Perspectives on social media ant its use by key account managers

•We investigate the use of social media by key account managers;•As a result of a qualitative research study, we present a model of key account managers' use of social media;•We highlight tensions key account managers are facing while using social media and some French cultural idiosyncrasies.

Social media has recently received increased attention from practitioners and academics. Although social media helps build relationships, no academic study to date has investigated the use of social media by key account managers, although building and developing relationships with key customers are at the core of these managers' expertise. This research contributes to building the first level of understanding of how key account managers use social media and the major issues. To address this topic, we perform a qualitative research study using the grounded theory methodology. We present a model of key account managers' use of social media derived from our empirical data and relate it to a key customer engagement model.