Industrial Marketing Management 90 (2020) 291–299

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Industrial Marketing Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/indmarman

Social media, customer engagement, and sales organizations: A research T

agenda
Raj Agnihotri
Ivy College of Business, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011 515-294-8110, USA

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Organizations continue to make investments in social media with the hope that it will help their sales force in
Social media improving engagement with customers. The academic literature on social media use in business markets has
customer engagement supported the growth and utilization of such technology; however, much more work is needed. This article,
business markets building upon the recent scholarly advances and considering a managerial perspective, offers suggestions to
sales performance
guide future academic research examining the links between social media use and customer engagement within
AI
social media analytics
the B2B sales domain. Several research questions are presented under the four broad topics, namely utility of
social media pitfalls social media technologies, context matters, social media pitfalls, and futuristic social media applications.

1. Introduction consumer markets (Iankova, Davies, Archer-Brown, Marder, & Yau,

Social contents influence business customers buying decisions
(Ancillai, Terho, Cardinali, & Pascucci, 2019). Business customers fre-
quently use the internet as their primary source of information and are,
thus, influenced by social media content primarily in the early stages of
the purchase process (Holliman & Rowley, 2014). Executives often re-
port the dominance of lead generation goals while devising social
media marketing strategies. As business customers are content-driven
and technically savvy, they are comfortable engaging via social media
platforms. A majority of the business customers participating in an in-
dustry survey indicated that social media content had influenced their
purchasing journeys (Minsky & Quesenberry, 2016).
In response, sales organizations are increasingly investing in “cus-
tomer-oriented technologies such as social media” (Chuang, 2020, p.
202), and both salespeople and managers work towards becoming so-
cial media ready (Kovac, 2016). However, in the absence of industry
standards or benchmarks available to appraise social media integration
in business processes, it is challenging to track an organization's pro-
gress concerning social media outcomes. Overall, sales organizations
remain doubtful as to whether social media focus will be commensurate
with the desired results.
Empirical research in this area offers narrow insights into the phe-
nomenon compared to the scholarly insights generated in consumer
markets (please see Vieira, Almeida, Agnihotri, Silva, & Arunachalam,
2019 for detailed review). Social media marketing in business markets
is much more complex in its impact and scope in comparison to that in
2019). Business marketers aim at value chain intermediaries, develop
value propositions that focus on economic value, and deal with fewer
customers with large individual transactions (Lilien, 2016). A tactical
approach, in such a context, involves nurturing of leads, delivery of
content, and subscriber engagement (Järvinen & Taiminen, 2016). In
business markets, recurring revenue generation through contractual
agreements is critical (Vieira et al., 2019). Hence, enabling and sus-
taining customer engagement through social media marketing to secure
sales every week, month, quarter, and the year is relevant and vital.
Under such circumstances, it seems pragmatic for social media litera-
ture to not only focus on customer relationships but also recognizing
applications of social media technologies into organizational resources
(Wang & Kim, 2017).
Business customers’ attention towards customer-oriented tech-
nology resources and their inclination to involve social media in the
buying process has stimulated scholarly discussion on social media
marketing strategies for business markets (Chuang, 2020). Accordingly,
industrial marketing scholars have paid attention to the adoption, im-
plementation, and use of social media tools by sales and marketing
organizations. The growth in contemporary social media literature has
yielded a rich yet fragmented picture of what social media is and raised
the question of how its role should be defined1. For example, the lit-
erature fails to capture the connection between social media use and
business customer engagement even though it remains a top priority
research item in a B2C context (Vieira et al., 2019).
The contemporary research has started to align the development of

E-mail address: Raj2@iastate.edu.

