Table A2 Illustrative quotes from...

Table A2

Illustrative quotes from interviews

Illustrative quotes	Aggregate dimension
Bombing/spamming	Cold social media messages
I5: “I use the term “spam” since we could be reached by any type of message. I mean…we are literally bombarded daily by multiple requests, so it is not always easy to keep up your job assignments if you have to reply to fifteen requests from new suppliers instead of two per week like it was in the past”
I2: “It will take too much time to go through all the messages. I don’t have the time to do so”
I21: “We can say that I get bombarded a lot with different approaches, of course. Some sellers just ask for your connection without sending any type of message attached to it, while others, most of them actually, write something in attachment. Someone is very pressing”
I17: “It is difficult to really harness the power of these social media in finding new opportunities since we are swamped with a lot of requests regarding the same service. Then, in the end, they get all mixed up, and even the ones that could be interesting, get lost in the mass”
Non-personalized contact message
I7: “They send you standard messages because by carrying out a first search, they understand which products they can offer to you. However, it often happens that they also offer products we do not deal with. It’s not just about products I do not deal with, it’s that the company itself has not these products in the catalog”
I11: “They are doing it randomly or maybe they look for the name of the company and maybe they find me … It often happens to receive contact requests for electronic components I do not deal with. This is weird as it is clearly written on LinkedIn what I deal with and what I do not deal with. These requests are not personalized”
I22: “I perceive they send it randomly without studying your profile or even your company since I am not clearly the right recipient for their requests. It isn’t relevant content for me, it is not useful”
I25: “70% of salespeople from abroad, especially from Asia, insist in chasing the one-to-one relationship at all costs, even if you are not the right person. If you don’t answer or you tell them they’re not your target, and they still keep asking for a talk or showing the tool, they are stalker”
Customers’ attitude toward social media messages
I11: “I don’t even answer them [standardized messages], because it’s not interesting for our business”
I10: “Being personalized messages, I understand that someone has spent time to craft them and studied my profile. Therefore, it feels right to be respectful and answer them back properly”
I18: “Standardized messages are less valuable. I'm sorry. Shooting randomly and hoping someone answers you… just does not feel right. As I said, they’re simply not valuable to me”
I5: “If I usually buy personal security devices and you are sending me a purchase proposal for… I don't know… the sheet metal we already make, we easily understand that it is not in our interest. Consequently, that message is discarded as well as the contact who send you that”
II26: “There is a seller from a specific service provider that keeps pressuring me daily with his spamming requests. Honestly, even if their offer is quite interesting for me, I don’t want anything to do with that company”
I11: “Then I usually ask for a full company presentation to send me via email, but a lot of them don’t even reply to me. And that’s it”

Basic activity on social media	Lurking behind the curtains
I13: “Anyone can have a social media profile and write anything by spoiling a space that could instead have been a professional one. LinkedIn was born as a professional social network, now it is full of people who talk nonsense, jokes, and even rudeness. I have a lack of confidence, that’s my feeling”
I11: “95 times out of 100 social media is not interesting. It’s a waste of time. Perhaps, it is the product category I buy, which is really specific and complex. It’s very unlikely that a seller who sells exactly what I need in a given moment would reach me on social media”
I18: “I have a LinkedIn profile, but I do not use it this much and therefore my network is also quite limited. I believe it is perhaps useful to look for new jobs. … I don't have many followers, so I know who can see my profile, but I think we do not need to communicate everything. It’s okay to do it to a certain extent”
I12: “The use of social media is quite limited as the product category and the company’s needs I deal with are very specific. I believe that the more specific the product, the fewer the opportunities these social media can provide”
I15: “I mostly share content that my company posts on its social media profiles. I am the first advocate of the company’s charitable activities, useful initiatives, interesting commercials, or past emotional advertising campaigns. My company’s brand is well-known, so it happens that such content triggers empathy”
I24: “Most of the content I post is linked to the association of professional buyers I belong to, or I tend to post content of the company I work for, whether I’m involved in that specific activity, especially when it comes to my company’s content, or not. Regarding the content published on the association’s profile, I re-share almost everything”
I21: “I very much share my company’s content because I firmly believe in what we do. Especially the one I like the most, but almost everything in general: open job positions, some initiatives, product launches, new commercials, and so on. It’s helpful for both the company and for anyone possibly interested in such content”
I23: “I use social media to be up to date with seminars I may be interested in, activities I can do, and the latest news, and hot topics. …. I’m focused on a branch of international taxation, but there are many other aspects to keep up with. LinkedIn eventually becomes a sort of source of laws. Because there are all these consultants informing about latest news, activities, articles, and use cases”
I17: “Using social media is more keeping up with what’s happening in your professional field, whether it’s other brands, agencies, new media, new tools, or new ideas, rather than following what a specific person is doing unless you also have a direct relationship with this person. Honestly, I do not see social media as a to feasibly close deals”
