What Is Social Proof, And How to Use It To Boost Your Brand Online

The one thing that people need in this modern age is social approval. People need to fit in with the world, and it has affected the lives of many people in many ways.

It has also influenced the way we purchase things. Did you ever buy a product that was recommended by others? If yes, then that is the influence of social proof.

The need to buy things out of recommendations shows how good the marketing tactic is for the businesses.

It is the positive review of Social Proof that made you buy and not the brand’s promotional advertisement.

Many entrepreneurs and big brands have realized that to have potential growth and generate more sales, they use different marketing strategies.

These tactics affect the way people buy things accompanied by positive social proof.

A real human being is recommending the product, which is why it seems genuine and effective.

Below are some steps that explain the concept of social proof. It will provide you with guidelines to start using social proof to build your own and marketing business.

What is Social Proof?

Robert Cialdini designed Social Proof theory. It is also known as an informational social influence; this definition means that customers copy what others are doing. Moreover, they think that they are right because they already did it before.

Let us show how it works. For you are shopping in the market, and you stop at a garment shop and see it filled with users.

You will think that the shop will have many fashionable and trending clothes. This scene describes how social proof works.

You will see users buying stylish and trending clothes. Therefore, you will also go and check the dresses and find them attractive.

Why is Social Proof Important?

Social Proof is a vital website marketing strategy. There are many reasons why social proof is critical for effective marketing tactics.

The most important thing to do for your business is to start using social proof. With social proof marketing, your sales will go higher.

When you are growing your social proof, you should also use different types of steps to improve your sales. And it is also crucial to learn digital marketing.

Here are some real-life examples of the importance of social proof in eCommerce.

Daniel Wellington – Social Proof Instagram

As people are now more drawn into social media, Instagram is one of the leading Apps in social networking.

Many brands reach out to an Instagram influencer to advertise or sell a different product.

Below, Daniel Wellington brand uses an Instagram tool to campaign their product to expand the brand’s social proof. 

These brands send various influencers free products. Therefore, in exchange, ask them to advertise their product on their page, post photos, and give a unique discount code.

This kind of outreach encourages social proof on Instagram to acquire new users and gives your brand social authority.

Amazon – Social Proof Reviews

In this modern age, one of the experts and leading eCommerce businesses is Amazon. They are utilizing social proof as an instrument so that their sales will grow.

Moreover, they do it very nicely with ease by adding product reviews on every product they sell on Amazon. It is by far the best website marketing strategy of social proof.

The addition of product reviews allows users to give honest and real feedback about the product and the supplier. Below is the analysis of the product and written by real people.

This product review is very persuasive and helps users decide if they want to buy the product.

Below is how product review looks like in Amazon:

Coffee Joulies – Social Proof Advertising

To up the sales in the business, well-known publication Coffee Joulies takes the help of social proof.

He uses social proof to demonstrate and build its name to the next level. Here, Coffee Joulies notification and alters the visitors about their essential publications that have featured their products.

It is a smart way to advertise the brand and attract users, and it is social proof in marketing.

Below are seven ways to use different types of social proof to boost your conversion.

1. Hiring Celebrity To Endorse Your Brand

Celebrity endorsement for your brand means a public figure is publicly approving your product and brand of their own will.

Celebrities and public figures are a great resource to prove your value and establishing authority.

Depending on the brand, some stars might endorse your brand free of cost, and some will do paid endorsements.

Paid endorsements are also known as formal contracts. It means that you pay a person for representing your brand.

Big corporations like Priceline and Pepsi rope in big celebrities to advertise their brand. The spokesperson for Priceline is William Shatner. To endorse the brand, the corporation paid $600 million.

Below is the picture of William Shatner converting landing pages for social proof.

2. Using Reviews about happy customers

For a new business, who wants to build social proof, user review is the best answer to generate loyal customers.

There are many tools and ways the company for eCommerce stores makes and uses social proof to grow your business.

The user review on your site will show that the business is legitimate and has made sales before.

E-commerce businesses need social proof to secure and increase sales. The report will help the customer know more about the shipping timing, and give detailed info about it.

The report will also help you to understand if the product’s photo is right, and the quality of the product.

If you are building or have an eCommerce business on Shopify, you need to install and download the Yotpo Reviews app.

It is a free tool app for a product review. It easily lets users leave reviews about your products and directly integrate into your e-commerce store.

When a user buys a product from your store and enjoys the shopping experience, they will tell others about it.

Besides, give the user high-quality products at a low price. It will rapidly increase the product review, and your social proof will increase gradually.

There are many ways to increase the count of product reviews for your business. Firstly, you can always send emails asking them to leave a discussion about the product once they have received it.

If the user is satisfied, they will likely leave a review. Second, you can always create some discount code to encourage your customers to leave reviews.