1
For a detailed review of social media please refer to Salo, 2017; Ancillai, Terho, Cardinali, & Pascucci, 2019; Kumar, Sharma, Vatavwala, & Kumar, 2020.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2020.07.017
Received 12 February 2020; Received in revised form 15 July 2020; Accepted 24 July 2020
Available online 07 August 2020
0019-8501/ © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
R. Agnihotri
Fig. 1. Quasi-dichotomy of social media technologies.
Literature support: Brodie et al., 2013; Agnihotri et al., 2012; Kumar et al., 2010
social media marketing strategy with customer engagement theory (Li,
Larimo, & Leonidou, 2020). Customer engagement is referred to “the
intensity of an individual's participation and connection with the or-
ganization's offerings and activities initiated by either the customer or
the organization (Vivek, Beatty, & Morgan, 2012, p. 133). Scholars
argue that firms aiming to utilize social media strategically, “should
take deliberate initiatives to motivate and empower customers to
maximize their engagement value and yield superior marketing results”
(Li et al., 2020, p. 4). Thus, the overarching goal for scholars should be
to explore how social media can facilitate and appropriate customer
engagement in business markets. Specifically, the question is if social
media should be examined as the means of enhancing marketing cap-
abilities and securing customer engagement (Trainor, Andzulis, Rapp, &
Agnihotri, 2014). With the recent scholarly developments in the area of
customer engagement measures (Kumar & Pansari, 2016), therefore,
researchers ought to connect the two research streams.
This study, to help scholars realize the abovementioned research
goals, scans the contemporary social media literature from a managerial
perspective. A research agenda connecting the research streams of so-
cial media use in the buyer-seller context and customer engagement
perspective has been outlined. This study posits that a knowledge-based
viewpoint (KBV) is needed to integrate social media marketing into the
overall strategic framework of sales and marketing organizations op-
erating in business markets. Per KBV, information represents a critical
organizational resource, and those who effectively utilize information
or leverage knowledge assets for unique competitive positioning would
secure competitive advantage (Grant, 1996). Knowledge is often cre-
ated through interactions in social spaces within and outside the firm
(Nonaka & Toyama, 2015). Social interaction is also termed as one of
the vital process characteristics in business relationships network for-
mation (Hakansson & Snehota, 1995). Therefore, social media, as a type
of social interaction and social connectedness, can offer significant
utility to sellers in achieving customer engagement (Li et al., 2020).
Building upon the rich theoretical background, this study estab-
lishes the conceptual link between customer engagement and social
media use for sales organizations. Besides, this study categorizes the
research possibilities interlinking social media and customer engage-
ment into four categories. First, the utility of social media technologies
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Industrial Marketing Management 90 (2020) 291–299
in securing customer engagement is discussed through the need for
human touch; social media enabled customer relationship management;
and online social capital. Second, contextual contingencies such as paid
vs. earned social media and emerging vs. developed markets are pre-
sented. Third, the pitfalls of social media technologies and associated
research questions are outlined. Finally, the study discusses the futur-
istic social media applications.
2. Customer engagement value
Broadly, customer engagement is referred to as a process yielding
relational value outcome that should be assessed from both the buyer
and seller point of view (Kumar et al., 2010). Customer engagement in
the context of social media is defined “as the extent to which the or-
ganization's important customers are active in using social media tools”
(Guesalaga, 2016, p. 75). Customer engagement can be captured
through (i) customer referral value, (ii) customer social-influence value,
and (iii) customer knowledge value (Itani, El Haddad, & Kalra, 2020;
Pansari & Kumar, 2017). Customer referral value is primarily focused
on “current customers converting prospects in their social network
(both online and offline) into actual customers for which they are re-
warded” (Kumar et al., 2010, p. 300). Customer social-influence value
relates to customer-generated social media content, online ratings,
blogs, comments, reviews, etc. (Brodie, Ilic, Juric, & Hollebeek, 2013;
Pansari & Kumar, 2017). The product and service feedback, market
intelligence, and suggestions customers share with the seller correspond
to customer knowledge value (Kumar et al., 2010).
Social media, broadly, can be defined as “a group of Internet-based
applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations
of Web 2.0 and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated
content” (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010, p. 61). From a social relationship
viewpoint, social media facilitates participation in social networks,
thereby enabling users “to create and share content, communicate with
one another, and build relationships” (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2010, p.
312). In a sales context, social media refers to “any social inter-
action–enhancing technology that can be deployed by sales profes-
sionals to generate content (e.g., blogs, microblogs, and wikis) and
develop networks (e.g., social networks, online communities, etc.)”
R. Agnihotri
Fig. 2. A research gap model involving social media use by salespeople.
Based on Ahearne & Rapp, 2010. Literature Support: Agnihotri et al., 2016; Ahearne, Jones, Rapp, & Mathieu, 2008; Hunter & Perrault, 2007; Itani et al., 2017;
Ogilvie et al., 2018; Rapp, Agnihotri, & Forbes, 2008; Sundaram, Schwarz, Jones, & Chin, 2007
(Agnihotri, Kothandaraman, Kashyap, & Singh, 2012, p. 334).
Embedded in this description of social media is the notion of a
quasi-dichotomy of social media technologies (see Fig. 1) focused on
“pulling” customers toward seller-generated content at one end, versus
those geared toward “pushing” information through social networks of
connections at the other (Agnihotri et al., 2012). Aligning with KBV, we
