Developing a framework for social selling : antecedents, outcomes, and successful implementation

Abstract

In the changing sales landscape, social selling strategy poses opportunity for salespeople to take advantage of mobile technology and social media to connect with customers. This dissertation uses two essays to conceptualize the social selling constructs, address the antecedents and outcomes associated with social selling, and finally provide empirical analysis to support the model. It further seeks to provide a definition of social selling to guide future study. Essay 1 proposes the following definition: Social selling integrates personal branding, information exchange, networking, and social listening into all stages of the sales process using social media, customer relationship management (CRM), and salesforce technology. Based on a comprehensive literature review, the essay identifies the social selling constructs of networking, information exchange, social listening, and personal branding. This conceptual essay also provides comprehensive lists in three categories of antecedents based on individual, company, and industry factors. In addition, buyer engagement, value co-creation, and salesperson performance were identified as the outcomes of social selling. Using service-dominant logic (SDL) and social networking theory, Essay 2 develops and tests a model based on the aforementioned social selling activities and outcomes with corporate social media vision as the antecedent. Using Smart PLS, the findings show that corporate social media vision directly impacts the use of all social selling activities, as well as value co-creation, and that networking, information exchange, and personal branding also positively relate to value co-creation, while information exchange and social listening impact buyer engagement. Further, value co-creation was shown to relate to buyer engagement and both value co-creation and buyer engagement were found to have a positive impact on salesperson performance. Salespeople today are using new technologies to create efficiencies in the sales process. Along with customers’ ability to research and become knowledgeable before sales contact, these efficiencies shorten the sales cycle, and some steps take place without direct interaction between the salesperson and the customer. The results of this study fill a gap in current literature by providing a clear definition of social selling and statistical analysis that supports the four social selling constructs.