I19: “Maybe a like? Sharing or commenting is much rarer unless I want to congratulate a friend or a person I know for career advancements or job changes. If I see an interesting project I can comment ‘nice job’ to a person who is close to me, not a supplier”
I14: “I give low importance to comments on social media. I believe comments are drops in the ocean and require more effort than it is worth it. It doesn’t help much. In short, I struggle to find the reason to comment”
I17: “I don’t like following certain pages or discussion groups. I try to avoid that. It’s my mindset because that’s where I see more spam. I don’t want to accept such invitations as it really seems like I’m trawling and including discussions that 90% are not interesting and makes the newsfeed dirty”
I25: “I am a member of many groups linked to my job. Honestly, I don’t find originality in there, but rather other buyers who are somehow waiting for something to happen”
I24: “I joined social media groups about procurement leaders, unfortunately, I found them very chaotic. There is a problem with membership as many buyers oversee indirect purchasing, whereas I’ve always worked with direct purchasing and there is also little discussion on hard and soft skills which are more cross-sectional across job roles. After the early excitement, there has been no value in such groups”
I10: “I joined social media groups related to IT, and, lately to HR because I’m personally interested in such topics. I read a lot, but I do not participate in the debate because certain topics are very complex, and it would take too much time to discuss and measure up to more knowledgeable people”
Fear of information disclosure on social media
I5: “Preferably, a buyer should not follow the supplier’s social media page. Otherwise, if people see that I liked its social media page, they know by default that my company buys from that supplier. This is why I don’t use social media very much. Relationships are the most important thing in our work and should be kept more private”
I14: “I don’t like comments and I don’t think it’s appropriate, especially with suppliers. The buyer-supplier relationship is very delicate, and you must be careful. We must be present, but at the same time detached from our suppliers. Making everything visible on social media, either approaches or ideas, doesn’t always pay off”
I24: “Every post or presentation I make, I get it approved by the company. Even if it is content for the buyer association because if you type my name, the company’s name pops up everywhere. No one has ever told me officially to do so, but I believe it’s a good practice … The lack of a written policy gets me in trouble sometimes because it becomes difficult to know how far I can go. It would be very helpful to have approved guidelines”
Little interest in the salesperson’s social media profile and activity	The relevance of social media in B2B customer networks
I7: “They are doing their job. I know it’s not easy, especially in the last years, when international travel is very limited, and trade fairs are limited. Social media is a tool they can use to expand their business, it’s not annoying as long as you just send a message to me”
I22: “There are few salespeople in my LinkedIn network. There are some salespeople in my network that write, others are not interesting at all. Anyhow, this has never changed my mind about a person, certainly not in a positive way”
I12: “Beyond seeing structured professional profiles on LinkedIn, I like telephone calls, Teams video calls, WhatsApp. When you can talk to someone, understanding his or her skills and abilities takes five, or ten minutes. Then, if the supplier company handles products that match my needs, we can start a business relationship. It’s all about my experience. I trust talking to people and my gut feeling rather than social media profiles which can be easily sweetened. In your professional profile, you can write anything you want. I don’t trust it”
I5: “I’m almost zero interested in the salesperson’s profile. Of course, it’s a salesperson who reaches out to me but bear in mind that a Chinese changes his or her name once a month on average. Moreover, they are often false names because they use European names to be closer to our culture. The seller’s profile is actually what interests me the least”
I17: “I hardly ever check salespeople’s profiles and I certainly don’t do it on purpose. They may appear in the news feed, but, honestly, I rarely pay attention, unless they communicate an activity carried out by one of my competitors or by a distributor or a retailer I work with. It’s always the news that may catch my attention, not so much how it is crafted or even who posted it. I don’t even notice who posts and find it difficult to link content to a salesperson, a supplier, or another page”
I10: “Except for a few salespeople, the trend is to re-share what the company has published. This is more or less the trend: salespeople simply reposting what the company provides”
Existing relationships exceed social media in suppliers’ selection
I16: “Sometimes it happens that I see things, products, for instance on Instagram, and then start a search on Google and ask for a financial analysis of the company. For example, we wanted to realize photo puzzles and we started with a search on Facebook and Instagram”
I21: “I used to oversee scouting new suppliers, and even more so, I used LinkedIn to get in touch with new suppliers. Especially with international suppliers, whereas with national ones was less frequent. I can use LinkedIn either to sift through incoming contact requests or to actively look for companies”
I20: “In general, we mostly have a strategic relationship with suppliers who have been working with us for more than twenty years. So, we organize tenders for contracting and price negotiation in which we include current suppliers and potential new ones. Then, we decide with whom to proceed based on the quotations, knowledge of the supplier, and other criteria. Yet, we tend to be quite conservative, hence 90% of the volumes generally go to existing suppliers, 10% to new suppliers”
