Looking for a way to increase conversion rates, generate more sales, and gain an edge over your competitors? Make sure you’re taking full advantage of social proof through the endorsements of others.
There are many ways to leverage social proof. We’ve put together the best examples of social proof to inspire your own marketing.
But first, we give you the lowdown on what exactly counts as social proof, and 10 of the main types of social proof you can utilize.
What is social proof?
“Social proof” is a theory that describes how people decide on their behaviors and actions based on what they see others doing. Essentially, it’s the stamp of approval from others that indicates a certain action is the correct behavior.
If someone is unsure whether to take an action, such as whether to purchase a product, they will look to others. If they see influential figures or peers have used and loved a product, they’re more likely to purchase it themselves.
But why is social proof so influential? It’s all thanks to the power of word-of-mouth. People trust the recommendations and endorsements of others far more than the advertising that comes directly from a brand.
These statistics are just a sampling of evidence that social proof works:
- According to Nielsen, 92% of customers trust peer recommendations, and other unpaid recommendations, above all other forms of advertising.
- 7 in 10 people trust “consumer opinions posted online,” even if they don’t know the person behind the opinion.
- 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.
- An one-star increase in Yelp review ratings produces a 5%-9% increase in revenue.
Top 10 types of social proof
Social proof can be generated in a myriad of ways. Below, we look at 10 different types of social proof, including some tips and strategies you can utilize to take full advantage of each type.
1. User reviews and testimonials
Positive reviews are one of the most powerful forms of social proof for your brand. Most customers read reviews before they decide to purchase a product or service because reviews provide a genuine, public picture of what customers think.
The closer your business is to a five-star rating, the more social proof you have in your favor, and the easier it is to gain new customers,
These key statistics show just how powerful reviews can be:
- At least 9 in 10 customers read reviews before purchasing.
- 72% of consumers won’t take any actions related to purchasing until they’ve read reviews.
How to take advantage
The right review-generating strategies can help stack the deck in your favor and promote positive reviews.
First off, build up a presence on Google My Business, Yelp, and other major review sites, as well as key review sites for your niche. (For example, if you’re a SaaS, you’ll want to generate reviews on Capterra, and restaurants will want to use Tripadvisor.)
Then, promote your presence on these review sites via your website, emails, and social media. You could also add a reviews section to the product pages on your website.
Find the best times to directly ask customers for a review, based on when they’re happiest. (For all the details on when and how to ask for reviews, check out our linked article.)
If you can get someone to elaborate on their positive review and give a detailed customer testimonial for your website, that’s even better. Reach out to some of your best customers to see if they would be willing.
Finally, respond to all the reviews you can, even when they are negative. Apply the feedback you receive. Showing that you listen to customer reviews will encourage more reviews, and responding to the feedback may lead existing reviewers to increase your rating.
2. Social media sharing
When customers share positive reviews of your brand on social media platforms, this user-generated content (UGC) has a significant impact. After all, social media is a public channel where people’s preferences are instantly shared with many people at once.
When users post about how much they love your brand, upload images and videos of how they use your products in real life, or leave positive comments, it shows others your brand is well-loved.
How to take advantage
Encourage user-generated content with branded hashtags, contests, and more, across the social networks your audience uses most. Highlight UGC on your own brand accounts with permission from the creators.
And of course, create stellar products – and branded social media content – your audience can’t help but share with their friends!
3. Customer referrals
We’re a little biased here at Referral Rock, but customer referrals are our favorite way to promote social proof! Customers can make referrals through emails, social media, texting, and more.
When people directly recommend your business to their friends, those friends are far more likely to purchase from you – and remain loyal customers – because of the power of social proof.
After all, people trust their peers’ recommendations far more than they trust ads that come directly from a business.
How to take advantage
To take full advantage of customer referrals, you’ll need a referral program (ideally using referral software).
A referral program makes it easy for customers to refer their friends, and for your business to track every referral that customers make. Plus, if you offer enticing rewards, existing customers are further motivated to click the share button.
Make sure your referral program is set up for easy sharing on social media, where customers naturally share with many friends at once. Always give customers their own unique referral link so they can share with their friends anywhere they please.
And once you’ve set up your referral program, don’t forget to regularly promote it on a variety of channels.
Our referral program software here at Referral Rock helps you track and grow word of mouth, and easily gain the referrals you need to build social proof. Skip the stressful DIY, and quickly set up a program with the sharing options of your choice in just a few clicks!
4. Affiliate promotions
Affiliate promotions occur when bloggers, social media personalities, and other content creators partner with your brand and place affiliate links on their own channels.
Affiliate links direct others to your brand website, where they can learn more about your product and make a purchase. Every time you generate a sale via a given affiliate’s link, that affiliate gets a cash commission. Sometimes, the posts and endorsements of a trusted affiliate can make all the difference in motivating new customers to make a purchase.
How to take advantage
It’s easy to start an affiliate program using specialized affiliate marketing software. Be sure to find and recruit affiliates who are trusted by your target audience. Once you’ve selected the best ones, let them try some of your products so they can share their genuine thoughts about your brand.
