Are you looking to increase the sales of your business? Social proof will be the perfect practice to achieve it, and the best thing is that you can achieve it with the help of your own clients. But how to do it? That is just what we will discuss in this article.
With a little persuasion and a good digital marketing strategy, the success of your business could be very close. Social proof is a psychological response that occurs when a person copies the behavior of other individuals. Surely this meaning of social proof sounds familiar to you because it is an attitude that is practically in your subconscious. We are naturally drawn to anything new and popular. After all, if everyone thinks it’s great, then it has to be. This behavior is also evident when we buy a product because our brain is programmed to respond to certain stimuli. People are usually impressionable and get carried away by the opinions of others, but why not use this in our favor to boost the sales of our business.
This article will discuss the different ways to use social proof to boost your results.
Different Ways to Use Social Proof to Boost Your Results
Social proof in marketing establishes a relationship of trust with your potential customer, who will be influenced by the opinions of others who have already purchased your products or services. It is a powerful way to influence customers and, in the process, increase conversions to your site.
Here are some ways you can use it as part of your marketing strategy.
- Testimonials
This is one of the simplest social proof strategies that generate good results. It is about collecting testimonials from people who have used your services or purchased any of your products to generate more trust.
It is recommended to create an online store on a platform that has templates with the option to add testimonials, although you can also publish them in video format. Remember that audiovisual material always has more impact on users.
Users will write a small review about their experience with your brand or products, but the following elements must accompany the testimonial to make it more reliable:
- The real name of the buyer and a photo of the user: Anonymous reviews usually have no credibility.
- Short text: the testimonial should not be very long. Here applies the “less is more.”
- Includes star rating
- It is recommended to locate it on the home of the page to be visible.
- Ask for your customers’ testimonials during the first month of purchase since the review may not have the same emotion if you take more than this time.
- Another aspect you should not forget is that you should always ask the person for permission to use their testimonials on your page.
- Lean on Influencers
While people’s testimonials build trust, imagine the effect it can have if the opinion is offered by some relevant or influential figure whom others see as an example. Whether it’s an expert (for example, a chef or a journalist) or a blogger specializing in fashion and aware of the latest trends, their opinion has a bearing on other individuals. You can also use these influencers for your communication.
Make sure to choose an influencer that matches your product or service. Approach and ask them to visit your business or test your product. In exchange for a free product or service, these influencers will give an objective opinion on their own social media.
Social networks have allowed many people to make themselves known and become influencers. You can use this to your advantage to increase your business’s sales since its reach will be greater when one of these figures promotes one of your products.
The public that follows the influencer seeks to be more and more like him. Therefore, if they see that they use your product, it will be the perfect social proof to increase your sales.
- Mentions in Social Networks
Social networks are your main ally when doing a social test. Therefore, you must keep your profiles updated. Surely on some occasion, you came to the page of a brand that you did not know and saw the icon of its social network and immediately clicked on it to corroborate the information of that brand.
This is why social networks are the best platform for your potential clients to corroborate your work. They can do this by seeing your number of followers, your last date of publication, your interactions with users, or your responses to followers.
Social proof can be part of the digital marketing strategies used in your business to boost sales since, thanks to it. You will be able to get ratings or good comments on your networks.
You can also rely on mentions, especially if you just went on the market, as this could help you make your products known. The customers may not have the same effect as if an influencer promoted you, but they can still help you increase sales.
To get mentions, you can implement these practices:
- Run contests and ask to be mentioned in their stories
- Use hashtags related to your business
- Offer discounts to those who take photos with your products
- Other tricks that can help you in your social proof are sharing information of interest, commenting on other accounts and always responding to comments on your posts.
- Opinions of Your Clients
Probably the most used type of social proof in the digital world. Today it is very rare that we find an online store that does not have opinions or reviews from former customers. And, if we do, we will probably distrust the web and end up not buying anything.
