Do you spend hours daily scrolling through your social media? If you are a prompt user, you must stumble upon advertisements every now and then. As weird as the idea of seeing ads on your feed might seem to you, social media has changed the face of marketing and sales for good.

In the past, social media was just good for peer-to-peer communication—a platform where people shared and received information about one another. Today, social media is much more than that. It is a free source of market research, a promotional platform, and a means of demographic-oriented communication with the customers of a particular brand—and these are just a few instances. Here are ways social media can be used to boost businesses, and, in turn, drive sales.

By using social media to advertise products and brands, companies can efficiently drive sales.

Social media, when used for advertisements and promotions, yields effective results in the sales department. Since most successful social media platforms—Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat—allow sharing of pictures and videos , promotional posts can be made prior to the launch of a brand or release of a product. 

A brand could hire influencers or content writers to build effective content. This will attract a greater number of leads. Through the use of enticing promotional deals, effective product-photography, and elaborate copywriting, social media influenced sales.

It is important to keep in mind your demographic and which platform will speak to the audience the most. Facebook, for example, is an apt social media platform for fashion advertisements. LinkedIn is a fitting social platform for corporate advertisements. It is necessary to consider this because the focus demographic is different for different types of products and brands. Not all brands and companies have the same target audience. 

Not only is social media an effective promotional platform, it is also highly cost-friendly. Most of the times, social media advertisements cost much less than advertising products otherwise. Printing banners and brochures, buying billboard spaces, and hiring salespersons to go to promote products one-on-one cost significantly more. Research shows manual promotions are also largely ineffective, unless a brand has already established itself as a contender in the field. All of these factors ultimately hinder sales growth, as compared to social media advertisement.

By using social media to communicate and research, brands can identify factors that hold sales back. Brands can also identify competitors in the field, study patterns and strategies that help other brands boost sales, and recognize the type of audience or leads that would go on to become that brand’s focus demographic. One way this can help sales professionals drive more sales is by identifying when big names and rival brands in the market launch their products. This way, brands can pinpoint times in the year when other brands do not introduce new products, and launch their items accordingly, in order to peak sales at a record high. 

Client-customer interaction and prompt communication is also important. Brands can also use this in order to drive more sales by revising product features or the product itself, making it more desirable. For instance, Apple recently launched the next generation of its chief product—iPhones. Previous iPhone sets would run out of battery in, on an average, 9 hours of usage. The customers weren’t really happy, and started opting for rival sets that offered a longer battery-life. Through social media and sales charts, Apple identified the issue and communicated with its audience. As a result, the new iPhones offer a longer battery-life, among other features. This way, Apple communicated with its audience to increase its sales numbers.

Customer feedback not only helps brands identify issues with previous products that may have affected estimated sales numbers, it also helps brands build customer loyalty. When customers feel that brands are listening to what they have to say and considering their opinions, they feel validated, and tend to stay loyal to the brand.
 conclusion, whether it is an advertisement of a brand or its product, or the process of identifying factors that hinder sales growth, social media has played, and continues to play, an undeniably important role. Through social media, small-scale businesses can bloom in no time, and high-end brands can drive significantly higher sales numbers. It can also help sales professionals identify focus audiences and discover new leads. All of these factors promote business growth, and invariably drive sales.