Social Media began its operation as a basic platform for people to share photos and posts with their family and friends. However, over the passage of time, social media has undergone a dramatic evolution with a discernible impact, particularly in businesses.

Establishing innovative and money making marketing strategies for organisations is a prime deliverable of the social media. According to the latest survey, approximately 74 percent of consumers draw up purchasing decisions using social media.

This perceptible move is not just confined to B2C businesses. Even B2B businesses are being immensely benefitted from social media’s purchasing sway.

Therefore, it’s evident that the influence of social media is ubiquitous. The key is to fathom the steps mentioned below to leverage this influence into your business for your own advantages:

• Reviews and assessments from social influencers

The individuals who command a remarkable following on the social media are coined as “Social Influencers”. They are often chased by businesses for promoting their products as they enjoy a weighty audience base.

The contents created by social influencers have a noticeable impact on consumer buying decisiveness irrespective of the presence of sponsors or otherwise. Essentially, they yield a significant contribution to the bandwagon effect.

Social influencers are adept in social media interaction. They usually tag the brand or the store offering the products they refer in their posts, which helps their followers to acclimatize with the brand and effect a purchase.

• Reviews and appraisals from family and friends

The primary function of the social media is to permit us to communicate with our faraway family members and friends. We occasionally discover and pass on relevant information about new products and services that excite us, to our family and friends via the social media thereby reinforcing its noteworthy contribution to shaping our purchasing habits.

A recent study indicates that around 80 percent of users are odds-on to purchase a product based on suggestions by peers and kinsfolk.

• Showing off a store’s online presence on social media

The consumer purchasing behaviour is also governed by the business occupancy spread on the social media. This means that a brand garnering considerable attention and prominence from social influencers and consumers alike will have a severe dampening effect in convincing its credibility to customers if it has a lacklustre and vapid social media presence.

Businesses can effectively attract more online visitors-turned-followers-turned-buyers, who are the key drivers in ascertaining purchasing decisions, by putting strong and consistent feeds.

It’s a simple mathematics: groovy posts + many followers = high purchasing probability.

• Advertising campaigns on social media

Advertisement positioning on social media is a simple task. Identifying and targeting your audience has become tougher and complicated. Establishing brand awareness or augmenting sales are the major goals, which advertisers aim to accomplish by placing captivating ads.

Social media advertisements can effectively drive repeat sales through remarketing products and retargeting consumers by moving them through the sales funnel and increasing customers’ lifetime value.

• Brands generating conversations among followers

Nowadays, brands proactively spur consumers to engage in constructive discussions on social media focussing on their product and service quality.

By achieving this excellent job, brands leverage the domination of their present loyal customers on social media and turning them into keen evangelists for your brand campaigns and product sales.

• Search engine optimization on social media

Buyers usually search for solutions or suppliers to discover products in the sales funnel. Social media has ushered in keywords and search engines that have become increasingly popular to precipitate favourable business website rankings.

Proper research and subsequent integration of keywords into your posts, blogs, photo captions, and comments can accomplish increased consumer purchasing prowess.

• Key Takeaways

E-commerce and regular brick-and-mortar businesses have embarked upon creating a powerful and effective social media presence to steer and generate more sales and revenues.

Better, understanding of consumer buying behaviours and their social media communication patterns, which they employ to search your products and share experience, can be made effective by listening to the discussions in online forums revolving around your brand and sales.