Welcome back to another episode of the behavioral economics and marketing podcast series. This is Sandra Thomas Commonall. In this episode, I will be discussing the relationship between social proof and conversion rates.
To get started, let’s review the definition of social proof. Social proof is the phenomenon that describes the tendency of human beings to follow the actions of others when making decisions, placing weight on these actions to assume the correct decision. In other words, social proof is a psychological effect that leads us to copy or adapt to other people’s behavior.
Social proof is often considered more prominent in ambiguous social situations where people are unable to determine the appropriate mode of behavior and is driven by the assumption that the surrounding people possess more knowledge about the current situation. There are many great examples of social proof. One great example is when a television studio uses laugh tracks to indicate funny moments in a television show.
Research has shown that this canned laughter can increase the perceived funniness of a show. Likewise, social media offers an excellent example of social proof. The number of followers, fans, views, likes, favorites, and even comments that a user has positively affects how others perceive them.
A user with a million followers is perceived as more trustworthy and reputable than a similar user with a thousand followers, resulting in faster growth of followers and higher engagement and click-through rates. And let’s apply this to marketing with leveraging social proof to increase conversion rates. There are many ways that a company can leverage their social proof.
Here are just a few. One, as I mentioned, the more followers, fans, views, likes, etc. that your company has on social media, the faster you can grow your audience, increase engagement, and click-through rates.
Two, depending on the type of company you have, your target audience, and what they value, you may choose to enlist an expert or celebrity endorsement. Three, customer testimonials are an excellent way to show potential customers how well liked your product or services and why. Four, taking that a step further, referral business is absolutely the highest form of social proof.
And five, your company credentials. Have you won any awards? How long have you been in business? And what are your certifications? Six, let’s take company credentials a step further and talk about your employees’ credentials. Are they experts in a certain aspect of your industry? How many combined years of experience do they have? Are they highly educated? These are just a couple of the ideas of how your human capital can be leveraged as social proof.
Seven, earned media. You will often see logos on the bottom of the website as seen on such and such magazine. These accolades serve as strong social proof of the validity of your business product and or services.
Wrapping it up, understanding how we as humans make decisions is an important part of marketing. Behavioral economics is the study of decision making and can give keen insight into buyer behavior and help to shape your marketing mix. In this episode, I discussed how companies can leverage social proof to increase conversion rates.
Thank you for listening to another episode of Behavioral Economics and Marketing. This is Sandra Thomas-Kamanaugh.
Listen on your favorite platform: The Behavioral Economics in Marketing’s Podcast
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