There are no clear guidelines from the top management on how to use social media in sales process because of the absence of clear return on investment (ROI) (Gupta, Armstrong &
Clayton 2011; ref. Guesalaga 2016). Social media usage in sales requires nowadays a strategy and management of it so that the benefits of social media can be maximized and in contrast the disadvantages of it can be avoided (Rapp & Panagopoulos 2012). Also Giamanco and Gregoire (2012) found that salespeople of the company can be already part of the social media and using it even in their sales but if the company wants to succeed in social selling, it should make a clear strategy for it and how the social selling is performed in practice. According to Andzulis et al. (2012), strategy for the social media should consider relationships, product/service, customer, price and find a way to use those to increase customer engagement. Schultz et al.
(2012) found that if salespeople have knowledge of social media usage, they can identify better the most efficient ways to contact prospects and achieve the outcomes they are looking for.
In social media strategy, the used social media platforms should be identified. Social media platforms are changing all the time and something what is up-to-date today may not be that tomorrow. In addition, there are dozen or even hundreds social media applications and companies can not be part every one of them. The choice depends on the purpose of the usage and the target group the company wants to reach. There can be various platforms that the company is participating to get the best possible reach. If the company is part in several platforms, it should ensure that all the messages and activities in these platforms are aligned.
(Kaplan & Haenlein 2010.) Companies can obtain knowledge of customers’ wants and needs through social media (Brown 2010) and it is the main driver for the company to choose the social media platform they should use (Andzulis et al. 2012). For example, are the customers only looking a platform where they can get more information about a product or a service or do they want to have an interaction with other customers before their purchase decision or do they want to be rewarded of their loyalty towards the company. If the company fails to determine the requirements of the customers, they are wasting time and effort and at the same time they are not able to connect and collaborate with the customers. For these reasons, social media usage requires a strategy and implementing it to sales process requires listening of the
customers in every step of the process. If the company manages to do it, customers will become advocates and share positive word-of-mouth. (Andzulis et al. 2012.)
Agnihotri et al. (2012) used in their research ”pull” and ”push” in salesperson strategies which affiliated to customer access to information in social media. When salespeople pull customers towards the content that salesperson has created by using social media, the customers are able to control the information, create and share it. In contrast, salespeople push information to customers by using social media in order to ease the development of networks. In this strategy, customer do not have much control over the communication they are receiving. (Agnihotri et al. 2012.) According to Rapp and Panagopoulos (2012), social media has impacted that organizations can use more a pull strategy than a traditional push strategy.
In social media strategy, there should be focus in desired behaviors and outcomes. Managers should offer clear outlines for the performance evaluation criteria and how it will be rewarded or punished to keep salespeople highly motivated and satisfied (Challagalla & Shervani 1996).
There can be for example milestones for salespeople which can include effort milestones (e.g.
number of tweets or number of customer contacts in social media) and outcome milestones (e.g.
number of leads generated through social media). Also, there should be objectives and subjective outcomes. Objectives are for example change in customer support costs and subjective outcomes are for example positive recommendations from customers in social media. ROI (return on investment) should be reasonable in social media tools investments so they can be justified. Usually the social media tools do not have high financial costs but they take a significant amount of salesperson’s time and effort. (Andzulis et al. 2012.) Salespeople should aim with their social media strategy to social capital increase and customer engagement (Agnihotri et al. 2012).
According to Andzulis et al. (2012), there are four steps that companies have to perform with social selling (see figure 3). First step is to arrange that social media is present and information is coming from company to customer. Second, company has to find a way that the customers and prospects are using social media. Company also has to pull customers and prospects to use social media pages of the company even though they might not have a specific plan to that yet.
When the customers are in the company’s social media pages, they will become more demanding. First two steps are not yet tied to sales strategy. In step three, company has to find social media as a primary or secondary selling tool and at the same time there is a transformation
in sales strategy. In this step, the customers are able to co-create value. Lastly, in company’s sales strategy, social media is integrated to overall sales strategy which means that social media is there to facilitate learning processes, co-create value and enhance real-time pricing and service which will make the product or service more compelling for the customers and drive them more towards purchase decision. (Andzulis et al. 2012.)
Figure 3. Process evolution of social media in sales (Andzulis et al. 2012)
According to Levy (2011), there are five steps in strong social media strategy: define business goals, know your target audience and how they use social media, keep an eye of the competitors, keep track of the market events and set milestones to track the progress. Salespeople must set clear objectives to the use of social media so that resources and processes of the organization are used in an effective way. Using social media without clear outlines or achievable goals may even produce sales productivity losses. (Agnihotri et al. 2012.) “If we do not learn from the past, we are forced to repeat it” (Andzulis et al. 2012, 306).
