Examining the research on social media in business-to-business marketing with a focus on sales and the selling process

Abstract

Social media and its impact on business-to-business marketing have received significant attention from practitioners and researchers. Social media has also impacted the selling process, and our research examines the extant literature to derive a deeper understanding of the area and identify directions for future research. This study reviews 115 articles on social media in business-to-business markets to understand sales and social media research within the social media domain. Using a multimethod approach, this paper classifies social media research in business-to-business marketing into four subject clusters: adoption of social media; use of social media in business-to-business marketing; social media and the selling process; and social media and marketing strategy. This study then reviews 29 articles in sales and social media research and finds that the research can be classified into usage, performance, and framework. Due to the limited research on business-to-business sales and social media, we also report on a survey that examined directions for future research. We hope that this article serves as an impetus for future research in this area.