The role of Social Media on Sales strategy : A Conceptual Explication in a High-context Culture

Abstract

People’s behaviours are shaped by their cultural values as much as it also influences the definition of friendship building and sustenance. Low-context cultures as marked with independent lifestyle, loosed family units and communication patterns are often characterized by fewer words. On the other hand, high-context cultures are markedly different. These cultures are characterized with high closed family units, high level of social cohesion and social identity. To achieve effective communication, it is important to understand the differences in the two cultural contexts especially when such communication is directed at the global marketplace. Interestingly, some technological innovations usually operate according to the cultural orientation of the innovators. The use of Twitter as a social media platform for instance has generated controversies. While often criticized by most users in the high-context culture as not providing enough space for the elaboration of the communication context, most in the low-context cultures see it as one of the best social media handles because of limited provision for text space, thus leading to succinctness of communication. Using a conceptual approach, the objective of this study is to provide effective communication means through which sales personnel can achieve sales strategy using social media platforms in a high-context culture. Relying on social identity theory, the study found that sales reps can creatively use social media to drive the five sales strategies: relationship strategy, product/service strategy, customer/communications strategy and price strategy.