theorize that social media enables people to maintain social networks,
which can foster trust and deep understanding, thus facilitating
knowledge sharing among users (Baehr & Alex-Brown, 2010). More-
over, because its users generate social media content, it can be di-
versified enough so that new knowledge and new perspectives can flow
through them (Gray, Parise, & Iyer, 2011). Thus, social media can
support an organization’s knowledge management structure (Andriole,
2010).
Increased frequency of communications between business entities
reduces perceptions of risk, enhances the trust in the relationship, and
thereby engenders greater cooperation (Palmatier, Dant, Grewal, &
Evans, 2006). Social media is recognized as a crucial buyer-seller
communication channel (Wang, Pauleen, & Zhang, 2016). Repeated
interactions between buyer and seller, in which feedback strengthens
buyer-seller relationships, facilitate the customer engagement process
(Bowden, 2009; Brodie et al., 2013). Besides, seller firms can provide
customers with opportunities to seek, give, and pass opinions (Chu &
Kim, 2011) about products and services in online communities, wikis,
and creative works–sharing sites (e.g., YouTube, Flickr). Overall, in-
formation exchanges through social media can enable positive re-
lationship experiences and an ongoing sense of relationship trust and
satisfaction (Agnihotri, Dingus, Hu, & Krush, 2016; Ahearne, Jelinek, &
Jones, 2007).
Because customer engagement is all about “turning on customers by
building emotional bonds in relational exchanges with them” (Sashi,
2012, p. 260), the interactive nature of social media makes it a facil-
itator in the process of establishing close relationships with mutual trust
between a salesperson and customer (Sashi, 2012). An exciting area to
explore, thus, is the social media use by seller firms aiming to achieve
the strategic goals of customer engagement. An engaged customer, in
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Industrial Marketing Management 90 (2020) 291–299
turn, collaborates with the salesperson in creating value for both the
salesperson and the customer (Agnihotri et al., 2012). It would be in-
teresting to explore how social media will offer sellers different path-
ways to reach more buyers, increasing the attainment of customer
loyalty and, ultimately, customer engagement. If a seller firm strategi-
cally uses social media to create customer-specific content, customers
will perceive that the seller cares about their business objectives. Such
perceptions will instill trust for the seller, thereby creating customer-
perceived value. These same networks will give sellers opportunities to
bolster their value. It would also be intriguing to find out whether social
media can generate enough economic advantage for the seller firm.
3. The utility of social media technologies
As the social media landscape evolves, a key theme that emerges
from the literature is that the use of social media is a necessary but not
sufficient criterion. Therefore, the manner in which firms and their
employees (e.g., salespeople) use social media to engage customers
determines its utility. Keeping in mind the different uses of social media
such as social networking or information sharing, researchers should
develop and test models where social media integration is per the re-
quired task in hand. Thus, sales and marketing researchers need to
examine the use of different types of social media platforms based on
their level of specificity and purpose. To facilitate future research,
clarity regarding the fit of various social media technologies with
business processes, strategies, and activities is vital.
3.1. The need for ‘human touch’
Salespeople carry out operational (e.g., sharing information) and
strategic (developing and nurturing social networks within and outside
the organization) activities. Such tasks and activities require different
technology tools. Social media applications reside at the salesperson-
customer interface and are instrumental for connectedness and inter-
action. Accordingly, Ogilvie, Agnihotri, Rapp, and Trainor (2018)
propose that social media use by salespeople helps them in learning
R. Agnihotri
about customers that enhance their adaptive selling behaviors. Such
adaptivity further leads to both relationship and sales performance.
Agnihotri et al. (2016) report that information communication fully
mediates the relationship between social media use and customer sa-
tisfaction. These examples also provide a theoretical basis for future
research involving customer engagement value. Thus, it is fair to con-
clude that literature has started to highlight the human touch (i.e.,
boundary-spanning employees’ behaviors and characteristics) that
mediates the link between sales technology and performance in general.
However, more research is needed that connects social media tech-
nologies to customer engagement (see Fig. 2).
Buyers are increasingly adopting social media to connect with other
stakeholders, and they now expect the same level of interactivity with
their business counterparts (Trainor et al., 2014). Keeping in mind that
industrial buyers heavily rely on social media technologies to attain
knowledge about products and companies (Itani, Agnihotri, & Dingus,
2017), selling firms are also using tools such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and
Twitter to interact with buyers and to secure customer knowledge in
real-time. For example, customers often use Twitter to express their
satisfaction or dissatisfaction with product experiences (Culnan,
McHugh, & Zubillaga, 2010). Sellers, therefore, can now be aware of
and respond to such Tweets and LinkedIn posts promptly. Salespeople
can get access to customers’ expressed feelings and experiences with
products and services through Facebook. Along the same lines, when it
comes to gathering information and enriching knowledge, social media
holds unique attributes compared to other sources for salespeople. Due
to the provision of complete two-way communication and increased
clarity between seller and buyer, the use of social media assures better
responsiveness and reliability, leading customers to trust those sales-
people more. This is in line with the attribution theory (Kelley, 1987),
suggesting that customers who take note of a socially active salesperson
would attribute higher levels of confidence concerning the salesperson’s
integrity and credibility.
