Nobody joined a social network to connect with brands. Now it’s the first place consumers consult to make sure your business is legitimate and garner opinions about the credibility of your goods and services.

Since social media gave consumers a voice, the power of social proof has amplified. And consumers love to blow their trumpets across omni-channel platforms.

Word-of-mouth has always been the most lucrative form of advertising. With the number of online platforms available for consumers to express their opinions about a brand and its product, social proof is one of the most powerful marketing tools in your arsenal.

Moreover, reviews are lapped up by online shoppers in abundance. Statistics reveal:

• Almost 95% of shoppers read online reviews before making a purchasing decision
• 93% of consumers say online reviews impact their purchasing decision
• 93% of consumers also refer to reviews to assess the credibility of local businesses
• 80% of respondents say peer-to-peer recommendations are the most influential source of purchasing decisions
• Displaying reviews increases conversions by 270%
• A one-star increase in Yelp can increase conversions by 5-9%

The key takeaway here is: reviews matter.

What consumers ultimately want to know is what experience they can expect when purchasing goods and services from a brand, and how will the product benefit them.

Essentially, social proof reinforces the credibility of your brand and helps you generate an online identity that consumers trust. Online reputation management (ORM) should therefore be part of your overall digital marketing strategy.

What is social proof?

In a nutshell, social proof is an endorsement from your existing customers. The information they pass on about your brand influences the decisions of other consumers.

One of the key drivers behind social proof is social media. These powerful platforms have given consumers an opportunity to express their honest opinion.

Companies that deliver high-quality products and excellent service can expect their customers to leverage their online profile.

The power of social media marketing has over traditional marketing is that other consumers are influenced by your existing customers and not your marketing team.

Don’t dispense with your marketing team just yet though.

The principle rule here is that your customers understand how your product benefits users better than you.

Correction: your customers are more likely to give an unbiased opinion about the credentials of your product or services.

This is why influencer marketing is such a popular strategy today as well.

Any positive comments about your business, the service you offer and the quality of your products function as social proof. Such sentiments are an endorsement that a customer is satisfied with their shopping experience.

Why does your business need social proof?

As e-commerce continues to grow, the online game intensifies. Moreover, today’s consumers are savvier about the purchases they make. The majority of shoppers research brands and products before making a purchasing decision.

This can potentially present online retailers with a serious marketing challenge, especially start-ups that are attempting to onboard customers. Catch-22.

As the online experience has evolved, consumers also expect, if not demand, an awesome shopping experience.

Creating the ‘shoppable experience” is another buzzword that has been added to the marketing vocabulary and thus should serve as a goal.

The only way to know if your business delivers an excellent customer experience is when your customers confirm it.

Social proof is arguably more important now than ever. This year’s Edelman’s report on consumer trust reveals that brands are largely failing the trust barometer test.

Trustpilot also confirms there has been a decline in the trust of brand advertising. Consumers are sceptical of ads they come across on every channel, both online and offline.

It’s clear that the best way to build trust is through your existing customers. Giving people a voice – and demonstrating their opinions are legitimate – carries more weight than branded messages that originate from the company.

Social proof gives your business leverage that is impossible to achieve through internal channels. Customer advocacy simply has more influence over prospects than anything a marketing team dreams up.

It’s therefore important to establish social proof at every stage of the customer journey.

To win at the online game, brands must strengthen bonds with the existing customer base and encourage them to leave positive reviews into order to build confidence and trust in new customers.

How to Generate Social Proof

To build social proof, brands have no alternative other than to hand the mic to customers.

Whilst it is possible to fake social proof – and many companies do – it is not advisable. Artificial intelligence is helping companies distinguish the difference between false and genuine reviews.

Moreover, advertising regulation agencies and third-party review sites such as Yelp and TripAdvisor are taking serious action against companies that fake reviews.

E-commerce platforms are not holding back the punches either. Amazon penalises merchants that attempt to manipulate rankings with fake reviews by suspending or pulling their Seller Central Account. Businesses have been ruined overnight.

