An open letter to the shipping industry: Don’t underestimate the power of social and sharing

On 30 September 2013, I left Maersk Line after exactly two years at the Headquarters in Copenhagen. In 2011, I was brought in from the agency side with the primary aim to get Maersk Line started on social media. The project appealed to me right from the beginning. Not only is Maersk by far the …

How to generate leads in B2B social media? Or: The story of @MaerskLine’s #wintermaersk campaign

This is likely to be my last post about Maersk Line and social media. Last week I started in my new role as social media strategist and consultant at Wibroe, Duckert & Partners, so focus will probably shift now that the shipping game is over. So to speak. The question I will try to answer …

How to use social media for B2B marketing campaigns? Stop being creative. And forget that you’re trying to sell.

Now that I’m on the verge of leaving Maersk Line to join Wibroe, Duckert and Partners (and while I’m still on paternity leave) I think it’s time to highlight a valuable lesson from my past two years in this great company. Unfortunately, it’s something I find I need to repeat again and again. Here it …

Marketing, journalism or just being there? The story of four Maersk Line timelapses

Following my last post which touched on corporate media and the journalism vs marketing discussion, I think there’s something to gain from looking at the recent production of four Maersk Line timelapse videos. The point in my previous post (many others have said the same, most notably Tom Foremski) was that in the age of …

Hire a journalist, not a marketer: A view on how corporates should do social media

A few months ago I learned that the Maersk Line approach to social media is “radical”. I don’t see it that way. But I understand where it’s coming from: Our Social Media Team is rooted in Communication, not Marketing, and we therefore have a different approach to things. We’re not trying to manufacture anything. Rather, …

Social collaboration and why a cultural journey is necessary: Maersk Line’s social media study (part 6)

We’re talking 20-25%. That’s the raise in knowledge worker’s productivity that McKinsey estimates can be obtained through internal usage of social collaboration tools. That number came out last summer through their social media report entitled The Social Economy, and the lead from the project, Michael Chui, was kind enough to join us in a Hangout …

Social selling and teaching where our customers learn: Maersk Line’s social media study (part 5)

Moving on from our findings regarding Social Customer Service, it’s now time to look at what we learned in Maersk Line’s social media study regarding Sales and not least the concept of social selling. What is social selling? Briefly put, social selling is about leveraging sales reps’ use of social media to perform better by getting …

Social customer service and the Man in the Machine: Maersk Line’s social media study (part 4)

Moving on from my previous post about the value of social media and future directions for Maersk Line, it’s now time to zoom in on one of the new areas: Social Customer Service. There are many good reasons why we in Maersk Line (and other companies for that matter) should care about social customer service, …

What is the value of social media? Maersk Line’s social media study (part 3)

In my previous posts about Maersk Line’s social media study I wrote about first that social media has to somehow add value to the bottom line, secondly I summarized what we’ve done in the first year and a bit. Now, it’s time (finally) to look at the actual study. In light of our current (and …

Getting started with social media: Maersk Line’s social media study (part 2)

So, moving on from my previous post, let’s have a look at how we got started and what we’ve done to date in Maersk Line with regards to social media. First of all, our approach has been one of insourcing. I was basically recruited to do the job, starting 1 October 2011,  and I have …