Supported by the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR) 17539924
Abstract
Propelled by the Covid-19 pandemic limiting Business-to-Business (B2B) salespeople’s opportunities for personal visits of their customers, social selling is gaining momentum among B2B companies. In short, social selling refers to the systematic and regular social media usage by salespeople in B2B companies. In doing so, salespeople act as micro-influencers to foster professional interactions on, for example, LinkedIn with their customers and business partners. Using a mixed-method approach combining 45 interviews with salespeople, social media managers, and C-level managers of B2B firms with a unique dataset covering the social selling posts of five cooperating firms across a time period of one year, the current study provides first insights into
- how to institutionalise social selling in the B2B salesforce,
- the extent to which social selling efforts by salespeople effectively complement social media marketing activities by B2B firms, and
- which linguistic features of social selling posts enhance social media engagement among B2B customers.
About Christina Kühnl
Register for the seminar – as of May 4, 2023