I13: “We rely more on word of mouth. I’m currently looking for new suppliers with certain characteristics for our next beachwear collection and my first search channel is asking for company names to our fabric suppliers … Even though the final assessment is up to us, we mostly rely on the long list of names they provide”
I22: “A colleague of mine told me: ‘Try to reach out to [company Alpha] if you want to buy this type of equipment, I know a guy who works for them, maybe they can be right for you.’ It was indeed an interesting recommendation, so we reached out to that company and started a business relationship”
I15: “We turn to our market peers. If we need to buy a tool that we are not familiar with, perhaps we first ask similar companies in terms of size and characteristics. Or, if we have good relationships, we can also ask our competitors”
I5: “We have a Chinese partner of ours who can help us when searching for suppliers. She keeps abreast of the situation in China and has a clear idea of the current scenario, because she knows the industry, she is in touch with local chambers of commerce, and can seize the ongoing situation of a company or another, if a company is reliable or not, better than us who are thousands of kilometers away. It’s one thing to look at the website, and talk via email, WeChat, and Skype, another thing to be physically there and understand the reality. This partner in China is pivotal”
Future social media scenario: inventory of suppliers
I25: “I hope that these social media will also become a sort of container to compare offers faster and speed up the search process. They should be cleaned up of all the fake to be able to go directly to what interests me. It may be sad to say, but they can be used even trivially how it is used an Amazon-type catalog and say ‘look, I worked very well with this supplier, I'll give you my star’. Social media turning into a catalog of suppliers of different categories can be a business and a very, very near future”
I21: “What’s missing is something user-friendly and standardized to exchange basic information between suppliers and customers. Customers and suppliers need to register on twenty different websites. How nice it would be if LinkedIn had a portal to collect basic company-related information like VAT number, International Bank Account Number, address, certifications, company profile, and so forth. How nice it would be if LinkedIn hosted all this information to be directly downloaded from there”
I14: “We need a platform specifically designed for the buying world, which is significantly different from everything that is marketing and sales and much more specific on purchasing. This kind of social media that we have doesn’t work for the buying side unless you turn it into something specific where we can talk about issues that matter to us. Just then you’d raise the level of conversations”
Engagement with valuable content	The role of social media content in the buyer–seller relationship
I25: “However, the salesperson who comments on a study by KPMG does not speak directly about his work, but it is something interesting for both of us, so I can like this content or share it”
I10: “When someone is good at both writing and explaining, I’m willing to follow his activity and nowadays, compared to the past, I’m starting to interact a lot more. Mainly likes or reposts. I’m a little bit shy when it comes to comments because conveying emotions in writing it’s harder than in speech. It can turn out to be quite the opposite. So, I’m very careful in this because I don't want to raise chaos. When the topic is particularly interesting to me and I have a relationship with that person, I can contact him directly and maybe ask for some additional information”
I26: “I’m not used to liking and commenting on LinkedIn posts of suppliers that are factories producing t-shirts or shoes, but if it comes to consultancy services and other types of service providers, yes”
Valuable content types and format
I8: “In this fast-changing world, I value content related to major shifts in the realm of digital marketing. I want my team to deal with such kind of news. So, I appreciate partners who are always up to date with all these changes and whom I can rely on to keep abreast with recent trends”
I10: “I may be slightly more interested if a salesperson writes an article on an industry-related topic and this is a hook to his or her company’s services. At least it makes me think he or she is passionate about the work, and I appreciate this commitment because it means that person is well-informed on what he or she is talking about”
I25: “If a personal profile must talk about or offer something, I’d prefer something very close to my needs. I mean not crafting a post for everyone but being more specific. Choosing a topic and then elaborate more on that topic with specific examples from his or her company”
I20: “What we know from LinkedIn is always puppies and rainbows. We also experience it with our projects. When they publish the case history it always looks like a success. Maybe it was, but there were also some struggles. It would be helpful to actually talk to the customer to understand more deeply”
I14: “I value suppliers which can show a customer base specialized in sport or customer brands that require a particular level of social responsibility because it means that supplier is in the know on specific issues. Knowing the brands they work with is a good business card to me … Yet, inside of me, I wish they wouldn’t show me the items in the competitor’s collections. This is a problem for me because it tells me that they could do the same with my company”
I24: “Above all, I believe it’s interesting if salespeople share a view of new products and underline the competencies of the company they work for, even if the organization is part of a particular industry association, or has received awards. In that way, one can reach out to them when they need to develop something that fits their expertise”