5. Expert’s stamp of approval
Expert approval is when an industry expert – an authority or thought leader in your brand’s niche – recommends your product. This recommendation could take the form of a blog post, a social media post, or any known use or endorsement of a product.
For example, if a dentist recommends Crest toothpaste and mouthwash in their practice, this counts as expert approval. Or, if a professional athlete shares a post where they’re wearing Under Armour athletic wear, this also counts as expert endorsement.
Expert endorsements could be part of a paid or agreed-upon partnership, but they’re especially powerful when they are organic and unprompted.
How to take advantage
One way to take advantage of expert backing is to form strategic partnerships with key figures in your industry, where they officially agree to promote you. Determine authorities in your niche whose backing would benefit you and reach out to them with your offer.
As for those valuable organic mentions, use brand mention tools to make sure you don’t miss an expert endorsements as soon as they occur.
6. Celebrity approval
When a celebrity posts about, endorses, or is spotted using a product, this is extremely powerful social proof. Often, brands will pay for celebrity endorsements. But if you score an unpaid positive mention from a celebrity, this is invaluable.
How to take advantage
It may be difficult to partner up with a celebrity for paid endorsements, unless you’re a large, multinational brand. But always be on the lookout for any coveted organic celebrity approval using brand mention tools.
If someone well-known does rave about you, reach out to say thanks and consider highlighting the organic endorsement on your website and social channels. This might be a great opportunity for a more formal partnership.
7. Influencer approval
According to influencer portal Tomoson, influencer marketing is the fastest-growing customer acquisition channel. Influencer approval is when someone with significant authority among your brand’s audience, and with their own platform, recommends or endorses your product on their social media or blog.
This approval is slightly different from a celebrity endorsement, as an influencer doesn’t always have a large following. Rather, what matters is that influencers are trusted among their followers.
Just like expert and celebrity social proof, influencer social proof can be paid or unpaid.
How to take advantage
Use influencer marketing strategies to select and recruit paid influencers who fit well with your brand. Remember that influencers with smaller numbers of followers (micro-influencers) have built a close-knit community of people who trust them, and often have more engagement from their audience.
Look for unpaid endorsements from influencers of all audience sizes by using a dedicated brand mention tool. If you find someone who raved about you unprompted, and their audience matches yours, consider reaching out to form a paid influencer partnership – or even a longer-term brand ambassador partnership.
8. “Wisdom of the crowd”
“Wisdom of the crowd” refers to the popularity of a product among a large user base. People don’t want serious FOMO (fear of missing out). If they see a large group of people buying and loving your product, they’ll buy it as well simply because they don’t want to lose out.
How to take advantage
This form of social proof is hard to control, as it all rests on the popularity of your products. To build the foundations needed for this popularity, you first need to have a stellar product or service your audience finds valuable.
Highlight your most popular products on the homepage of your website. And when large numbers of people leave positive reviews (or make positive social posts) about your brand, this also counts as “wisdom of the crowd.”
9. Other word-of-mouth recommendations
There are other ways to generate word of mouth and build social proof that don’t occur on social or review sites.
For example, someone who isn’t an influencer or expert may share or review your product on their personal blog or spontaneously tell others about it. There’s also offline word of mouth, which can be near impossible to track.
All these types of one-on-one sharing are still extremely valuable.
How to take advantage
Offer a product that’s valuable to your audience and worth sharing. Also consider creating surprising promotions or exclusive offerings to get people talking even more.
Offline word of mouth is hard to measure, so it’s best to couple it with trackable forms of sharing that build social proof (like referral marketing, social shares, and reviews).
Looking for more ways to encourage word-of-mouth marketing? Check out how top brands do it with proven word-of-mouth strategies.
10. Credentials
This form of social proof is built when a business receives noted recognition or serves high-profile customers. By sharing well-known customers on your website or social platforms, you are boosting your credentials to your potential customers.
How to take advantage
If you’re a B2B that counts high-profile brands among your customers, show these brands trust you by displaying their logo on a list of companies that use your product or service.
If you’ve earned an award or industry recognition from a well-known source, then highlight them on your homepage (this goes for B2Bs and B2Cs).
And if a high-profile news channel covers your brand in a story, mention that on your site and link to the article.
10 examples of social proof
How do the best brands and marketers encourage social proof? We gather 10 top examples of social proof to inspire you.
(You’ll notice some examples count as more than one type of social proof, which increases their impact. For example, a referral program with social media integrations counts as both “social media sharing” and “customer referrals.”)
1. Zendesk testimonials
Social proof type: Reviews and testimonials
Zendesk devotes a comprehensive page to sharing testimonials from top customers, including Mailchimp, Black and Decker, and Instacart. Leads can click on any name on this page to read full case studies on how Zendesk helps capture the voice of the customer, customize support, and more. If potential customers are on the fence about purchasing, hearing details from these current customers may be enough to convince them to convert.
