Bringing “Social” Into Sales: The Impact of Salespeople’S Social Media Use on Service Behaviors and Value Creation

TLDR

The rapid expansion of social media has prompted a “gold rush” response from organizations, yet firms and salespeople remain uncertain about how these tools fit into their sales strategy. This study develops a theoretical framework that explains how salespeople’s use of social media creates value and proposes a strategic approach to achieve competitive goals. Drawing on relationship marketing, task–technology fit theory, and sales service behavior literature, the framework outlines how social media tools enable salespeople to perform service behaviors that generate value in B2B relational selling contexts.

Abstract

The explosive growth in the use of social media has evoked a "gold rush"–like response from organizations. However, firms in general, and salespeople in particular, are uncertain about the fit between social media tools and their overall sales strategy. To address this issue, we advance a theoretical framework to explain the mechanisms through which salespeople's use of social media operates to create value, and propose a strategic approach to social media use to achieve competitive goals. We draw on the existing literature on relationship marketing, task–technology fit theory, and sales service behavior to sketch a social media strategy for business-to-business sales organizations with relational selling objectives. The proposed framework describes how social media tools can help salespeople perform service behaviors leading to value creation.