I5 “I value, and I think it’s good when they share content personally on my WeChat. I’m happy to hear from them. For instance, I was purchasing a high-cost machinery, it was very useful that the salesperson shared a video on each production step, showing how they worked on the various components, the set-up phase, and the final start-up test. This also represents a guarantee that his company worked hard and has done everything possible to succeed in the purchasing process. The opposite happens with suppliers who never write to me and maybe they are also late with production or can’t deliver the goods, but I don’t even get an update from them”
I8: “Perhaps due to the ever-increasing lack of time in viewing content, I prefer more immediate content, such as infographics or short videos able to sum up the main themes in thirty seconds, together with written content able to better address certain topics”
I2: “When the topic is interesting, I like written content, which I can explore further in detail when I have a little more time, especially when it comes to very long texts. I also happen to see photos or videos. In this case, it’s much more immediate and you can dwell on it even by quickly scrolling through the feed”
I24: “I prefer articles or images. I’m doubtful about e-books due to intellectual property. You cannot take it for granted that a document on LinkedIn is a free document. So, I tend to avoid reposting e-books. The video is an x, I don’t fancy video, it’s a too-long format for LinkedIn, or they have to be very short videos. You use the LinkedIn app while you’re waiting for a meeting or five minutes into your coffee break. You use LinkedIn for work and at work. Anything that can trigger audio while you’re working is difficult to use”
Opinion about the salesperson mostly outside of social media
I26: “A professional approach in sales means clarity of the communication, clarity, and simplicity of the offer”
I5: “Obviously my relationship with salespeople develops over time based on facts. If he and his company can keep the promises. Be honest and the relationship works better. You tell me that your company can make and guarantee this quantity in a month, at a given price and if there are problems, then we sort them out together. A relationship with a salesperson and a company that does not keep promises cannot work. You can assess this only over time”
I7: “I prefer salespeople who are fast. If I can buy a product from two companies that have the same level of quality and price, I choose whoever is more reactive, and more immediate, so I don’t waste time waiting for an order confirmation, a document, or a certification. I prefer the responsiveness and quick communications”
I16: “The salesperson must know how to talk about technical things. I ask very technical questions because I delve into each new product to understand what the critical issues may be. So, they must give me some technical answers. When they just tell me ‘no problem’, there I start to worry a lot”
I21: “A professional approach is important in negotiations. Let’s say I don’t like an open-air market-like negotiation, that’s a bit bygone. Of course, there is always a bit of it in negotiations”
I14: “It may happen that over the years you develop together increasingly complex products, or the supplier’s salesperson helps you when you are in trouble. This creates a stronger relationship. We had troubles during the pandemic and our suppliers supported us as we did with our Chinese suppliers the year before. For example, they supported us by giving payments deferments or by not applying source charges”

Use of instant messaging apps and video conference tools	Use of social media and digital channels in one-to-one daily interaction
I5: “WeChat, Skype, or Teams for making video calls are essential for everyday activities, also for having an exchange of views and understanding what the situation is. Although Chinese salespeople I work with prefer to use WeChat or WhatsApp rather than making video calls because they struggle a bit in speaking English, so they much prefer writing”
I26: “WhatsApp is beneficial for various reasons. I use it only with Italians and, in general, only with people I have a long-standing relationship with. I use it for important and even sensitive reminders, to get faster answers. They don’t reply to your e-mail, you send the WhatsApp and they know it’s urgent stuff because I’m writing to them rather than another person with whom they have less contact”
I17: “WhatsApp replaced the telephone. It is social media, but it cannot be compared to LinkedIn to manage the well-established one-to-one business relationships. On WhatsApp, a relationship is a real personal one, your phone number is even more personal than email”
I12: “I use WhatsApp in a social way, meaning that it’s useful to build human relationships, as it is not always easy to connect with people from different cultures. So, using WhatsApp and its features, such as using emoticons, has certainly helped to strengthen relationships and increase trust, not only professionally but personally”
I16: “WhatsApp can be a nightmare. Nowadays real-time response is increasingly demanded, and WhatsApp is the way to have it. I can’t find you on the phone or I don’t have time, I’ll send you a WhatsApp. As long as they are written messages it can be fine, but vocals 24/7 can be annoying”
Use of emails
I8: “There is a request for a phone call or video call to which I generally answer saying I’m busy. Then, I’ll leave my email to just get some content, to better understand what it’s about. Of course, they would prefer to have direct contact, but they accept to send presentations by email”
I7: “I prefer email for more important communications because the information is archived in a more correct way … first attachments are archived on my computer and the e-mail is available to other colleagues, while WeChat is a personal profile. If I’ll quit the company in the future, I leave the computer to a replacement who will have all the suppliers’ emails, instead, communications on WeChat would be lost because it is my channel”
I18: “I like emails to keep a little more formal conversation. You send me the offer via email, you don’t write it on WhatsApp. … I prefer to hold commercial negotiations via email, which is indeed the official corporate communication channel with the address @azienda.com. Also, if there are problems, I’ll get back to the email. It is more convenient than going back to the WhatsApp conversation”

