Social proof influences your potential customers’ decisions. But how does it enhance advertising and digital marketing in the e-commerce sector? Find out here.
Customers discover and interact with new online businesses in different ways, including advertisement and word-of-mouth recommendations. Over time, retailers have needed to change their marketing strategies and implement new advertising approaches to ensure they’re reaching the right audience.
Today, social proof is one of the strongest and more impactful means of marketing in the e-commerce world since customers are more likely to shop from places that are readily getting attention.
Here’s an example: you’re walking down the street, looking for a place to buy your breakfast bagel. If you see two shops side by side but one is completely empty while the other is filled, you’re likely to enter the second shop.
Let’s take a look at how this example translates to e-commerce in today’s world.
What is Social Proof?
Social proof is a term coined by psychologist Robert Cialdini. He was one of the first to study and write about how humans are influenced by others around us, even when we don’t realize it.
For example, are you more confident about booking a hotel room that has already had many positive reviews online? That’s social proof at play. You see that other people have already stayed at the hotel and liked it, therefore, concluding that it’s a good place to live in.
The likelihood is that your decisions were affected by social proof. Even if you haven’t consciously registered what’s going on, seeing so many people purchase or book something makes you feel like whatever is being sold or booked must be good too.
This phenomenon can influence almost all areas of our life including dating, business negotiation, healthcare, and e-commerce purchases.
Social Proof in E-commerce
92% of the customers are likely to trust non-promoted and non-paid recommendations as opposed to paid forms of advertising. Why is that? It’s because customers trust other customers’ recommendations.
Once customers see a number of positive reviews about a product, 50% of them instantly go to the seller’s website. More importantly, customers are ready to spend 31% more on a company or e-commerce store that has excellent reviews.
The impact of social proof is such that once a company’s rating goes up by one star on a popular rating platform, Yelp, it experiences a 5% to 9% increase in revenue.
However, retailers need to ensure that the social proof about their products and services is regularly updated.
That’s because customers are likely to trust online reviews if they are less than three months old. 85% of the customers believe that reviews posted more than three months ago are not relevant.
Why Word-of-mouth Recommendations are So Effective
The best kind of social proof in digital marketing is word-of-mouth recommendations. If consumers are more likely to trust other customers’ recommendations and reviews, imagine how much more they’re likely to believe the same reviews coming from their close family and friends.
In fact, 82% of Americans say they take recommendations from their family and friends before buying something.
Word-of-mouth recommendations are extremely effective in marketing because they address a number of problems commonly associated with traditional advertising. For one, they’re not driven by monetary gain.
The person recommending the product is not getting any monetary benefits for their recommendation, thus, being more believable.
Furthermore, it becomes most effective when it’s done in real life rather than online social networks because offline interaction is accompanied by nonverbal cues that aid in signifying authenticity.
That’s why 92% of the people are likely to trust a recommendation coming from their peers. Meanwhile, 70% would trust a recommendation from a stranger. On the one hand, it shows that word-of-mouth recommendations are more effective.
On the other hand, these statistics show the power of social proof, even when coming from strangers. Therefore, before buying a product, customers want to see at least an average of 112 reviews to trust the product to be legit and effective.
Types of Social Proof
Here are the types of social proof retailers can leverage in digital marketing:
- Wisdom of Friends: When customers follow your page or buy a product from you because their friends did too.
- Celebrity or Influencer Endorsements: When an influencer or a media/sports celebrity endorses your product.
- Expert Social Proof: When an industry or field expert has positive views about your product or service. For instance, a sportsperson recommending a certain gear.
- Wisdom of Crowd: When a large number of people support and positively rate your product. For instance, having a hundred thousand 4.5 to 5-star reviews on an app you made.
- Certification: When you or your business receive a certification or seal of approval from relevant authorities or agencies.
How to Effectively Use Social Proof in E-commerce?
Social proof is impressively beneficial in e-commerce since it makes prospects able to gauge the worth of your product/service.
It helps in alleviating concerns, queries, and uncertainties that the prospect may have about a particular purchase.
A content-rich website with relevant social proof like raving reviews or testimonials from existing customers is extremely effective in transforming an average visitor into a potential buyer.
Here are a few ways to use social proof in e-commerce:
- Show Customer Reviews: Make sure you show ratings and customer reviews on every product page on your website.
- Make Bestsellers Stand Out: Put a badge next to Bestsellers or keep a separate category for them on your website to let consumers know which products are everyone’s favorites.
- Show User-Generated Content: Run campaigns to collect user-generated content, such as customers using your service or product, and share it on your social media pages and website. For instance, you can share pictures of customers wearing your company’s accessories or sunglasses on your social media stories.
- Show Number of Users: Show visitors the number of people who have already bought your service or the number of items you have sold of a particular product. You can also create urgency by showing the number of remaining items – indicating that the stock is running out due to high customer demand.
Conclusion
It is important to use social proof to your advantage when selling anything online (an informational product or training, or physical product on an e-commerce shop). Showcasing social proof on your company’s social media channels (primarily Instagram and Facebook) is extremely powerful. All in all, social proof can amp up your digital marketing campaign, making it more effective by ensuring that potential customers are driven by the reviews of your existing customers.
