Innovation-related benefits of social media in Business-to-Business customer relationships

Author(s):  
Jari J. Jussila ◽  
Hannu Kärkkäinen ◽  
Maija Leino
2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (8) ◽  
pp. 1098-1108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Svante Andersson ◽  
Niclas Wikström

Purpose This study aims to explore why and how business-to-business (B2B) companies use social media and which users and stakeholders they communicate with. Design/methodology/approach The study employs a case study approach because of its exploratory nature. Data from three companies consisted of interviews and observation of websites. The analysis includes within-case and cross-case displays to find patterns and themes in the data. Findings The study shows that companies in a B2B contexts use social media as communication to enhance customer relationships, support sales and build their brands, in line with prior research. However, they also use social media as a recruiting tool, a seeking tool and a product information and service tool. Research limitations/implications The findings confirm extant literature showing that B2B companies can directly influence content through corporate user accounts. Furthermore, firms in early stages of social media do not target any special stakeholders with broader messages, while more experienced social media users develop special messages for different stakeholders. Practical implications This study contributes by shedding light on how B2B companies use social media. It also shows how different channels are effective with different stakeholders. Originality/value Few studies have investigated the use of social media in a B2B context. This study goes beyond prior work by detailing how different social media tools are used, identifying different users and stakeholders, and explaining why different tools are used for different purposes targeted towards different stakeholders. New applications of the use of social media are also identified.


2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-82
Author(s):  
Soumi Paul ◽  
Paola Peretti ◽  
Saroj Kumar Datta

Building customer relationships and customer equity is the prime concern in today’s business decisions. The emergence of internet, especially social media like Facebook and Twitter, changed traditional marketing thought to a great extent. The importance of customer orientation is reflected in the axiom, “The customer is the king”. A good number of organizations are engaging customers in their new product development activities via social media platforms. Co-creation, a new perspective in which customers are active co-creators of the products they buy and use, is currently challenging the traditional paradigm. The concept of co-creation involving the customer’s knowledge, creativity and judgment to generate value is considered not only an upcoming trend that introduces new products or services but also fitting their need and increasing value for money. Knowledge and innovation are inseparable. Knowledge management competencies and capacities are essential to any organization that aspires to be distinguished and innovative. The present work is an attempt to identify the change in value creation procedure along with one area of business, where co-creation can return significant dividends. It is on extending the brand or brand category through brand extension or line extension. This article, through an in depth literature review analysis, identifies the changes in every perspective of this paradigm shift and it presents a conceptual model of company-customer-brand-based co-creation activity via social media. The main objective is offering an agenda for future research of this emerging trend and ensuring the way to move from theory to practice. The paper acts as a proposal; it allows the organization to go for this change in a large scale and obtain early feedback on the idea presented. 


2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (7) ◽  
pp. 1459-1467 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sherese Y. Duncan ◽  
Raeesah Chohan ◽  
João José Ferreira

Purpose This paper aims to explore, using the employee lens of business-to-business firms, word use through brand engagement and social media interaction to understand the difference between employees who rate their employer brands highly on social media and those who don't. Design/methodology/approach We conducted a textual content analysis of posts published on the social media job evaluation site glassdoor.com. LIWC software package was used to analyze 30 of the top 200 business-to-business brands listed on Brandwatch using four variables, namely, analytical thinking, clout, authenticity and emotional tone. Findings The results show that employees who rate their employer’s brand low use significantly more words, are significantly less analytic and write with significantly more clout because they focus more on others than themselves. Employees who rate their employer’s brand highly, write with significantly more authenticity, exhibit a significantly higher tone and display far more positive emotions in their reviews. Practical implications Brand managers should treat social media data disseminated by individual stakeholders, like the variables used in this study (tone, word count, frequency), as a valuable tool for brand insight on their industry, competition and their own brand equity, now and especially over time. Originality/value This study provides acknowledgement that social media is a significant source of marketing intelligence that may improve brand equity by better understanding and managing brand engagement.