Illustrative quotes	Aggregate dimension
Bombing/spamming	Cold social media messages
I5: “I use the term “spam” since we could be reached by any type of message. I mean…we are literally bombarded daily by multiple requests, so it is not always easy to keep up your job assignments if you have to reply to fifteen requests from new suppliers instead of two per week like it was in the past”
I2: “It will take too much time to go through all the messages. I don’t have the time to do so”
I21: “We can say that I get bombarded a lot with different approaches, of course. Some sellers just ask for your connection without sending any type of message attached to it, while others, most of them actually, write something in attachment. Someone is very pressing”
I17: “It is difficult to really harness the power of these social media in finding new opportunities since we are swamped with a lot of requests regarding the same service. Then, in the end, they get all mixed up, and even the ones that could be interesting, get lost in the mass”
Non-personalized contact message
I7: “They send you standard messages because by carrying out a first search, they understand which products they can offer to you. However, it often happens that they also offer products we do not deal with. It’s not just about products I do not deal with, it’s that the company itself has not these products in the catalog”
I11: “They are doing it randomly or maybe they look for the name of the company and maybe they find me … It often happens to receive contact requests for electronic components I do not deal with. This is weird as it is clearly written on LinkedIn what I deal with and what I do not deal with. These requests are not personalized”
I22: “I perceive they send it randomly without studying your profile or even your company since I am not clearly the right recipient for their requests. It isn’t relevant content for me, it is not useful”
I25: “70% of salespeople from abroad, especially from Asia, insist in chasing the one-to-one relationship at all costs, even if you are not the right person. If you don’t answer or you tell them they’re not your target, and they still keep asking for a talk or showing the tool, they are stalker”
Customers’ attitude toward social media messages
I11: “I don’t even answer them [standardized messages], because it’s not interesting for our business”
I10: “Being personalized messages, I understand that someone has spent time to craft them and studied my profile. Therefore, it feels right to be respectful and answer them back properly”
I18: “Standardized messages are less valuable. I'm sorry. Shooting randomly and hoping someone answers you… just does not feel right. As I said, they’re simply not valuable to me”
I5: “If I usually buy personal security devices and you are sending me a purchase proposal for… I don't know… the sheet metal we already make, we easily understand that it is not in our interest. Consequently, that message is discarded as well as the contact who send you that”
II26: “There is a seller from a specific service provider that keeps pressuring me daily with his spamming requests. Honestly, even if their offer is quite interesting for me, I don’t want anything to do with that company”
I11: “Then I usually ask for a full company presentation to send me via email, but a lot of them don’t even reply to me. And that’s it”

Basic activity on social media	Lurking behind the curtains
I13: “Anyone can have a social media profile and write anything by spoiling a space that could instead have been a professional one. LinkedIn was born as a professional social network, now it is full of people who talk nonsense, jokes, and even rudeness. I have a lack of confidence, that’s my feeling”
I11: “95 times out of 100 social media is not interesting. It’s a waste of time. Perhaps, it is the product category I buy, which is really specific and complex. It’s very unlikely that a seller who sells exactly what I need in a given moment would reach me on social media”
I18: “I have a LinkedIn profile, but I do not use it this much and therefore my network is also quite limited. I believe it is perhaps useful to look for new jobs. … I don't have many followers, so I know who can see my profile, but I think we do not need to communicate everything. It’s okay to do it to a certain extent”
I12: “The use of social media is quite limited as the product category and the company’s needs I deal with are very specific. I believe that the more specific the product, the fewer the opportunities these social media can provide”
I15: “I mostly share content that my company posts on its social media profiles. I am the first advocate of the company’s charitable activities, useful initiatives, interesting commercials, or past emotional advertising campaigns. My company’s brand is well-known, so it happens that such content triggers empathy”
I24: “Most of the content I post is linked to the association of professional buyers I belong to, or I tend to post content of the company I work for, whether I’m involved in that specific activity, especially when it comes to my company’s content, or not. Regarding the content published on the association’s profile, I re-share almost everything”
I21: “I very much share my company’s content because I firmly believe in what we do. Especially the one I like the most, but almost everything in general: open job positions, some initiatives, product launches, new commercials, and so on. It’s helpful for both the company and for anyone possibly interested in such content”
I23: “I use social media to be up to date with seminars I may be interested in, activities I can do, and the latest news, and hot topics. …. I’m focused on a branch of international taxation, but there are many other aspects to keep up with. LinkedIn eventually becomes a sort of source of laws. Because there are all these consultants informing about latest news, activities, articles, and use cases”
I17: “Using social media is more keeping up with what’s happening in your professional field, whether it’s other brands, agencies, new media, new tools, or new ideas, rather than following what a specific person is doing unless you also have a direct relationship with this person. Honestly, I do not see social media as a to feasibly close deals”
