What is Social Proofing?
Social Proofing is essentially the utilisation of evidence, or the opinions and actions of third parties in support of a company's products, services and unique selling propositions. Marketing relies on social proofing to demonstrate the experience other customers had with the product, prove their popularity or endorsement of a product by a third party e.g. industry awards. The theory behind this being that by seeing other people have endorsed, or purchased a product or service, customers may be reassured that it is therefore more likely to be good/better quality.
Why is Social Proofing important?
Customers do not rely on the information from the seller only according to Feefo 2019 Consumer report, 96% of consumers read reviews of some form, and 80% find online reviews helpful.
In an eCommerce situation a potential customer does not have the ability to check the quality of a product as they would in a bricks and mortar shop. Thus, potential customers are more likely to rely on the opinions of others to make a decision. We must remember that in a physical shop, customers may still go online to check the reviews so social proofing can be important for successful offline trade also.
Social proof messaging can be particularly powerful when the company manages to showcase the experience with the product by consumers from different segments. We aspire to create a link between the product and the customers for whom it was created. Is this hotel popular with solo travellers or families? Is this skin product for teenagers or mature customers? Are we responding to the aspirations of sustainability conscious consumers?
Social proofing can and should go beyond demonstrating the number of visitors who booked a room or bought an item and create a community of customers loyal to the brand.
What are the different types of Social Proofing?
The most common form of social proofing people think about are messages like 'X number of people have purchased this today' which you will regularly see on retail or travel websites.
But there are many more types which you can explore and utilise as part of your conversion rate optimisation strategy. Some of the most common forms are listed below, though this list is by no means exhaustive:
- Case studies
- Reviews from customers and 'experts'
- Tooltips & product reinforcement messaging
- Content & product recommendations
- Social media: feed integration, influencer endorsements, shares and likes
- Testimonials & photos
- Company logos & names
- Frequently asked questions
- User generated content
Some of these themes are explored in more detail in this blog post about social proof.
