بینش ها در مورد پذیرش بازاریابی رسانه های اجتماعی در خدمات B2B Insights on the adoption of social media marketing in B2B services

1. Background The advent of Web 2.0 technologies and related applications such as social media (SM) tools, indeed, has dramatically reshaped the business landscape and managerial processes of firms by allowing more direct, rich, and interactive forms of communication where users play an active role in generating and sharing brand- and product-related content (Siamagka et al., 2015). Kaplan and Haenlein (2010, p. 61), in particular, define SM as “[…] a group of internet-based applications build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content.” More recently, Huotari et al. (2015) have further elaborated the concept arguing that SM are “[…] digital communication platforms and services that allow parties to connect with each another, to share information, engage in dialogue and in which organizations and individuals post content and messages to engage participants and to interact with others by contributing to their discussions.” This definition stresses the key elements of SM, i.e. technology and its applications, online contents, the active role played by users, networking and digitally based social relationships, and opportunity for engagement. In this context, social media marketing (SMM) refers to the actual use of SM applications for marketing purposes (Tuten and Solomon, 2013). Several applications may serve as SMM channels to provide and promote SM services including, among others: blogs and microblogs (e.g. Twitter), social networks (e.g. Facebook; LinkedIn), social communities, forums/bulletin boards, and content aggregators (Keinänen and Kuivalainen, 2015). Recently, an increasing number of companies have adopted digital SM for supporting their marketing activities and scholars have recognized the potential of the interactive two-way online communication and collaboration (Michaelidou et al., 2011). In particular, marketing academics highlight that emerging SMM tools can make the exchange process between buyers and sellers more efficient and effective (Marshall et al., 2012; Agnihotri et al., 2016) and may foster effective marketing activities and processes even in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), thus overcoming resource limitations (Vescovi, 2000; Brink, 2017). The application of SM via web 2.0 is expected to foster B2B collaboration between sellers, buyers and partners, thus also supporting innovation and co-creation ( Jussila et al., 2014; Brink, 2017). Relatedly, several B2B companies begun to incorporate SM channels in their marketing efforts (Keinänen and Kuivalainen, 2015).