What is social proofing and what are its benefits?

Created on 1 December, 2022 • 267 views • 3 minutes read

Every business owner knows that in order to generate growth and sales, you need to show customers that they can trust your busin

What is social proofing and what are its benefits?

Every business owner knows that in order to generate growth and sales, you need to show customers that they can trust your business. In order to do that, you can use a phenomenon known as social proofing. This is very helpful and, if you use it right, has the potential to take your social media marketing, website marketing and email marketing to the next level.

What is social proofing?

At its core, social proofing is a psychological phenomenon where you have people validate their decision making through the decisions of others. Simply put, when you see that people are constantly congratulating a business and recommend it, that becomes very appealing and it does entice you to check it out. Companies use social proofing and its different forms in order to stand out, improve their branding efforts, but also surpass competitors.

Which are the main types of social proofing?

In the online world there are a variety of different social proofing methods used by companies worldwide. A very common one would be testimonials, which are short recommendations from happy customers. You can add them on the website, in an ebook, even a landing page. Then we have case studies, which include studies and a lot of information about the business at hand and how it grows thanks to your specific approach.

The same thing can be said about reviews, those are great for outbound marketing as well as inbound marketing. And we also have social media, a stellar solution that has the potential to bring you plenty of growth in the online world. Adding trust icons like logos or personalities can help a lot. Data and numbers also help with social proofing, because they back up your ideas and push them to the next level.

What are the benefits of social proofing?

The main advantage of social proofing is that it allows you to connect with new customers, while also showing the great experience other people had. It also boosts your branding efforts, but it also makes it easy for your business to shine among all the other competitors. It’s also possible to use social proofing as a way to show what your brand is about, while bringing in examples of how you helped others.

In addition, social proofing inspires trust. A lot of people are worried about working with a certain business. But social proofing eliminates the worry, because you already see the company in question already delivered great results. That makes it easier for companies to generate a sale and show their true value, which would be much harder to do otherwise.

Harnessing the power of social proofing for your business

Aside from the main types of social proofing shown above, there are many others that you can use for mobile marketing, personalized content and so on. Earned media, business credentials, any of your accumulated experience that’s accepted by the industry, everything like that can indeed make a huge difference for your company. That’s why it’s a good idea to implement social proofing the best way that you can, since it will offer you very good results in the long term, without any major worries.

Conclusion

As you can see, social proofing does a very good job at helping businesses grow, while also inspiring trust and eliminating any potential challenges that a buyer might have. Which is great, because it allows the business in question to grow, and it can also help generate a much larger audience. There will always be challenges that arise, especially from a business standpoint. But thanks to social proofing, you get to minimize the risks, while showing people that they can trust you. That’s why it’s a valuable resource for any business!