Researchers, thus, have opportunities to identify and prioritize so-
cial media objectives for both salespeople and customers so that orga-
nizational structures and processes are well aligned with their social
media use. Future studies exploring such alignments could be valuable.
Future research should also investigate ways that enable a seamless
integration of social media into the sales processes. Exploring the per-
sonal variables at the salesperson level could provide interesting in-
sights in this area. Discovering the driving factors and enablers of
customer’s participation in the seller’s social media activities represents
another future research area. Future research should also consider the
changing demographics of the workplace (e.g., capabilities and pre-
ferences of the millennials) when establishing the need for the human
touch in social media frameworks.
3.2. Social media enabled customer relationship management (Social CRM)
Social selling has become the crux of meaningful discourse in
business markets as sellers often have to deal with a ‘social customer’
(Ancillai et al., 2019). In response, CRM systems are being integrated
with social media platforms. Social CRM, often termed as an organi-
zational capability, can be defined as “the integration of traditional
customer-facing activities, including processes, systems, and technolo-
gies with emergent social media applications to engage customers in
collaborative conversations and enhance customer relationships”
(Trainor et al., 2014, p. 1201). In the business market context, the so-
cial CRM approach integrates social media technology tools and cus-
tomer relationship management systems, enabling salespersons’ com-
petitive sales service behaviors (Agnihotri, Trainor, Itani, & Rodriguez,
2017). It is therefore viewed as a mechanism for facilitating interactions
between buyer and seller rather than only capturing one-way buyer
communications.
Firms are increasingly capturing social media conversations through
their CRM systems. The integration of both CRM and social media can
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Industrial Marketing Management 90 (2020) 291–299
improve the customer experience by enhancing the communication
process. Organizations are rushing to incorporate social media plat-
forms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook into their existing CRM
systems. Online social communities provide detailed information on
customers' ongoing priorities. This rich customer information, when
combined with data stored in CRM, can be leveraged to understand
customers’ needs better (Itani et al., 2017). These market opportunities
raise several questions that can guide future scholarly research because
the empirical research on the effects of social CRM is still in a nascent
stage. An interesting dimension to explore would be the role of in-
tegrating traditional CRM with social media in enabling sales organi-
zations and salespeople to react more empathetically to their customers
and build more profound, more meaningful customer relationships in
business markets. Future research should also examine the role of social
CRM not only in securing new sales but also in servicing the sale.
3.3. Online social capital
In business markets where boundary-spanning employees need to
maintain connections within and outside the organization to succeed
(Bolander, Satornino, Hughes, & Ferris, 2015; Kalra, Agnihotri, Chaker,
Singh, & Das, 2017), scholarly exploration has been primarily limited to
the firm/group-level. For example, studies have examined the man-
agers' investments in team social capital (Bachrach, Mullins, & Rapp,
2017), the effects of firm’s social capital development on innovation
(e.g., Shipilov, 2009), and how social media enabled co-creation be-
tween customers and the organization influences business value
(Zhang, Gupta, Sun, & Zou, 2020). This limitation is critical because
social capital can yield results at the salesperson level, too (Bolander
et al., 2015).
Social media integration and use at the salesperson level of analysis
has opened up numerous avenues for research in the areas of social
network and social capital (see Fig. 3). At the individual level, online
social capital is a byproduct of an individual’s online social embedd-
edness, and it empowers an employee who is “well connected through
friendship, affiliation, financial exchanges, trading relations or simply
information exchange” (Pinho, 2013, p. 217). For salespeople, social
media platforms (e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter) provide a
mechanism to develop online social networks. Social media facilitates
new connections by providing alternate ways to connect with others
(Ellison, Heino, & Gibbs, 2006). Social media also enables salespeople
to communicate with large numbers of people and facilitates inter-
personal communication, which is the basis for developing social ca-
pital (e.g., Liu, Ainsworth, & Baumeister, 2016).
Generally, business relationships take shape through a social ex-
change process where participants become committed beyond strictly
task content, and they become disposed to build a network of personal
contacts (Hakansson & Snehota, 1995). By utilizing social media,
salespeople maintain social networks by meeting the expectations of
network partners. Notably, for a salesperson, the maintenance of social
networks may be crucial in the context of appropriating value and
seeking sales. Since social media enables individuals to develop and
maintain a personal portfolio of social connections, the academic lit-
erature should offer more guidance on the direct association between
the boundary spanning employees’ use of social media and social ca-
pital (Rapp, Beitelspacher, Grewal, & Hughes, 2013). Accordingly, ex-
amining the association between social media use and social capital
development and maintenance, within as well as outside the organi-
zation, is needed.
An individual’s portfolio of social connections changes over time as
“relationships are formed or abandoned” for various reasons (Ellison,
Steinfield, & Lampe, 2007, p. 1148). This is also true for salespeople,
owing to the changes in their social networks when they change com-
panies. One could imagine that the use of social media can help under
these circumstances. It would be interesting to see if social media use
can help such salespeople maintain existing social capital over time. In
R. Agnihotri Industrial Marketing Management 90 (2020) 291–299