As the list below reveals, there are numerous ways for companies to generate legitimate customers reviews. The key is for you to encourage reviews that underscore a positive customer experience.

• Social likes and shares
• Long-form testimonials
• Customer reviews
• Trust signals on third-party review sites
• Case studies
• Celebrity or influencer endorsements
• Earned media
• User-generated content

In addition, publish genuine customer reviews as a blog post or case study on your website and promote the content across your various social media accounts. This strategy will generate even more positive reviews (that you can slip into another piece of social proof content.)

To generate social proof, promote reviews in ad campaigns, emails, product pages and the checkout page. By using the screen capture function on your computer, it’s easy to demonstrate the reviews are genuine.

Which brings us to the next challenge.

How To Make Reviews Believable

It is easy to publish fake reviews. And plenty of companies abuse channels that are designed to elicit trust.

Generating customer review is only one part of the challenge. The harder part is demonstrating the opinions are authentic and have been left by real users. 

Dishonest marketing campaigns are to blame for the lack of distrust. Numerous stories abound of brands publishing false reviews on third-party sites and buying reviews, likes and shares. 

There’s no question that customer reviews are worth their weight in gold. However, this form of word-of-mouth advertising has to be published in a format that carries weight.

The issue honest business owners have is combating the dirty tactics employed by dishonest merchants. It has become to easy to buy likes and shares, fake customer reviews and invent case studies.

Whilst e-commerce companies and review sites are trying to eliminate fake reviews, black-hat marketers persistently find new ways of evading detection.

If you haven’t already heard the story of Amazon sellers using ‘review factory’ groups and bribing Amazon staff to publish fake comments yet it makes compelling reading.

Convincing other customers that your reviews are genuine is half the battle. What you should do is use customer reviews to support the claims you make in your advertising content.

However, don’t simply regurgitate the sentiment in a testimonials feature in your website. Publish reviews in the format they were received so that other users can see they have come from an external source and not made up by a marketing team.

Of course, it can be quite difficult to generate customers reviews in the first place. People typically need encouraging to leave a review.

Occasionally, you will receive a positive review from a grateful customer that wants to champion your business.

The imbalance of the scales, however, typically predict that most people don’t leave reviews until they have a bad experience – then the whole world should hear about it.

There is also the issue of competitor’s leaving fake reviews on your account. It has become a practice for rivals to leave poor reviews on competitor ratings, or in some cases, buy fake reviews for rivals so their account is suspended.

Brands now have to engage in online reputation management to protect and build social proof.

On the other hand, it’s important that you react to genuine poor reviews in a positive way.

Consumers are more inclined to trust brands that respond to negative reviews and take appropriate action than companies that ignore the comment, or worse, put up a defence.

How Reviews Improve Search Performance

Responding to reviews not only builds trust with new customers, it also builds trust with search engines.

The ultimate goal of Google et al is to recommend the most credible and high-quality businesses to their end-users. Reviews help Google generate a better understanding of whether or not a business delivers a good user experience.

Google uses ‘brand signals’ to measure a brands domain authority and ultimately rank webpages.

According to Moz’s 2018 Local Search Ranking Factors, reviews are Google’s third most important ranking factor. Signals such as quantity, velocity, and diversity enable search engines to identify high-quality brands that provide customer satisfaction.

Positive reviews are a huge win for organic SEO.

The Google My Business support page, reveals “high-quality, positive reviews from your customers will improve your business’s visibility and increase the likelihood that a potential customer will visit your location.”

So, there you are. Straight from the horses mouth.

The Social Effect

Social proof is effective because it empowers real customers to tell your story. So actively encourage your customers to leave comments on your social media accounts and third-party “trust” sites.

You don’t always have to ask people to leave a review. Publishing relevant posts in your social media network will naturally elicit responses. Remember, social media fosters a two-way conversation.

Leveraging social proof is an essential function of digital marketing. Be aware of consumer sentiments around your industry, brand and products and participate in relevant conversations.

Social proof is, without doubt, one of the key digital marketing strategies in the current paradigm. Claim your business listings on all major review websites and make sure you are using review facilities and strategies to your advantage.