I19: “Maybe a like? Sharing or commenting is much rarer unless I want to congratulate a friend or a person I know for career advancements or job changes. If I see an interesting project I can comment ‘nice job’ to a person who is close to me, not a supplier”
I14: “I give low importance to comments on social media. I believe comments are drops in the ocean and require more effort than it is worth it. It doesn’t help much. In short, I struggle to find the reason to comment”
I17: “I don’t like following certain pages or discussion groups. I try to avoid that. It’s my mindset because that’s where I see more spam. I don’t want to accept such invitations as it really seems like I’m trawling and including discussions that 90% are not interesting and makes the newsfeed dirty”
I25: “I am a member of many groups linked to my job. Honestly, I don’t find originality in there, but rather other buyers who are somehow waiting for something to happen”
I24: “I joined social media groups about procurement leaders, unfortunately, I found them very chaotic. There is a problem with membership as many buyers oversee indirect purchasing, whereas I’ve always worked with direct purchasing and there is also little discussion on hard and soft skills which are more cross-sectional across job roles. After the early excitement, there has been no value in such groups”
I10: “I joined social media groups related to IT, and, lately to HR because I’m personally interested in such topics. I read a lot, but I do not participate in the debate because certain topics are very complex, and it would take too much time to discuss and measure up to more knowledgeable people”
Fear of information disclosure on social media
I5: “Preferably, a buyer should not follow the supplier’s social media page. Otherwise, if people see that I liked its social media page, they know by default that my company buys from that supplier. This is why I don’t use social media very much. Relationships are the most important thing in our work and should be kept more private”
I14: “I don’t like comments and I don’t think it’s appropriate, especially with suppliers. The buyer-supplier relationship is very delicate, and you must be careful. We must be present, but at the same time detached from our suppliers. Making everything visible on social media, either approaches or ideas, doesn’t always pay off”
I24: “Every post or presentation I make, I get it approved by the company. Even if it is content for the buyer association because if you type my name, the company’s name pops up everywhere. No one has ever told me officially to do so, but I believe it’s a good practice … The lack of a written policy gets me in trouble sometimes because it becomes difficult to know how far I can go. It would be very helpful to have approved guidelines”
Little interest in the salesperson’s social media profile and activity	The relevance of social media in B2B customer networks
I7: “They are doing their job. I know it’s not easy, especially in the last years, when international travel is very limited, and trade fairs are limited. Social media is a tool they can use to expand their business, it’s not annoying as long as you just send a message to me”
I22: “There are few salespeople in my LinkedIn network. There are some salespeople in my network that write, others are not interesting at all. Anyhow, this has never changed my mind about a person, certainly not in a positive way”
I12: “Beyond seeing structured professional profiles on LinkedIn, I like telephone calls, Teams video calls, WhatsApp. When you can talk to someone, understanding his or her skills and abilities takes five, or ten minutes. Then, if the supplier company handles products that match my needs, we can start a business relationship. It’s all about my experience. I trust talking to people and my gut feeling rather than social media profiles which can be easily sweetened. In your professional profile, you can write anything you want. I don’t trust it”
I5: “I’m almost zero interested in the salesperson’s profile. Of course, it’s a salesperson who reaches out to me but bear in mind that a Chinese changes his or her name once a month on average. Moreover, they are often false names because they use European names to be closer to our culture. The seller’s profile is actually what interests me the least”
I17: “I hardly ever check salespeople’s profiles and I certainly don’t do it on purpose. They may appear in the news feed, but, honestly, I rarely pay attention, unless they communicate an activity carried out by one of my competitors or by a distributor or a retailer I work with. It’s always the news that may catch my attention, not so much how it is crafted or even who posted it. I don’t even notice who posts and find it difficult to link content to a salesperson, a supplier, or another page”
I10: “Except for a few salespeople, the trend is to re-share what the company has published. This is more or less the trend: salespeople simply reposting what the company provides”
Existing relationships exceed social media in suppliers’ selection
I16: “Sometimes it happens that I see things, products, for instance on Instagram, and then start a search on Google and ask for a financial analysis of the company. For example, we wanted to realize photo puzzles and we started with a search on Facebook and Instagram”
I21: “I used to oversee scouting new suppliers, and even more so, I used LinkedIn to get in touch with new suppliers. Especially with international suppliers, whereas with national ones was less frequent. I can use LinkedIn either to sift through incoming contact requests or to actively look for companies”
I20: “In general, we mostly have a strategic relationship with suppliers who have been working with us for more than twenty years. So, we organize tenders for contracting and price negotiation in which we include current suppliers and potential new ones. Then, we decide with whom to proceed based on the quotations, knowledge of the supplier, and other criteria. Yet, we tend to be quite conservative, hence 90% of the volumes generally go to existing suppliers, 10% to new suppliers”
