Using social networks becomes part of the virtual community, where through various means of communication they make friends, entertain, train and search. For the sake of the extraordinary popularity of social networks, the popularity of advertising retailers has also increased, through these networks they advertising their products, services, actions, special offers and the like. Advertising through social networks offers different forms of advertising from unpaid, up to advertising through profiles, fan sites, use of apps for advertising purposes, paid forms of advertising. In this paper the main topic will be social networks, that is, its role in improving the business of the company. Work begins with the introduction of a narrower and wider research area and the definition of purpose and structure of work. Then follows the theoretical background of the work or previous research that has been carried out in the field of social networks. Social networks are defined as the kind of social networks that business users are encountering in their business. After that, the methodology of work was defined. The last part of the paper analyzes how social networks promote retail chain operations. The example of one of largest retail chains -Lidl, analyzes how this chain uses Facebook's social network to improve its business. Methods that are used through this social network are shown to reach the end consumer and encourage it to acquire additional purchasing activity as well as keep a permanent buyer. This section also presents the general situation of retail trade chains in Croatia with regard to the use of social networks and their response to the final customers.