Revolution in Sales: The Impact of Social Media and Related Technology on the Selling Environment

Revolution in Sales: The Impact of Social Media and Related

Technology on the Selling Environment

One of the main events in 2012 was the initial public offering of Facebook. Like Groupon with its IPO in 2011, Facebook is now a publicly traded company. Due to those events, Greg W. Marshall, William C. Moncrief, John M. Rudd, and Nick Lee came out with this article about the effect of social media and new technologies on sales in various industries.

This article is very important in today context, because it gives an explanation on the effectiveness of new technologies and social media on today sales and business environment. Indeed, many people are still not sure about whether or not companies like Facebook and Groupon can play a crucial role in the in development and increase of sales. Due to the limited data that we have about the success of social media on sales, this article will be necessary to further our knowledge of the new age of sales.

The authors predict that social media and new technologies will be beneficial for sales. Therefore, in order to perform a realistic research, the authors use “four groups of focus representing diverse industries from the United States and the United Kingdom, because by 2011 sales truly had become a global enterprise” (Journal of Personal Selling & Management p.349). According to the authors, the results will be classified under “six major themes: connectivity, relationships, selling tools, generational, global, and sales/ marketing interface” (Journal of Personal Selling & Management p.349).

Basically, after reviewing the result of the study, the authors showed that social media technologies play a crucial part in the new era of sales. Nowadays, most people have access to the internet through computers, and it is even easier with the creation of powerful smart phones and tablets such the iPhones and iPads. Most smart phones have apps that will let the customers interact with the vendors. Apps and other internet applications will allow the customer to have more information about the product and services that they are looking for. Also, everything is running in “real time” (Journal of Personal Selling & Management p.358). With all the information floating around, sales people have to be in working mode all the time, which will “have a high likelihood of leading to stress, burnout, increased turnover, and ultimately a significant drop in productivity. Then, customers will be negatively affected and lost” (Journal of Personal Selling & Management p.358). Even though, social media and new technologies favor the increase in sales, it is most of the time not fully implemented but the older generation of salesmen due to their lack of new technology knowledge and utilization. However, the younger generations, which grew up with computers and internet, are embracing the blooming of the social media and new technologies in the sales environment.

This article has very important implications for managers. Indeed, it tells managers that the future of sales is in the booming new technologies. Managers must adapt themselves to the new era, and must learn those new tools as part of their sales strategies. The article also clearly defines that new technologies have negative side effects that managers need know about, and they must find a way to alleviate the negative effects in order to be successful.

References:

Greg W. Marshall, William C. Moncrief, John M. Rudd, and Nick Lee

Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, vol. XXXII, no. 3 (summer 2012), pp. 349–363.

© 2012 PSE National Educational Foundation. All rights reserved. Permissions: www.copyright.com

ISSN 0885–3134 (print) / ISSN 1557–7813 (online)

DOI: 10.2753/PSS0885-3134320305