Social proof is a powerful tool used in both digital and traditional marketing strategies. This post focuses on how you can use social proof on social media platforms to yield positive results and improve your brand’s marketing performance.
Social proof (sometimes referred to as “informational social influence”) refers to the tendency of human beings to follow the actions of others when making decisions, placing weight on these actions to assume “the correct decision.” Social proof can be used to deliver credibility to prospective users and promote adoption or acceptance in the design of products and services.
The concept of social proof is widely applied in many areas. It can be seen in traditional contexts, such as restaurants seating patrons by windows, as well as online marketplaces. In particular, star ratings and customer reviews are heavily used on sites like Amazon and eBay to help guide shoppers towards quality products, crafted by reliable sellers. High ratings often lead to increased success for those products and services that display them.
Social proof is a powerful tool for UX designers, as it can lend credibility to something or promote adoption. This proven psychological tactic has existed for a long time and should be taken into consideration by those designing user experiences. Designers must also ensure that any social proof is meaningful – after all, an organisation’s Facebook page with 10,000 likes may imply one thing – but if there’s no interaction between the page and its followers than this number loses much of its significance.
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Explore having brand ambassadors
Companies can benefit from the power of social media ambassadors by tapping into expert, celebrity, and user social proof. Social media influencers can serve as celebrity ambassadors while industry experts can give your brand expert credibility. Or, you could select passionate users to extend your reach in an organic way. Ambassadors typically wear a badge proudly on their bio and include relevant branded hashtags when posting about the company.
As a social media manager, receiving praise from your customers is an invaluable reward. An effective way to leverage this customer love is to showcase these shout-outs prominently on your social media profile, providing proof of user loyalty and trust in your product.
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Display testimonials
Utilize customer shout-outs by displaying them as testimonials on your website. This may help attract potential customers to your business and boost their confidence in your services.
Display of a social share count acts as an indication of the confidence people have in the content. A higher number of social shares may lead to improved credibility in readers’ eyes. As a result, they might be more likely to engage with the content. On the other hand, low social share counts can undermine trust in an article, detering potential audiences from reading it. To combat this functionality, leveraging a tool such as Social Warfare is recommended – which hides share counts until a specific threshold has been reached.
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Be responsive
If you provide customer support through Facebook or Twitter, you can let customers know when they can expect a prompt response from you. To make this information known on your page, follow these steps:
- Facebook: On the Page settings page, select the Messaging tab and scroll down to Response Assistant. Then choose a time frame that accurately reflects how quickly you respond to messages. Alternatively, it can be set up to automatically update at the desired interval.
- Twitter: Access this direct link (https://business.twitter.com/i/settings/support) and click “Add business feature”. Toggle “Accept direct messages from anyone” to enable users to direct message your account and receive an instant response with a welcome message. You can also set specific active hours for responses if needed.
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Get verified
Social media verification has become a sought-after distinction on platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. This blue checkmark is evidence of certification from the social platform, signaling that an account or page finds the user influential, popular, or interesting in some way – often being awarded to celebrities and top brands.
Verified accounts and Pages also enjoy access to exclusive features unavailable to non-verified users. And if you’re wondering how to get verified on Twitter specifically, we’ve got you covered here with a complete guide.
Graphic Designing Services
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