It may happen that if a person sees many positive testimonials, he feels that there is something strange. Unlike testimonials, your customer reviews can look more natural, building more trust in other users. Websites that have made them a central element of their business strategy, the opinions of other customers, have become one of the most important and used social tests.
Therefore, the opinion of your clients will be a good social proof for your company since they will see you as a more reliable and less exaggerated source.
Likewise, it is recommended that e-commerce have a comments section activated on one of its pages so that customers can post their reviews of the products.
- Show Your Sales Figures
Numbers influence people, especially when making an online purchase, so they look at the number of followers on networks or sales of a certain product.
Incorporating statistics into your e-commerce can become the perfect social proof for your business. The user will feel that they are not the first to visit your website and that it is not possible that so many people are wrong, which generates trust.
Some figures you can include are the products you have sold so far or how many products you have left available, which would demonstrate scarcity and generate a sense of urgency and need in the buyer.
An important fact is that when you include the figures, do not round them, as this will make it more credible. For example, if you have sold 1,225 products, do not put “more than 1,200 units sold.”
For example, if we are an advertising agency, we can mention that we have helped more than 300 companies to create personalized and effective marketing campaigns to communicate with their target audiences. In addition, this social proof can be combined with that of partners and customers to achieve an even more powerful effect.
- Post to a Blog
Your company’s blog can be an excellent social proof of marketing to generate more credibility, but it will also help you to capture leads and gain visibility within your sector.
Of course, it cannot be any blog. In it, you must publish valuable content with a good SEO positioning so that it has more reach, but you must also update frequently.
Plus, blogs allow you to get user feedback, which is perfect for your social proof. That, together with good SEO content, will make more customers come to your website and purchase your products.
Now, if you don’t have your own website, you can search for other reference pages in your sector to publish a post about your brand, products or services, in which they detail all the necessary information so that your potential clients reach you.
- Show the Best-Selling Products
This modality could be considered a kind of social proof of persuasion since, by showing your best-selling or most popular products, you can increase the consumer’s interest in purchasing them.
Seeing a list of best sellers will help potential customers decide to buy it and believe that it will not disappoint them since they feel confident that others have bought it.
Without a doubt, it is a strategy that will attract users’ attention, just as it happens in bookstores that, when you enter, show you the books that are in trend or the most popular best sellers.
- Media Coverage
Sometimes your case gets attention on a respected blog or in the press. This is also a form of very credible social proof because we do not appear there without reason. Result: Do not hesitate to flaunt the attention you are given on your website and social media.
- Seals of Quality and Trust
Trust tokens are the perfect social proof to build a sense of trust in the user. They are beneficial for stores that have just started or brands that are not well known by the general public.
Some of the widely used trust symbols are those of PayPal, Mastercard, Visa or Apple Pay to generate trust in the payment gateways of any e-commerce.
- Sponsorships and Sponsors
In many cases and depending on the business type, it can be beneficial to use the sponsorship of a person or a recognized brand as a form of social proof.
However, it makes no sense to do this without prior analysis and pay any celebrity to be your brand’s image. You must select the perfect profile, someone who is a reference in your industry.
- Social Activity Tests
More and more web pages (especially blogs) use social activity tests to demonstrate that content is quality and very popular: users share it on Twitter and Facebook, like it on Instagram, etc. If people share your content on networks, it means that they like it a lot.
- Amplify User-Generated Content
Increasingly popular, user-generated content is another highly effective social proof strategy.
User-Generated Content (UGC) is content created and shared organically by users. This content can be photos, messages, tweets, live streams, videos, etc.
UGC is directly linked to your presence on social networks and needs to be interactive and engaging. We’ve seen several ways brands have been able to encourage UGC—ranging from simply replying and sharing to more elaborate efforts like contests, challenges, and hashtags.
Our Final Thoughts!
You already know the different social tests that you can implement in your business, although you do not have to implement them all at the same time. You can try each and see which works for you to further increase your sales.
If you want to know more about how social proof can help to strengthen your business, complete the self-assessment form and let’s get started.
