People are walking in the footsteps of others

People who are visiting a new town and are looking for a restaurant where they can eat some well-prepared sushi. People will choose the restaurant in which a lot of people are already sitting. People who read that the Samariá Gorge (Samariakløften) and the beautiful sea Elafonissi is one of the 5 best experiences on Crete will be more likely to include these experiences in their travels because a blogger recommended it. People who get Peaky Blinders recommended by their friends will start watching this series on Netflix instead of others.

Social proof, or consensus, is the 6th of Dr. Robert Cialdini’s Principles of Persuasion. Social proof means that people follow the actions of other people. People follow the recommendations of others because they want to know for sure that they are making the right decision. If people can try your product for free, their best proof is the proof of others.

When customers are unsure or in doubt whether they should buy from your shop or not, they will base their decision on what others have written or said about your shop. To get more customers to buy from your shop, you should focus on the words of others instead of your own words.

| “When you say it, it’s marketing. When your customer says it, it’s social proof”

There are 5 types of social proof, that you can use to convince customers to complete their purchase on your shop. The 5 types are:

1. Experts (Experts within a specific field, i.e. food, exercise, clothing, travel)

2. Celebrities

3. Customers recommendations, reviews and ratings

4. Numbers from a larger group

5. Recommendations from friends, family, network (Peers)

Expert — Osuma

As a shop owner, you can decide whether to hire an external expert to give advice, but you can also establish yourself as an expert within a certain field. Osuma is an online grocery store which has succeeded in establishing itself as an expert with a blog that shares ideas for dinner, easy meals, bread and cakes.

It’s all about giving advice, inspiring your customers, learning or educating them, informing them instead of merely selling your product.

So, if you are an interior design shop, you can give advice on “how to decorate your home with plants” or “Five must-haves in your living room”.

If you are a clothing shop, you can give advice on “Five popular colours this spring” or “Three dresses that will suit anyone”.

If you are a shop that sells tickets to your amusement park, you can share advice like “Ten things to remember when visiting an amusement park” or “What’s new in the park this month”.

Celebrities — Statedrinks.

StateDrinks is using celebrities to persuade customers to buy from them. They are using well- known people within their field: football, tennis, music etc. These celebrities are Christian Eriksen, Pernille Harder, Karoline Wozniacki, Burhan G etc. On Instagram, you will find a photograph in which Christian Eriksen is sitting in a gym with a State Drink in his hand. The post is a competition in which participants can win a pair of Christian’s signed boots, a t-shirt from State Drinks, autographed by Christian, and 100 bottles from State Drinks. See the post here.

Recommendations — Rito, Bloomit and Skousen

New customers will be influenced to buy from Rito the minute they visit the shop, because new customers can see what others think about Rito’s products. Customers can see how many recommendations Rito has, how many stars Rito has and so on. If customers want to read what existing customers are saying about Rito in more detail, they can read it on Trustpilot.

Bloomit persuades their customers to make a purchase by showing customer recommendations on their landing page. This way, customers don’t have to browse to a site other than Bloomit to read what existing customers are saying about them.

Skousen show recommendation on their product sites, so customers can read specific evaluations of the product they are thinking about buying.

Wisdom of the crowd

Let new customers know which of your products are popular, what other people are buying right now, and which products other people are watching. Customers are much quicker to decide if they can see what others have experienced. On Homeshop.dk you can see the most popular products and what other shoppers are buying right now.

Other ways to influence customers to buy through using statistics, social proof and so on could be by showing how many satisfied customers you have, how many followers you have on social media and how many sign-ups you have to your newsletter.

Teeshoppen tells you how many satisfied customers they have on their shop and at the very top of their online shop so new customers can be influenced the second they visit the Teeshoppen site.

Bodylab is using social proof by telling how many people like their shop on Facebook.

If you have a modest number of customers, or around 500 followers on Instagram or just have started collecting sign-ups to your newsletter, you might consider using some of the other types of social proof investigated by Dr. Cialdini.

Get more followers on Instagram here.
Get more sign-ups to your newsletter here.

Peers

There are certain people that can influence your customers more than other people and methods. When these people recommend a fancy restaurant, a new action movie in the cinema or recommend an online sneaker shop — your customers will certainly trust them.

The people who have this power are people you know, for example family members, friends, colleagues and teammates.

TripAdvisor takes this type of social proof seriously. When customers use their Facebook log-in on TripAdvisor they can read recommendations from people they know.

Spotify allows its users to see what their friends are listening to. Facebook shows its users which Facebook sites their peers have liked, as well as which posts their peers have liked and tagged.

New customers trust the recommendations of people they know more than they trust other types of recommendations from, for instance, experts, celebrities, influencers and existing customers.

Instead of only focusing on collecting and showing recommendations, there are other ways to show customers that their friends like your products. If a potential customer sees that one or several of her peers like your Facebook or Instagram page, she will be more eager to buy from you. This is also a kind of social proof because customers can see what their peers liked.

To persuade customers on your shop to do more than just watch products and visit different sites, you need to focus intensely on social proof. The 5 things you must do are:

● Establish yourself as an expert who gives tips and provides inspiration

● Use celebrities, macro-influencers or micro-influencers to promote your product

● Show what your customers have written on Trustpilot, how many stars you
have been given and how many reviews you have received from existing customers

● Show customer numbers, likes on Facebook, sign-ups to your newsletter and sentences like “popular items” or “others are watching now”

● Show customers what their friends and family have liked and recommended