Fig. 3. A research gap model involving social media and social capital in business markets.
Note: This research gap model is based on a summarization of empirical studies and does not include conceptual work. In addition, the literature included is from the
buyer-seller domain and the use of social media being analyzed at the salesforce level. For the social capital literature, scholarly exploration was limited to the firm/
group-level, and the review did not yield the relationship between the use of social media and salesperson level social capital.
Studies: Agnihotri et al., 2016; Itani et al., 2017; Ogilvie et al., 2018; Lacoste, 2016; Michaelidou, Siamagka, & Christodoulides, 2011; Moore et al., 2015; Rapp et al.,
2013; Schuldt & Totten, 2015; Trainor et al., 2014; Foltean, Trif, & Tuleu, 2019. Studies: Autry & Griffis, 2008; Bachrach, Mullins, & Rapp, 2017; Cousins, Handfield,
Lawson, & Petersen, 2006; Krause, Handfield, & Tyler, 2007; Lawson, Tyler, & Cousins, 2008; Min, Kim, & Chen, 2008; Villena, Revilla, & Choi, 2011.

other words, how can social media help salespeople in social capital
maintenance (i.e., the extent to which salespeople can rely on their
previous acquaintances and friends to complete small “favors” for
them) (Aharony, 2015)?
Social media use allows salespeople to locate past acquaintances
and maintain regular contact (Antheunis, Abeele, & Kanters, 2015).
Social media, for relationship building purposes, offers “tools or specific
applications capable of facilitating communication among buyers and
sellers in a real- to near real-time, two-way, interactive, and con-
versation-like fashion” (Moore, Raymond, & Hopkins, 2015, p. 1). It
would be interesting to see future studies examine how boundary-
spanning employees can develop social capital from their online social
networking efforts and whether such resources can be utilized tacti-
cally. Future researchers should aim to uncover boundary conditions
that may exist in the relationship between the salesperson’s use of social
media and social networking. Possible moderators could be those re-
lated to the characteristics of the salesperson, such as attitude or per-
sonality. For example, a salesperson’s social network orientation de-
fined as “a set of beliefs, attitudes, and expectations concerning the
potential usefulness of network members” (Tata & Leong, 1994, p. 281)
may strengthen the effects of salesperson’s social media use. Apart from
such personal level moderators, the association between seller’s social
media use and customer engagement will also be impacted by other
contextual variables that we discuss in the next section.
4. Context matters
4.1. Paid vs. earned social media
Social media remains a critical part of a firm’s digital echoverse. The
digital echoverse can be characterized as the combination of a firm’s
website along with its social media presence (Hanna, Rohm, &
Crittenden, 2011; Holliman & Rowley, 2014). Vieira et al. (2019) ex-
tend the digital echoverse idea to business markets through the in-
vestigation of varied digital marketing channels that are firm and
market-driven. Building upon the notion of digital echoverse (Vieira
et al., 2019), it can be posited that the market-initiated mechanisms
such as earned social media and the firm-initiated social media com-
munication mechanisms (e.g., paid social media) would interact to
produce a ‘social media echoverse’ system (see Fig. 4).
Paid social media, such as sponsored advertising on Facebook, is a
type of media within a firm’s social media ecosystem that must be paid
for (Hanna et al., 2011). Contemporary studies operationalize paid
social media as weekly investments on online paid media search (Vieira
et al., 2019). Paid social media could be a highly effective approach
since its cost is low when firms evaluate its “conversion” into sales
(Dinner, Van Heerde, & Neslin, 2014). So far, the marketing literature
predominantly focuses on paid social media in the consumer market
context (Dinner et al., 2014; Fang, Li, Huang, & Palmatier, 2015). The
marketing literature reports that paid media influences click-through
rates and sales, depending on the ad position, keyword positioning into
a search engine, and the use of long-tail keywords (Lu & Du, 2020; Rutz,
Sonnier, & Trusov, 2017). Building upon this literature, future studies
should explore if there is an association between paid social media and
B2B sales outcomes.
Earned social media is the media activity that organically generates
in the social media environment. Indeed, the seller has very little or, in
most cases, no-control over the development and diffusion of this type
of digital content. Empirical studies in digital contexts often oper-
ationalize earned social media as user-generated activities such as likes,
shares, and comments in social media (e.g., Facebook and Instagram) at
a given period (Colicev, Malshe, Pauwels, & O'Connor, 2018; De Vries,
Gensler, & Leeflang, 2017). Information coming from a social source is
more persuasive “in shifting customers’ opinions and, ultimately,

