From Social to Sale

Why This Study Matters

• Firms have rapidly increased social media investment
• Managers still struggle to quantify social media returns
• Key strategic question:
  • Does firm-generated content (FGC) create measurable customer value beyond other media?

Research Questions and Contribution

• Does FGC improve customer purchase outcomes?
• Does FGC interact with:
  • television advertising
  • e-mail marketing
• Which customer segments respond most strongly?

Core contribution: Causal evidence connecting social media communication to customer-level behavioral outcomes.

Conceptual Framework

• Main path: FGC -> customer spending and cross-buying
• Moderation by customer traits:
  • relationship length
  • tech savviness
  • social network proneness
• Cross-media effects:
  • FGC x TV advertising
  • FGC x e-mail marketing

Data and Empirical Setting

• Large specialty retailer (wine and spirits)
• Multi-source customer-level dataset:
  • social media participation data
  • in-store transaction data
  • attitudinal survey data
• Behavioral outcomes examined:
  • spending
  • cross-buying
  • profitability

Identification Strategy

• Challenge: self-selection into social media participation
• Solution: Propensity Score Matching + Difference-in-Differences
• Rich FGC measurement includes:
  • FGC valence (sentiment)
  • FGC receptivity (customer response)
  • customer susceptibility to FGC

Main Findings

• FGC has a positive and significant effect on customer spending
• FGC has a positive and significant effect on cross-buying
• FGC is also positively associated with customer profitability
• Results hold after controlling for TV and e-mail effects

Synergy and Heterogeneity Results

• FGC works synergistically with both TV and e-mail marketing
• Synergy with e-mail is stronger than synergy with TV
• Stronger FGC effects for customers who are:
  • more experienced with the firm
  • more tech-savvy
  • more social media-prone

Managerial Implications

• Social media should be managed as an integrated communication channel
• FGC should complement—not replace—TV and e-mail
• Priority levers for stronger returns:
  • increase FGC receptivity
  • target segments with higher digital affinity
  • align social content with CRM objectives

Limitations and Future Research

• Context is one focal retailer and one category setting
• Further evidence needed across industries and platforms
• Future work can examine:
  • content design and cadence optimization
  • long-term customer value pathways
  • channel allocation under dynamic budgets

Citation: Kumar, A., Bezawada, R., Rishika, R., Janakiraman, R., & Kannan, P.K. (2016). Journal of Marketing, 80(1), 7-25. https://doi.org/10.1509/jm.14.0249