IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON SALES FUNNELS IN B2C AND B2B SEGMENTS IN THE REPUBLIC OF NORTH MACEDONIA

Abstract

The research focuses on introducing social
media platforms as either a complementary or main channel
in the company sales funnel. Internet technologies and Web
2.0 continue to provide innovations in digital marketing,
with the latest iteration being lead generation services
through social media. Data shows that almost half of the
world population is active on social media, with the new
Generation Alpha being projected to be entirely online
dependent and proficient in the use of new technologies. The
paper provides an overview of the digitalization of sales
funnels, as well as the benefits that social media platforms
can offer if implemented correctly. Secondary data provides
the basis for transforming sales funnels with social media,
where previous research provides limited data on the
effectiveness of these types of efforts. Primary data
demonstrates that introducing social media platforms can
provide improvements of up to 3 to 4 times in analyzed case
studies, as well as the shorter time when deciding about
purchase in use case scenarios. Social media advertising
can also be utilized to shorten the sales funnel process and
serve as a unified point of entrance and exit in the first few
stages.