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R. Agnihotri Industrial Marketing Management 90 (2020) 291–299

Fig. 4. A research gap model involving a seller firm’s social media echoverse
Literature support: Vieira et al., 2019; Kumar et al., 2010

Table 1
Future research directions.

CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT VALUE

• How will social media offer sellers different pathways to reach more buyers, securing customer loyalty and, ultimately, engagement?
• Can social media generate enough economic advantage for sellers?
Utility of social media technologies Context matters Pitfalls of social media technologies Futuristic social media applications

The Need For ‘Human Touch’
• How to prioritize objectives for salespeople • What are the different effects of paid
and customers alike so that organizational
structures and processes are well aligned
with social media use?
Social CRM
• How to integrate traditional CRM and
social media to enable frontline employees
to build deeper, more meaningful customer
relationships?
Online Social Capital
• How can frontline employees develop and
appropriate social capital from their online
Paid vs. Earned Social Media
• What are the possible drawbacks • How to utilize social media analytics in
of utilizing social media? extracting relevant and useful ‘patterns
and earned social media in business
markets?
• What moderating variables could
be of interest to examine in
and intelligence’ for the creation of
customized solutions?
Emerging vs. Developed economies conjunction with social media-
induced technostress?
• How to appropriately use social media • How to best integrate social media
considering customer heterogeneity in
terms of segments, and purchase and
with artificial intelligence (AI) in
creating value for all the stakeholders?
post-purchase behavior?
• How are the effects of social media for
firms operating in emerging economies
different from those operating in
• What are the ethical implications of
AI-enabled social media marketing?
developed economies?

social networking efforts?

• What boundary conditions may exist in the
relationship between the use of social
media and online social capital?

triggering purchasing behavior” (Stephen & Galak, 2012, p.3). The shift
in opinion occurs because business customers rely on their social con-
nections and friends. There exists, thus, a plethora of opportunities for
researchers, comparing and contrasting the effects of paid and earned
social media in business markets, for instance. To assess the complete
echoverse (e.g., earned and paid social media), future researchers may
consider working with businesses that diversify their social media
marketing expenditure accordingly.
4.2. Emerging vs. developed economies
Research in social media marketing in business markets has pre-
dominantly focused on scenarios suitable for developed markets. This is
surprising as customers in emerging economies use social media plat-
forms at least twice as often as their counterparts from developed
economies (Gilfoil, 2012; Piskorski & Mecall, 2010). Given a broader
user base, the likes, shares, comments, etc. on social media platforms
may influence customer purchase decisions and sales (Atsmon, Kuentz,
& Seong, 2012). Thus, there is a clear and urgent need for research in
B2B social media marketing in emerging economies because the ap-
plication of practices uncovered in developed markets may not be ap-
plicable in emerging economies.
Comparing business markets in emerging economies to developed
economies, scholars (e.g., Grewal et al., 2015) have outlined the critical
distinguishing features such as the relative size and nature of govern-
ment versus business buying; the under-developed legal system; the
non-contractual and extensive webs of business relationships; the extent
to which business relationships affect a firm's ability to perform; and
the major influence of political ties on business processes in emerging
economies. Notably, the ratio of B2B exchanges and B2C exchanges
using different interactive online services in emerging economies is less
than that in the overall population (Alavi, 2016; Vieira et al., 2019).

