The inclusion of social media as a communication channel in a vendor's B2B digital marketing strategy is growing in importance. Understanding the effect of such practices upon customer relationships is crucial for firms as they increasingly engage in this way. This paper presents and tests a model that explores the effect of vendor social media communication practices upon trust and loyalty in B2B customer relationships. A study using quantitative data from 196 business customers of a United States life sciences firm is reported. The model indicates that trust and loyalty are influenced by a) the social media shared beliefs between the vendor and the customer; b) the nature of the vendor's social media communication with the customer; and c) the extent to which the vendor's social media communication practices enable effective customer-to-customer communication. Trust is found to have a mediating role between these indicators and loyalty. Managerial implications are discussed.

在供应商的B2B数字营销策略中将社交媒体作为沟通渠道的重要性日益提高。随着公司越来越多地采用这种方式，了解这种做法对客户关系的影响至关重要。本文提出并测试了一个模型，该模型探索了供应商社交媒体交流实践对B2B客户关系中信任和忠诚度的影响。据报道，一项使用美国生命科学公司的196名商业客户的定量数据进行的研究。该模型表明信任和忠诚度受以下因素影响：a）社交媒体在卖方和客户之间共享的信念；b）供应商与客户的社交媒体交流的性质；c）卖方在多大程度上 的社交媒体沟通实践可实现有效的客户对客户沟通。人们发现，信任在这些指标和忠诚度之间起着中介作用。讨论了管理意义。