I13: “We rely more on word of mouth. I’m currently looking for new suppliers with certain characteristics for our next beachwear collection and my first search channel is asking for company names to our fabric suppliers … Even though the final assessment is up to us, we mostly rely on the long list of names they provide”
I22: “A colleague of mine told me: ‘Try to reach out to [company Alpha] if you want to buy this type of equipment, I know a guy who works for them, maybe they can be right for you.’ It was indeed an interesting recommendation, so we reached out to that company and started a business relationship”
I15: “We turn to our market peers. If we need to buy a tool that we are not familiar with, perhaps we first ask similar companies in terms of size and characteristics. Or, if we have good relationships, we can also ask our competitors”
I5: “We have a Chinese partner of ours who can help us when searching for suppliers. She keeps abreast of the situation in China and has a clear idea of the current scenario, because she knows the industry, she is in touch with local chambers of commerce, and can seize the ongoing situation of a company or another, if a company is reliable or not, better than us who are thousands of kilometers away. It’s one thing to look at the website, and talk via email, WeChat, and Skype, another thing to be physically there and understand the reality. This partner in China is pivotal”
Future social media scenario: inventory of suppliers
I25: “I hope that these social media will also become a sort of container to compare offers faster and speed up the search process. They should be cleaned up of all the fake to be able to go directly to what interests me. It may be sad to say, but they can be used even trivially how it is used an Amazon-type catalog and say ‘look, I worked very well with this supplier, I'll give you my star’. Social media turning into a catalog of suppliers of different categories can be a business and a very, very near future”
I21: “What’s missing is something user-friendly and standardized to exchange basic information between suppliers and customers. Customers and suppliers need to register on twenty different websites. How nice it would be if LinkedIn had a portal to collect basic company-related information like VAT number, International Bank Account Number, address, certifications, company profile, and so forth. How nice it would be if LinkedIn hosted all this information to be directly downloaded from there”
I14: “We need a platform specifically designed for the buying world, which is significantly different from everything that is marketing and sales and much more specific on purchasing. This kind of social media that we have doesn’t work for the buying side unless you turn it into something specific where we can talk about issues that matter to us. Just then you’d raise the level of conversations”
Engagement with valuable content	The role of social media content in the buyer–seller relationship
I25: “However, the salesperson who comments on a study by KPMG does not speak directly about his work, but it is something interesting for both of us, so I can like this content or share it”
I10: “When someone is good at both writing and explaining, I’m willing to follow his activity and nowadays, compared to the past, I’m starting to interact a lot more. Mainly likes or reposts. I’m a little bit shy when it comes to comments because conveying emotions in writing it’s harder than in speech. It can turn out to be quite the opposite. So, I’m very careful in this because I don't want to raise chaos. When the topic is particularly interesting to me and I have a relationship with that person, I can contact him directly and maybe ask for some additional information”
I26: “I’m not used to liking and commenting on LinkedIn posts of suppliers that are factories producing t-shirts or shoes, but if it comes to consultancy services and other types of service providers, yes”
Valuable content types and format
I8: “In this fast-changing world, I value content related to major shifts in the realm of digital marketing. I want my team to deal with such kind of news. So, I appreciate partners who are always up to date with all these changes and whom I can rely on to keep abreast with recent trends”
I10: “I may be slightly more interested if a salesperson writes an article on an industry-related topic and this is a hook to his or her company’s services. At least it makes me think he or she is passionate about the work, and I appreciate this commitment because it means that person is well-informed on what he or she is talking about”
I25: “If a personal profile must talk about or offer something, I’d prefer something very close to my needs. I mean not crafting a post for everyone but being more specific. Choosing a topic and then elaborate more on that topic with specific examples from his or her company”
I20: “What we know from LinkedIn is always puppies and rainbows. We also experience it with our projects. When they publish the case history it always looks like a success. Maybe it was, but there were also some struggles. It would be helpful to actually talk to the customer to understand more deeply”
I14: “I value suppliers which can show a customer base specialized in sport or customer brands that require a particular level of social responsibility because it means that supplier is in the know on specific issues. Knowing the brands they work with is a good business card to me … Yet, inside of me, I wish they wouldn’t show me the items in the competitor’s collections. This is a problem for me because it tells me that they could do the same with my company”
I24: “Above all, I believe it’s interesting if salespeople share a view of new products and underline the competencies of the company they work for, even if the organization is part of a particular industry association, or has received awards. In that way, one can reach out to them when they need to develop something that fits their expertise”
I5 “I value, and I think it’s good when they share content personally on my WeChat. I’m happy to hear from them. For instance, I was purchasing a high-cost machinery, it was very useful that the salesperson shared a video on each production step, showing how they worked on the various components, the set-up phase, and the final start-up test. This also represents a guarantee that his company worked hard and has done everything possible to succeed in the purchasing process. The opposite happens with suppliers who never write to me and maybe they are also late with production or can’t deliver the goods, but I don’t even get an update from them”
