The Big List of Social Media Case Studies (only hands-on examples, across industries) -

After leaving Maersk Line to join Wibroe, Duckert & Partners, and after having met with numerous clients across industries, one question I get again and again is this:

“Maersk Line aside, can you give us some hands-on social media examples that are relevant to our company?”

Point taken. You cannot copy-paste what we did in Maersk Line, and sometimes the difference between e.g. a retailer and a shipping company is simply too big.

The difference between looking good and being good
There are of course so many social media cases out there. But I find it’s extremely difficult to judge how “best case” those cases really are. They might look very convincing from the outside, but as soon as you get behind the scenes you find that either they don’t add any true business value or that the resources spent don’t justify the outcome. Or both.

The opposite is also true sometimes: Some companies are using social technologies in quieter ways that you never hear about, even though they are in fact extremely effective, tied to the core business and really do create business impact.

The Social Pros Podcasts – insights from the social engine rooms
Thankfully, last year my good long-distance friend Jay Baer of Convince & Convert decided to launch an amazing podcast series called The Social Pros Podcast. I was lucky enough to feature in one of the first episodes, relatively few months after we got started on social media in Maersk.

The Social Pros Podcast acts as a repository of good hands-on examples of how to work with social media from within a company. Examples you can really learn from. Most of the people featured in the episodes are “real people doing real work in social media”, i.e. social media managers or community managers.

The only problem is this: Where to start and where to end. There’s so much inspiration and knowledge in that series, but the list is simply overwhelming (almost 100 episodes in 20 months).

So, based on Jay’s podcast series, I decided to do the following list of companies doing great things in social media, sorted according to industry.

The list is based on The Social Pros Podcast, but that’s just a starting point. I plan to expand the list. And I also plan to write a few sentences about each case, when I get the time.

Let me know if you can think of companies that deserve to be on the list.

Finally, I hope below is good #youtility for people other than myself. If not, please forgive me – and keep browsing.

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