2. Freshly’s referral program
Social proof type: Customer referrals, social media sharing
We love how Freshly gives customers so many options to refer friends: five social media platforms, emails, and a referral link. Providing multiple ways to share with many friends at once helps the program multiply its chances for social proof.
Freshly’s program offers an incentive to its existing customers to create social proof, and lets them offer subscription credits to their friends toward their first purchase. With both the recommendation and incentive coming from the existing customer, the social proof becomes even more powerful.
3. Apple’s #ShotoniPhone campaign
Social proof type: Social media sharing
Apple has created one of the most successful UGC (and social proof) campaigns with their #ShotoniPhone campaign. The campaign shows off the quality of the iPhone’s camera by encouraging customers to share their creative iPhone photography work on social media by using the hashtag.
To drive even more engagement and UGC, Apple regularly posts specific photo challenges and features the winners on their own Instagram account. And it’s certainly working – the hashtag boasts over 20 million photos on Instagram.
4. Pura Vida’s best sellers page
Social proof type: “Wisdom of the crowd,” influencer approval, celebrity approval
To tap into the “wisdom of the crowd,” Pura Vida devotes a page to showcasing its current best sellers. If a potential customer isn’t sure what to buy, they can see what lots of others have purchased and choose from there.
Incidentally, one of the best selling products featured on the page in May 2021 was a pack of bracelets designed by TikTok influencer-turned-celebrity Charli D’Amelio. As we can see, Pura Vida is using this partnership to its advantage for social proof as well.
5. Amazon’s affiliate program
Social proof type: Affiliate promotions
Amazon hosts one of the best-known affiliate programs out there. Bloggers and social media personalities can draw from a wide variety of products, so they’re sure to find something that fits their audience – and earn cash by promoting these products.
The affiliate program generates even more reviews and publicity for Amazon, especially when products are shared by high-profile affiliates like BuzzFeed.
6. Referral Rock’s testimonials and credentials
Social proof type: Credentials, reviews and testimonials
While helping brands start referral programs and build their social proof, we’re using social proof in our own marketing as well. On our own homepage, we display the logos of some of our high-profile customers, including Tripadvisor, Penguin Random House, and AT&T.
We also display our total Capterra review scores. You can then click through to our Case Studies and Testimonials page to learn exactly how we help accelerate word of mouth, straight from our customers themselves. Check out what Emily Jarrett of Penguin Random House has to say about us below!
7. Hellofresh influencer partnerships
Social proof type: Influencer approval
Hellofresh has partnered with celebrities in the past, but they’ve also built their social proof by inviting thousands of influencers to try their meal boxes and share why they enjoy Hellofresh in their own words. Influencers are also given discount codes when they sign on for a subscription.
Although these influencers span several different niches, they share one important thing in common – a trusting audience that could benefit from Hellofresh. Social proof through eye-catching visuals, coupled with genuine reviews, reaches a collective audience of millions.
8. Travis Scott Meal from McDonald’s
Social proof type: Celebrity approval, social media sharing, “wisdom of the crowd”
The Travis Scott meal is one of the best uses of social proof in the past few years. After rapper Travis Scott posted about eating at McDonalds (in an organic, unprompted Instagram post), the fast food brand reached out to him and asked to form a partnership.
He then designed the famous Travis Scott Meal based on his McDonald’s order of choice since childhood: a quarter pounder with bacon, fries with barbecue sauce, and a medium Sprite.
So many fans ordered the meal in the first week of the collab that McDonald’s experienced shortages of the meal’s key ingredients. Ordering one also became a TikTok trend, to the point where some McDonald’s employees were trained to recognize the lyrics to Scott’s song “Sicko Mode” during an order. (This means the campaign checked the boxes for social media and “wisdom of the crowd” social proof as well!)
9. The College Nutritionist X National Peanut Institute
Social proof type: Expert approval
When the National Peanut Institute wanted to get the word out about the nutritional benefits of peanuts, they turned to an expert – Registered Dietitian Dr. Rachel Paul, who blogs under the name “The College Nutritionist.”
She was able to promote peanuts as a healthy, environmentally friendly snack in a way that few else can because her readers trust her expertise in the area of nutrition. Because the college students (and others) who read her blog know she only recommends the best healthy food options, they’ll be more likely to choose peanuts for their next snack.
10. Etsy’s review system
Social proof type: Reviews and testimonials
Etsy’s website is a great example for displaying and generating customer reviews. When browsing for new products, you can see the star rating and number of reviewers even before reading the product description. This lets you see how many people have tried and shared their opinions on the product.
But that isn’t even half of their review-centric system. Etsy isn’t afraid to send out reminder emails encouraging customers to leave a review. The company also uses an “awaiting review” system in their purchase history tab, encouraging even more social proof.
Recently delivered purchases that someone hasn’t reviewed yet are marked as “awaiting review.” Buyers see a prompt to review these items, and can instantly click on a star rating to start their review.
Wrapping up
We hope these different types and examples of social proof have inspired you with ideas for integrating social proof in your own business.
You can also contact us at Referral Rock to quickly build your social proof with a customer referral or affiliate program.
