Using social media to increase sales and brand awareness

Businesses continually launch marketing campaigns in an effort to promote their brand and boost their sales. Some of them are very successful: Carlsberg’s slogan and advertising of “probably the best beer in the world” generates an excellent reputation and brand recognition. This then contributes to increased sales and ultimately increased profits. However, many of these companies have large marketing and advertising budgets. What if your business can’t afford these marketing initiatives? This is where social media marketing comes in. Most social media marketing “tools” are free to use and can provide the same amount of marketing exposure, whether you’re just starting out or a giant conglomerate. This article explains how you can use social media marketing to increase sales at a relatively low cost.

First of all, let’s dispel the myth that social media marketing does not lead to a direct increase in sales. Here are some examples to prove this: Sony announced in February that via Twitter they had made an extra £ 1 million in sales, Dell announced in June last year that their Twitter presence represented a $ 3 million increase in sales. You could argue that these are two large companies and that they already have a brand reputation. However, other smaller companies have also seen increased sales through this form of marketing. John Fluevog Boots & Shoes Ltd, a small shoe manufacturing company in Canada, reported a 40% increase in sales in 2009, the same year that social media marketing began, this was not by chance.

So how can social media marketing help increase your business sales? Social media tools allow you to access millions of people. A television commercial will reach the people who are watching it at the time and will not allow interaction with the consumer. One tweet can reach millions of people. Sainsbury’s, for example, regularly tweets its latest deals. Anyone who wants to keep up with these can simply follow Sainsbury’s on Twitter. This provides a much larger potential customer base and allows sales to increase, while also building brand awareness. Additionally, people can reply to these tweets, providing a forum for customer interaction and therefore customer information. Your business can emulate this, tweeting your promotions provides free advertising. If this is done creatively, it can really boost sales and make your company stand out.

Social media marketing works in a similar way to other forms of marketing; it is viral. A small business initially works by word of mouth, people tell their friends. This type of marketing, especially Twitter and Facebook, works with the concept of ‘friend’. People can give you positive reviews, recommend your product, and tweet about your business. This entire social community allows your company name and brand to be seen by a significant number of people. Continued use of social media over time creates brand awareness and thus helps increase sales. One of our clients, PeachorLemon, a car review website, gained over a hundred followers on Twitter in one week. It is about a hundred more people who know about promotions and offers, they can tell their friends, visit the website or use other social networks to mention PeachorLemon. All of this creates brand awareness and, over time, increases the use of the website, thus increasing its value.

The effect that social media can have on brand awareness is critical to the future of small business marketing strategy. Brand awareness is just one of the ways they increase sales; there are many other important contributing factors. However, as this article has shown, building brand awareness through this new variation of marketing can have a huge impact on your business and revenue.

Anthony O’Flynn