296
R. Agnihotri
Other issues, such as the average bandwidth and speed available, make
certain types of media platforms more (or less) useful than others in
different countries. Political systems and government attitudes also
influence the adoption of a social media platform in a country (for
example, the Chinese government’s ban on Facebook). Although the
B2B digital landscape in emerging economies continues to evolve, high
rates of loyalty cycles and social media use are already prevalent (Alavi,
2016). This represents a growing opportunity for firms. One of the
critical reasons why B2B social media marketing is still impactful in
emerging economies is the increasing mobile phone usage of B2B ap-
plications.
LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are key platforms in the
B2B context. Social media environment varies between countries. For
example, LinkedIn, a well-established and widely used social media
platform for B2B marketers in the U.S. (154 million users), is still
growing in some emerging economies (e.g., LinkedIn was launched in
Brazil in 2010 and currently has 35 million users). Notably, 43% of
LinkedIn’s traffic comes from the U.S. alone. However, the U.S. is the
only developed country in the top five list (the others are India, Brazil,
Indonesia, and Mexico) when it comes to Facebook membership. India
is the second country in the world based on the number of Instagram
users (U.S = 20 million, India = 75 million, and Brazil = 69 million;
Statista, 2019).
There are great opportunities for social media researchers due to the
rapidly increasing social media influence in emerging economies. It will
be valuable for firms operating in developing countries if scholarly
research offers suggestions to make headway into a buying culture
considered averse to credit/e-commerce transactions (Sheth, 2011).
Empirical studies in a developed market context often utilize data
available at the aggregate level and not at the customer purchase funnel
level, which is more relevant in emerging economies. This results in the
loss of some relevant information that could be useful in devising an
effective social media marketing strategy for firms operating in emer-
ging economies.
The widespread customer heterogeneity in terms of segments, pur-
chase, and post-purchase behavior also offers opportunities for future
research (Alavi, 2016). Compared with firms operating in developed
economies, social CRMs could be more important for emerging market
firms because customers’ expectations, their tendency to engage, and
their desires to be recognized digitally are steadily growing. Empirical
validation or refusal of such circumstantial notions would be an ex-
citing research pursuit.
Emerging economies present complex and conflicting market si-
tuations for scholars to explore and examine. For example, business
customers still rely more on marketing communication through seller-
owned media (e.g., company website) than customers in developed
economies who rely more upon earned or organic media (e.g., social
networking services like Facebook) (Piskorski & Mecall, 2010). How-
ever, word-of-mouth is a major driver of customers’ brand/product
choice due to the growing culture of social validation in emerging
economies. Social media could be an answer for handling such con-
flicting ground realities.
5. Pitfalls of social media technologies
Many research questions remain unanswered concerning the
drawbacks of social media use in driving sales. For example, scholars
have made significant progress in analyzing the role of social media in
information communication in business markets; however, little at-
tention has been paid to the fact that excessive information from social
media may lead to salespeople feeling uncomfortable (Maier, Laumer,
Eckhardt, & Weitzel, 2015). Along the same lines, there are risks of
customers considering some of the customized communications and
information inappropriate. Social media, if not used correctly, could
become a tool for exploitation. Salespeople may utilize social media for
ineffective communication, improper collection of competitors’
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Industrial Marketing Management 90 (2020) 291–299
information, and interference with customer privacy.
The availability and adoption of social media generate possibilities.
However, without proper training and work-life balance, the boundary-
spanning employees may find themselves in a situation where social
media may hurt their productivity. Scholars have studied technostress
relating to the dark side of sales technology (e.g., Tarafdar, Pullins, &
Ragu-Nathan, 2015). Technostress refers to stress induced by tech-
nology characteristics (e.g., complexity, the pace of change, etc.)
(Ayyagari, Grover, & Purvis, 2011). It is prevalent among sales and
service employees (Tarafdar et al., 2015).
Researchers should also consider highlighting the connection be-
tween social media use by boundary spanners and optimal time allo-
cation. It has been argued that social media platforms such as Twitter
can be “very addictive and consequently, time-consuming” (Malita,
2011, p. 752). Considering the unstructured and redundant nature of
the contents on social media platforms, the role of time management
