🤝 Social Proof:

We copy others' behaviors in unfamiliar situations.

Stripe

Customer stories

Clubhouse

Showing faces

Google

Review views

People are constantly seeking evidence to evaluate a new experience (e.g., a product, service, or holiday).

One subconscious shortcut is to use social proof, and look at what others are doing.

It's essentially the basis for reviews and testimonials, although can be used in much more subtle ways.

Common types of social proof:

  • Reviews, ratings and testimonials

  • Displaying the number of followers or friends

  • Logos of clients and customers

  • Showing which of your friends also use a product

  • Showing the total number of people who use a product or service

✅ Conversion rates

  • Social proof can have a huge impact to conversion rates, particularly in a checkout.

✅ Sharing & referrals

  • You're more likely to share a product with friends, if you believe that other people are also sharing it with their friends.

✅ Perception of value

  • People attribute more value to a product that they believe other people like.

  • This is even more influential when it's friends or trusted experts.

✅ Purchases

The more 'real' the social proof, the more effective it seems to be.

For instance, knowing that your real-life friend uses a product, is far more persuasive than if it were a stranger using a product.

Specificity of social proof enhances the effect.

Instead of just listing their clients, Stripe go into detail about their stories, and exactly how they've worked together.

This feels genuine, and understanding how two brands collaborate to reach tangible results, is more powerful than a 5-star rating ever could be.

When landing on Clubhouse, they'll show you lots of faces of real people (I've masked with lego heads for privacy).

The intention here is that by seeing real faces, you don't think about their users as being 'accounts', but rather 'people'.

i.e., faces are more persuasive than just "We have 250,000+ accounts".

After leaving a review on Google, they'll track how many people have viewed it, and update you when it reaches certain milestones.

Knowing that hundreds of people have read (and benefited from) your review, may motivate you to leave another.