The use of Social Media in Marketing Management: : -A Multiple Case Study of B2B Companies

Abstract: Importance of the Study: Over the last decade or so the B2C organizations are making full usage of the social media platform as a tool of their marketing mix. However, the adoption of social media in the marketing activities of the B2B sector has not quite registered the growth which the B2C organizations have. The reason behind this being previous failed experiences of the B2B sector with the social media marketing usage. Furthermore, the B2B firms do not put many efforts in their social media activity as compared to B2C firms. Thus, the study of social media on the marketing management of the B2B firms becomes important. This was done by studying the case of multiple B2B firms and drawing best practices inferences from it. Purpose of the study: The reason why this study has been undertaken is due to the fact the previous studies have focused upon ‘why’ B2B firms have failed to achieve the success which B2C firms have achieved using social media marketing platforms. There is a lack of quality research studies on what techniques the B2B organizations are using currently as there have been rare cases of finding the success with the use of social media for the B2B firms. Thus, the purpose of this study was to research successful marketing techniques used by the organizations which have found success using social media and which can be used by other B2B firms. Methods: The mixed research method was adopted for this study as the study has been divided into two parts qualitative case study method and the quantitative survey method. The cases of five B2B firms namely Huawei, Accenture, Novartis, American Express and Lucid Press was taken to draw inferences about the best marketing techniques for B2B firms on social media. These findings were further validated by the quantitative survey which had 50 B2B marketing professionals randomly selected. Major Findings: Some of the major findings were that the B2B firms use e-books, webinars, case studies and infographics in order to present top to bottom information about their products and services to their B2B clients. Furthermore, when it comes to social networking websites, it was found that LinkedIn was more popular than the Facebook for the marketing of the B2B firm's products and services.