The influence of the relationship life cycle on business-to-business social media: Theory and practice

Loran Jarrett and Sajeev Varki
Additional contact information
Loran Jarrett: Muma College of Business, USA
Sajeev Varki: Muma College of Business, USA

Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing, 2021, vol. 9, issue 1, 68-93

Abstract: Business-to-business (B2B) firms are increasingly using social media platforms to engage with their customers as they seek to maintain and grow their relationships with customers. This study examined the social media communication objectives of B2B firms at the exploration, expansion and maturity phases of the relationship life cycle. Social media experts were interviewed regarding social media efforts and objectives. The objectives observed in practice were contrasted with theoretical recommendations of appropriate objectives at corresponding phases of the relationship. Several gaps between practice and theory were identified. Further research is necessary to better understand those social media communications objectives deemed important in practice but for which there is little theoretical support.

Keywords: relationship quality; relationship life cycle; relationship marketing; social media; business to business (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: M3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://hstalks.com/article/6403/download/ (application/pdf)
https://hstalks.com/article/6403/ (text/html)
Requires a paid subscription for full access.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aza:jdsmm0:y:2021:v:9:i:1:p:68-93

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing from Henry Stewart Publications
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Henry Stewart Talks ().