Author(s):  
Yogesh K. Dwivedi ◽  
Elvira Ismagilova ◽  
Nripendra P. Rana ◽  
Ramakrishnan Raman

AbstractSocial media plays an important part in the digital transformation of businesses. This research provides a comprehensive analysis of the use of social media by business-to-business (B2B) companies. The current study focuses on the number of aspects of social media such as the effect of social media, social media tools, social media use, adoption of social media use and its barriers, social media strategies, and measuring the effectiveness of use of social media. This research provides a valuable synthesis of the relevant literature on social media in B2B context by analysing, performing weight analysis and discussing the key findings from existing research on social media. The findings of this study can be used as an informative framework on social media for both, academic and practitioners.


2022 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nihayatul Maskuroh ◽  
Mochammad Fahlevi ◽  
Dasih Irma ◽  
Rita Rita ◽  
Arbi Siti Rabiah

Consumers today are individuals who fulfill life needs such as shopping using e-commerce. In its fulfillment, consumers can change in terms of purchasing decisions from one e-commerce to another e-commerce. This requires the company to always have a good strategy to compete in a healthy manner in terms of business. To learn about the importance of social media marketing activity, this study will find out how much influence the social media marketing activity received by e-commerce companies has on brand equity, customer relationships and repurchase intention. In addition, the study will learn how much influence brand equity and customer relationship have on an e-commerce company's repurchase intention. In this study, the survey is conducted by distributing questionnaires to respondents online where the research sample has several questions related to the habits and behavior of respondents. This research uses a sample of 210 people who are domiciled in Indonesia. In the research model, the study uses Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analysis and the software used for this research is IBM SPSS AMOS. The results of the influence of social media marketing activities have the largest positive influence on customer relationships, brand equity is the main and biggest factor that positively and significantly affects repurchase intention in this research model. The accumulated experience and knowledge of consumers about a brand is a factor that can influence consumers to repurchase the same brand. Brand equity not only provides immediate benefits, but also long-term benefits by retaining consumers to continue to repurchase their products. A strong brand will make consumers always remember the brand. The study explains that customer relationships do not have any significant effect on repurchase intention. The main function of customer relationships at first and now is to try to reach their consumers more broadly, especially related to purchases, but this is not proven in repurchases, especially in this study. Customer relationships in the study did not have any significant effect on repurchase intention.


2002 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 83-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neeli Bendapudi ◽  
Robert P. Leone

Customers form relationships with the employees who serve them as well as with the vendor firms these employees represent. In many cases, a customer's relationship with an employee who is closest to them, a key contact employee, may be stronger than the customer's relationship with the vendor firm. If the key contact employee is no longer available to serve that customer, the vendor firm's relationship with the customer may become vulnerable. In this article, the authors present the results of two studies that examine what business-to-business customers value in their relationships with key contact employees, what customers' concerns are when a favored key contact employee is no longer available to serve them, and what vendor firms can do to alleviate these concerns and to retain employee knowledge even if they cannot retain the employee in that position. The studies are based on a discovery-oriented approach and integrate input from business-to-business customers, key contact employees, and managers from a broad cross-section of companies to develop testable propositions. The authors discuss managerial and theoretical implications and directions for further research.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 133-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seonjeong Ally Lee ◽  
Minwoo Lee

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate different types of customer relationships on customers’ interaction with the brand, based on prior social media and relationship marketing research. Design/methodology/approach A cross-sectional, self-administered online survey was conducted to investigate the role of different types of relationships on customers’ brand-relevant responses in the context of hotel social media platforms. Findings Results identified customers’ relationships with services and brands, and how other customers influenced their parasocial interactions (PSIs). Customers’ PSIs then positively influenced their self-brand connection and their brand usage intention. Originality/value This study was the first attempt to propose a conceptual framework to explain different types of customer relationships on customers’ interactions with the brand in the context of hotel social media platforms.


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