I8: “Perhaps due to the ever-increasing lack of time in viewing content, I prefer more immediate content, such as infographics or short videos able to sum up the main themes in thirty seconds, together with written content able to better address certain topics”
I2: “When the topic is interesting, I like written content, which I can explore further in detail when I have a little more time, especially when it comes to very long texts. I also happen to see photos or videos. In this case, it’s much more immediate and you can dwell on it even by quickly scrolling through the feed”
I24: “I prefer articles or images. I’m doubtful about e-books due to intellectual property. You cannot take it for granted that a document on LinkedIn is a free document. So, I tend to avoid reposting e-books. The video is an x, I don’t fancy video, it’s a too-long format for LinkedIn, or they have to be very short videos. You use the LinkedIn app while you’re waiting for a meeting or five minutes into your coffee break. You use LinkedIn for work and at work. Anything that can trigger audio while you’re working is difficult to use”
Opinion about the salesperson mostly outside of social media
I26: “A professional approach in sales means clarity of the communication, clarity, and simplicity of the offer”
I5: “Obviously my relationship with salespeople develops over time based on facts. If he and his company can keep the promises. Be honest and the relationship works better. You tell me that your company can make and guarantee this quantity in a month, at a given price and if there are problems, then we sort them out together. A relationship with a salesperson and a company that does not keep promises cannot work. You can assess this only over time”
I7: “I prefer salespeople who are fast. If I can buy a product from two companies that have the same level of quality and price, I choose whoever is more reactive, and more immediate, so I don’t waste time waiting for an order confirmation, a document, or a certification. I prefer the responsiveness and quick communications”
I16: “The salesperson must know how to talk about technical things. I ask very technical questions because I delve into each new product to understand what the critical issues may be. So, they must give me some technical answers. When they just tell me ‘no problem’, there I start to worry a lot”
I21: “A professional approach is important in negotiations. Let’s say I don’t like an open-air market-like negotiation, that’s a bit bygone. Of course, there is always a bit of it in negotiations”
I14: “It may happen that over the years you develop together increasingly complex products, or the supplier’s salesperson helps you when you are in trouble. This creates a stronger relationship. We had troubles during the pandemic and our suppliers supported us as we did with our Chinese suppliers the year before. For example, they supported us by giving payments deferments or by not applying source charges”

Use of instant messaging apps and video conference tools	Use of social media and digital channels in one-to-one daily interaction
I5: “WeChat, Skype, or Teams for making video calls are essential for everyday activities, also for having an exchange of views and understanding what the situation is. Although Chinese salespeople I work with prefer to use WeChat or WhatsApp rather than making video calls because they struggle a bit in speaking English, so they much prefer writing”
I26: “WhatsApp is beneficial for various reasons. I use it only with Italians and, in general, only with people I have a long-standing relationship with. I use it for important and even sensitive reminders, to get faster answers. They don’t reply to your e-mail, you send the WhatsApp and they know it’s urgent stuff because I’m writing to them rather than another person with whom they have less contact”
I17: “WhatsApp replaced the telephone. It is social media, but it cannot be compared to LinkedIn to manage the well-established one-to-one business relationships. On WhatsApp, a relationship is a real personal one, your phone number is even more personal than email”
I12: “I use WhatsApp in a social way, meaning that it’s useful to build human relationships, as it is not always easy to connect with people from different cultures. So, using WhatsApp and its features, such as using emoticons, has certainly helped to strengthen relationships and increase trust, not only professionally but personally”
I16: “WhatsApp can be a nightmare. Nowadays real-time response is increasingly demanded, and WhatsApp is the way to have it. I can’t find you on the phone or I don’t have time, I’ll send you a WhatsApp. As long as they are written messages it can be fine, but vocals 24/7 can be annoying”
Use of emails
I8: “There is a request for a phone call or video call to which I generally answer saying I’m busy. Then, I’ll leave my email to just get some content, to better understand what it’s about. Of course, they would prefer to have direct contact, but they accept to send presentations by email”
I7: “I prefer email for more important communications because the information is archived in a more correct way … first attachments are archived on my computer and the e-mail is available to other colleagues, while WeChat is a personal profile. If I’ll quit the company in the future, I leave the computer to a replacement who will have all the suppliers’ emails, instead, communications on WeChat would be lost because it is my channel”
I18: “I like emails to keep a little more formal conversation. You send me the offer via email, you don’t write it on WhatsApp. … I prefer to hold commercial negotiations via email, which is indeed the official corporate communication channel with the address @azienda.com. Also, if there are problems, I’ll get back to the email. It is more convenient than going back to the WhatsApp conversation”

Source: Authors’ own work

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