should be examined (Alwagait, Shahzad, & Alim, 2015). Social media is
designed to keep users busy for a prolonged time. The use of social
media may enhance perceived time pressure among boundary-spanning
employees. This issue could escalate, as organizations often do not
provide employees with social media usage guidelines. Under such
circumstances, salespeople would need to pay attention to their time
management. Thus, the pitfalls of social media usage include employee-
specific issues such as technostress, as well as customer-level issues
such as information overload, unethical treatment of customers, privacy
invasion, etc.
Future studies should investigate how to mitigate the adverse effects
of social media and what boundary conditions could potentially
dampen the effect of technostress drivers. Researchers should examine
how specific types of social media platforms yield ‘not-so-good’ effects.
Another interesting research question to address would be whether and
how social media can undermine customer engagement efforts without
a strategic framework.
6. Futuristic social media applications
With the emergence of sophisticated social media tools and models,
it is now possible to do “simultaneous measurement of the tangible and
intangible value of social media” (Kumar, Bhaskaran, Mirchandani, &
Shah, 2013, p. 210). For example, social media analytics which is the
development and evaluation of informatics tools and models to capture,
analyze, and visualize data collected from social media (Fan & Gordon,
2014; Zeng, Chen, Lusch, & Li, 2010) allow sales teams to contact,
leverage, and communicate with customers as well as non-customers
(Hartmann, Wieland, & Vargo, 2018). Scholarly research in this area
could help managers realize such opportunities by addressing a few
critical research questions. For example, studies should investigate the
facilitation of interaction and conversations among online commu-
nities, extraction of relevant and useful ‘patterns and intelligence’ to
create customized solutions for contributors in continuing dialogues
(Zeng et al., 2010), and the association between social media invest-
ment and customer engagement value creation.
It has been estimated that the investments related to AI-enabled
social media marketing would grow to more than 2 Billion Dollars by
the year 2023 (Kaput, 2019). Many of the popular social media plat-
forms are already using AI. For example, Facebook actively utilizes
neural networks and image recognition process to help companies
target customers; Twitter uses machine learning and AI to catalog every
tweet; LinkedIn utilizes AI to offer recommendations. Social media is
considered to be a focal area where marketing managers can improve
performance and efficiencies by using AI (Kaput, 2019). As Olga
Egorsheva, Co-Founder and CEO of Lobster2, says: a firm can better
leverage social media through AI and “give marketers the freedom to be
2
A London (UK) based firm providing marketplace for social media contents.
R. Agnihotri
creative with their outreach” (Martechadvisor.com, 2018).
Per academic literature, AI technology reflects human thinking
capabilities, such as replicating the problem-solving process, making
predictions of various outcomes, suggesting alternative strategies, and
offering advice to a sales professional, equivalent to that of the human
experts (Collins, 1984). Contemporary sales research suggests that AI
technologies facilitate controlled and dynamic learning, allowing sales
artifacts such as software, hardware, and sales protocols to perform
sales role autonomously in varied capacity (Agnihotri, 2020; Singh
et al., 2019). During the preparation and launch of social media mar-
keting campaigns, AI technologies could play a critical role. AI could
also be instrumental in analyzing exploratory communication between
the organization and potential customers through social media. AI al-
gorithms can help delineate the influential social networks based on
size, industry, and past purchase behaviors of participants.
The most important area is for scholars to propose and validate the
integration of AI and social media in creating value for customers as
well as companies. As the discussion regarding machine vs. managerial
insights continues, companies still need to figure out if/when they
overrule an AI-based recommendation when managerial instincts sug-
gest otherwise. Future empirical studies in this area could offer critical
implications for managers. Future studies should also investigate the
ethical implications of AI-enabled social media marketing.
7. Conclusion
The integration of various viewpoints in a way that can guide future
academic research as well as enlighten industry leaders is a worthy
scholarly pursuit. Accordingly, this study represents a scholarly attempt
to help guide future researchers examining the role of social media in
achieving customer engagement in business markets. Building upon the
recent scholarly advances and taking a managerial perspective, future
research directions are presented (see Table 1 for the summary).
Hopefully, this study would further accelerate the scholarly discussion,
and future studies would continue to explore this vital research area.
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