In the article “Advancing social media driven sales research: Establishing conceptual foundations

for B-to-B social selling”, the authors Ancillai.C, Terho.H, Cardinali.S, Pascucci. F examine how
social selling approach sales force level’ merging opportunities and challenges. The main
purpose of the article is to conceptualize social selling and explain from different angles.

The article is designed with various research methods, which are systematic literature review
methodology, qualitative field study. From the results of the research, the authors define social
selling and explain the key angles for theoretical and managerial implications.

From previous study, the authors use literature from social selling and social media in B2b selling.
The authors deliberate on the investigation of sisal media platforms usage by sales people, which
only focus on some channels, such as networking platforms and instant messaging applications. The
second point of the authors is to explain the degree of social media use in selling, however, it is
limited. And the last point is to investigate the social selling activities, such as what activities
salespeople normally use social media for. From these understanding, the authors lead readers to the
application of social selling strategy, such as its importances in development and communication for
sales people as well as management; how digital and social channels lead to consumer decision
making process.

As the result, the authors conclude how social selling affects customers and other actors of the
touchpoint chain. Additionally, the strong influences of digital marketing principles on personal
selling practice in B2B markets. Second, the authors point out the gap of social selling research due
to their disconnection and agreement. The third finding is the effectiveness of social selling is
dependent of how salespeople approach customers, which leads to several outcomes, such as selling
performance, selling process efficiency, revenue, customer satisfaction, loyalty. For managerial
point of view, at salesperson level, the authors suggest salespeople to understand customers with
deep insight, under various influential angles. At the organizational level, the authors suggest
strategic opportunity to approach changes of purchasing behaviors in B2B markets with clear
guidance for organizational social selling strategy development.

The strengths of the article are due to the clear stable structure. The authors lead readers from the
understanding of social selling into deep detail of implication for both future research and
managerial point of view. The authors apply various research methods to look for evidences. Each
and every evidence are supported by ideas of many previous researchers.