will keep you within the ‘known’ realm of solutions. Not only this, but you’ll be stuck matching your competitors instead of gaining a competitive edge against them. So where can you turn to for your next strategic move? How about B2B? On that note, say hello to Maersk. As one of the largest bulk shipping companies in the world, Maersk developed a highly creative, well-thought out strategy to effectively leverage social media to engage with customers, employees and create fans by taking advantage of the power of a human voice, great storytelling and understanding the importance of different audiences on different platforms. The key drivers to the success of their strategy included:

  • Studying past examples of successful B2B companies who used social media as a part of their strategy. In specific, Maersk looked at Dell (great for insight into improving customer service) and General Electric (great for insight into developing powerful stories about everyday products)
  • Telling relevant, authentic and timely stories. Maersk set an objective of increasing engagement with their audience instead of pushing product. This allowed them to excel in generating consumer and employee interest through posting unique, interesting photos and engaging stories.

Maersk image 1

  • Example: Maersk tweet to generate employee engagement in asking them to share stories on their experience in open waters
  • Adopting a human voice that was approachable, relatable and humorous by treated their B2B customers like B2C customers (talked to them as real people!) Maersk image 2
  • Being open and honest by sharing positive and negative news stories. This allowed them to report on the story first and have control over the story’s messaging. It also provided them with more authenticity and support from consumer groups who wanted to follow up on the story.

Example: Maersk struck a whale and were the first to report and share news on the story. Surprisingly, the post had a like-to-share ratio of almost 1 to 1! For more on building your brand with social media, here! For the last and likely most important tip on how Maersk achieved its success based on a clear, unique social media strategy, check out part two of “Inside Maersk!” (For more insight on better projecting your brand across social, check out the upcoming Incite Summit: West, May 18th and 19th in downtown San Francisco.) Picture source: http://jonathanwichmann.com/2012/12/30/maersk-media-miracle/

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