Asking users to post a photo of them with the product is another excellent customer review option.

You can also ask them to post pictures of the product they have received or even videos.

These reviews will increase your product’s sales, show that your products are genuine, and win the user’s trust.

3. Gain Social Proof by Creating a Blog

Another essential way for e-commerce conversion is by setting yourself up as a leader in your specified business.

Now many firms use tools like blogging and content marketing to provide users actionable and insightful content.

These blogs should be relatable to their product. The main aim of creating a blog is to draw and gain qualified traffic for your homepage and business. It helps to increase your sales automatically.

Blogging will help you gain more traffic for your brand and increase your business’s social proof.

For example, if you have a boutique store for clothes for your audience, you can always create blog content.

Secondly, the blog should include trending outfits, which celebrities are wearing clothes, similar and available in your store, tips to wear dresses in different styles, and product reviews. These will help you build the dominance of your brand.

The importance of blog content will show that your brand cares about the development of the users.

They will think your brand is not like the other brands that only care about money and selling their products.

The brand image that you will create among the visitors will help you gain loyal users and real product awareness. It will increase your social proof and increase traffic for your brand.

4. Gain Social Proof For Your Business by Optimizing Your Blog

Your eCommerce business needs to gain social proof that there are different ways to optimize your social proof.

The primary way to optimize is by adding counters and social share buttons to your blog. It will show that many people have enjoyed, liked, and shared your content.

It is a good idea to add a social media button or icon and plugin on your eCommerce blog. You should add another button to your blog, the mailing list button.

The mailing button will keep the users’ email address through which you can communicate and engage.

You can also create weekly newsletters in your blog that will provide more content related to your specific business. 

5. Advantages of Influencer Status

Influencers are the ones who hold the power of influencing the audience and their opinions. Influencers are the principle of persuasion.

Many businesses use influencers to generate more sales, increase social proof, and expand their brand’s reach.

You need to find influencers that will fit the campaign with your brand name. You need to set up a deal with them and go through the endorsement deal details.

The influencers work with affiliate promotions and pay promotions most of the time.

Affiliate promotions mean you need to pay some amount of percentage of the revenue that they bring to the business.

Paid advertisements suggest you need to simplify the influencer for multiple or single posts on their given platform. Through influencers, turbo-charge your conversions for social proof.

There is no doubt that influencers will generate more sales. You can also create a unique discount code for different influencers.

You can give the system to them, and they will post the product along with the discount code.

As a result, this will convert their followers into loyal users. You can pay the influencer according to the number of sales, which is linked from the discount code.

6. Engage With Customers And Their Mentions Online

The statistics of positive social proof comes from interactions with your loyal customers.

The marketing psychology of every brand to increase sales is by replying to the user’s mentions.

Thank them for their remarks and kind words, and make the interaction session personal.

Users who buy your product and love it will talk about it online. They will likely mention your reply and excellent services on social media if they like your service.

All these brand promotions will add positive social proof for your brand. The positive feedback will increase your brand’s sales.

Visitors who are looking to purchase your product will read the reviews and will have an adverse effect.

Sometimes the mentions and feedbacks are not favorable. Users will occasionally post negative remarks about your product.

However, these negative comments will give you insight into the product. It will also give you a chance to change and make your product better.

As vital as it is to engage with your users, it will help you improve your social proof. Thus, loyal users will be content with the service and sales support.

7. Website and Testimonials

The competition in the eCommerce business is growing every day. Different companies sell a similar product, and this is why social proof is essential.

Users need evidence of the product and its quality before buying, as there are many options in the market.

Positive Social Proof and reviews are the game plan to persuade the decision of the buyers.

Testimonials are an excellent way to boost your brand’s social proof by displaying the user’s happiness with your service.

Encourage your customers to leave reviews about the product on social review sites or your website.

When new users visit your website, show the testimonials on your homepage of the website or social sites.

It is where users can see the brand and the quality product and services you are offering. 

Check out the Shopify testimonial page to see how positive social proof can influence the users with their purchase decisions.

Key Takeaway

To summarize the above article, the first step is to use reviews about happy customers.

The second step, create a blog to gain social proof.

The third step is to optimize your blog, adding tools to your blog for a better user-friendly experience.

The fourth step is to use niche experts to increase Social Proof and promote your brand.

The need to purchase an item out of persuasion is the power of social proof, which brings us to the next step.

The next step is to engage with customers and know their opinions about your product.

The sixth step is to rope in a celebrity to endorse your brand, and the final step is to put the customer’s testimonials on your website.

Conclusion

This article will help ease the process of adding social proof to your website and boost your brand prosper.

To sum up the article, firstly, add social proof.

Secondly, always track conversion rates after and before. It will help you with a case study on your own.

If you have any queries regarding this article, please comment down below on the comment box.