Date of Completion

Spring 5-4-2014

Thesis Advisor(s)

Dr. Narasimhan Srinivasan

Honors Major

Marketing

Disciplines

Marketing | Sales and Merchandising

Abstract

This project looks at the social media-selling environment and how a “healthy” digital image can assist a firm in identifying itself to create value for new customers. This project will explore whether the B2B sales lead generation process can be conducted as part of a social media strategy and how a digital image affects its performance. The sales landscape has changed: buyers have more power, relationships are based on two-way communication, and customer-centric technologies have enabled users to create, share, and converse about content over the Internet. A “healthy” digital image is based on the attributes of a LinkedIn company page, which added value to the B2B social relationship and prompted buyers to connect with the firm first. In this study we will infer if a social media strategy with an effective strategic goal and budget can convert leads or prospects into loyal followers using the LinkedIn digital image of the UConn School of Business. I shall measure each attribute using a scoring rubric that will sum up to find out whether the overall effect of a digital image positively or negatively affects sales lead generation. In addition, I shall obtain data from Google Analytics, LinkedIn Company Page Analytics, Inquiry Forms collected by the UConn School of Business. Eventually we will be able to correlate results and look at the challenges of my methodology on the part of the firm, social media strategy, and external environmental influences.

Share

COinS