Using social proof to increase your website’s effectiveness - Webfactory

What is social proof?
Social proof is basically showing people who might choose to use your service that other people, ideally like them, have used your service or product and have been happy with the result.

How to show social proof
Social proof can be shown in many ways but the key thing to remember is that the more effective you are at communicating the social proof the better it will work. Here are some of the main ways you can show social proof:

Facebook likes: Many of your customers will be on Facebook, if your customers like your Facebook page then you can include your Facebook link and like count on your page. As you need to have a valid Facebook account to like someone’s page, it is hard for a company to fake this count so people tend to see a high like count as a good endorsement for a product or service.

Twitter Followers: Again just like Facebook, showing your twitter feed and twitter follower count can be a strong indicator to potential customers that your product is liked.

Testimonials: Using testimonials from your customers can be a great way to provide social proof. The most important thing with testimonials is to understand that people will know that you could potentially just be making up a testimonial. It’s very easy to do. Therefore, to counter this, make sure you include a name and location. Enhance it further with a picture of the client or a picture of the client with your product or even better maybe a video testimonial.

Reviews: Many review sites now exists which are basically just like leaving a testimonial but they provide a degree of validation as they require a user to register before they can leave a comment. Consider setting up an account and linking your website to a review service so your customers can visit and read your reviews.

Growing your social proof
Displaying social proof is effective of course but only if you actually have client reviews, likes, follows and testimonials. How can you grow your social proof?
The key is to think long term, don’t just spend a day getting stuff together and then consider it done. Effective social proof is social proof which grows and is up to date. A 12 month old testimonial is not going to impress as much as a list of testimonials from the last month.

To grow your social proof, consider the following ideas:

• Add links to your Facebook and twitter on your emails
• Ask customers when they visit you or call to leave a review
• Reward customers for leaving a review e.g. money off or a freebie
• Provide a feedback form on your website or even better a post-sale questionnaire

At Webfactore we are always here to help, so if you have any queries or want to know how you could add any of these suggestions to your site, just drop us a line any time.