Title: Innovation-related benefits of social media in Business-to-Business customer relationships

Authors: Jari J. Jussila; Hannu Kärkkäinen; Maija Leino

Addresses: Tampere University of Technology (TUT), Korkeakoulunkatu 8, FIN-33101, Tampere, Finland ' Tampere University of Technology (TUT), Korkeakoulunkatu 8, FIN-33101, Tampere, Finland ' ZEF Solutions Oy, Keilasatama 5, FIN-02150 Espoo, Finland

Abstract: The aim of this research is to explore social media and its benefits and impacts especially from Business-to-Business (B2B) innovation and customer interface perspective, and to create a more comprehensive picture of the possibilities of the social media for the B2B sector. The B2B context is in many ways a very different environment for social media than Business-to-Consumer (B2C) context, and is still very little academically studied. A systematic literature review on B2B use of social media and achieved benefits and impacts in the innovation context was performed to answer the questions above and achieve the research goals. The study clearly demonstrates that not merely B2Cs, as commonly believed, but also B2Bs can benefit from involving customers in innovation by social media in a variety of ways. The reported benefits of social media use referred broadly to increased customer focus and understanding, increased level of customer service and decreased time-to-market.

Keywords: social media; web 2.0; B2B innovation; business-to-business; benefits; impacts; customer interface; co-creation; customer relationships; customer focus; customer understanding; customer service; time-to-market.

DOI: 10.1504/IJAMC.2013.053671

International Journal of Advanced Media and Communication, 2013 Vol.5 No.1, pp.4 - 18

Published online: 02 Sep 2013 *

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