As mentioned earlier, social media has changed the power from company to the customer (Baer 2010) and it causes that company is implementing social media to its overall strategy which requires commitment and resources (Andzulis et al. 2012). Although social media implementation is inexpensive, it requires collaboration between sales and marketing and there is no one approach for every company which is the reason that research is needed that the company is able to identify which approach is best for their organization and customers (Agnihotri et al. 2012). Even though sales and marketing should join their forces to increase their customers’ value and involve sales function into marketing strategy development, it is not happening in real life (Guenzi & Troilo 2007; Homburg, Workman & Krohmer 1999; Rouziés, Anderson, Kohli, Michaels, Weitz & Zoltners 2005; Slater & Olson 2001). In addition, sales
can be left outside the strategy planning (Viswanathan & Olson 1992) and it is seen as a tactical implementer and playing a small role in value creation (Kotler, Rackham & Krishnaswamy 2006). According to Donath (2004), this can lead to the situation where the company is losing productivity which could be avoided if the sales and marketing departments coordinate.
When implementing social selling into company’s strategy, it has to be a dynamic process and it requires significant commitment and continuous observation. When a company is considering to implement social selling its business it should first set the goals for it, understand the value propositions and demands of customers because customers need to perceive and get value from social media usage of the company. In addition, measures to define the success of social media efforts have to be set and they have to set considering the industry and customer base of the company. (Andzulis et al. 2012.)
Salespeople are required to have new skills and abilities to exploit the use of social media as a selling tool (Andzulis et al. 2012). Salespeople need ability to work in different channels, adapt to different situations with the customers and have constant interaction with them. According to Hunter and Perreault (2006), salespeople who have greater ability to use sales technologies, e.g. social media, can leverage information which means that they can make the information which is available to them more effective. Sales managers can help this by providing the situation where the salesperson is comfortable with the new selling tools and is able to succeed.
(Moncrief et al. 2015.)
There are a few factors that are affecting to social media usage of the individual and the company and they are discussed briefly next. Social media competence of individual is referring to ability to use and familiarity with social media tools of individual and social media commitment of individual as an active use of social media (Guesalaga 2016). Avlonitis and Panagopoulos (2005) argued that if the sales manager’s ability is high with social media, it is more likely that they will use social media in their business. If the sales managers are adopting the social media in sales, it will increase the use of social media in selling among the B2B salespeople because of the social pressure (Avlonitis & Panagopoulos 2005). Competence in social media of organization is referring to selling company’s social media knowledge and ability to use it. Social media commitment of organization is on the other hand referring to resources that selling company has invested to social media and how they have formed and communicated the social media strategy. (Guesalaga 2016.) Companies have to not only
buy-in the use of social media but commit to it contbuy-inually if they are lookbuy-ing for engagement and collaboration (Andzulis et al. 2012).
Motivation impacts to behavior and every person has a unique motivation. This is a challenge to sales managers because they have to find different ways to motivate different kind of salespeople. Working smarter has become a new concept which means that working is more effective with less effort. Social media is helping salespeople to work smarter. There is a lot of information available of both selling and buying companies. Young salespeople are bringing their personal social media platforms part of their selling process whereas older generations are using social media as a separate selling tool. Also, younger generations prefer doing business without face-to-face contact in selling situations. Sometimes face-to-face meetings are needed and sales managers have to find a way to motivate younger salespeople to do so. As contrast, they should find ways to motivate older salespeople towards using social media more in sales process. (Moncrief et al. 2015.) Schultz et al. (2012) found that there is a negative relationship between salesperson’s age and use of social media. This was also found by Keinänen and Kuivalainen (2015) that young people use social media more in their business than older ones.
In addition, they found that those managers who are using social media in their personal life are using it more in business (Keinänen & Kuivalainen 2015). Moreover, younger generation have a high knowledge of social media usage and they are used to work in a digital world which makes them valuable employees (Schultz et al. 2012). Younger generations will include social media in their sales if they see the value of it. Older salespeople see advantages of using social media in sales but also difficulties. (Speier & Venkatesh 2002; Glass 2007.) Although, younger salespeople are using technology more in their sales than older ones (Harris & Pike 1996;
Hunter & Perrault 2006; Senecal, Pullins & Bueher 2007) and one reason for this is that younger generation’s personal use of social media which they link to their professional work as mentioned earlier (Cisco 2011). 30 % of young salespeople find that internet has a similar significancy than fundamental human resources e.g. air and water (Cisco 2011) which reveals the mindset of the younger salespeople towards social media usage (Schultz et al. 2012). Also, it was found that the salespeople who are not using the social media in their sales process, are more likely to believe that there is no significant impact of social media usage to sales which makes it difficult for managers to include social media in sales of the organization. (Schultz et al. 2012.) According to Campbell (1998), if the salesperson has had previous success in selling with traditional selling tools, he or she is not that willing to try new selling tools. Sales organization have the possibility to hire younger salespeople who are more familiar with the
use of social media or their can use training in order to include social media in sales processes (Schultz et al. 2012).
When companies are integrating social media usage in their sales they should enhance the organizational competence and commitment. Organizational competence can be done through hiring the right people with the ability to use social media tools and provide training to the existing salespeople. Companies should hire the executives that have a strong ability to use social media and engourage the use of social media in personal purposes. (Guesalaga 2016.) It was found by Mathieu et al. (2007) that executives commitment and enthusiasm for sales technology e.g. social media has a positive effect to salespeople’s adoption of sales technology.