What’s up bloggers! No interview today, just coming at you with some solid social proof ideas to add trust and legitimacy to your blog. Enjoy.
So, I searched a WHILE to find the perfect definition for “social proof,” and pretty much hated the ones I found. Here’s the best I could come up with:
The Social Proof Theory, popularized by Robert Cialdini, maintains that a person who does not know what the proper behavior for a certain situation is, will look to other people to imitate what they are doing and to provide guidance for his actions.
Basically, that means this: When website visitors land on your blog, social proof serves to add legitimacy and trust to your brand, and to you.
In today’s episode, I’m going to share with you a few really cool stories and ideas that will help you implement social proof on your own website.
Let’s dive in!
Listen to my episode on social proof for bloggers
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Show notes and referenced links
- Robert Cialdini’s book Influence
- Yeah that’s really about it for today.
Wait, why do bloggers care about social proof?
If you want to sell anything on your blog (could be products, or selling an idea), you’re going to need a ton of trust and respect from readers.
If you ever want to have a huge following, you’re going to need to quickly convince new website visitors to buy-in to your brand, and your message.
In general, social proof builds trust so you can…
- Increase retention,
- engagement…
- generally have an impact on people!
So you want a massage?
Who would you rather have a massage from?
- A grad student in massage therapy, and you’re their 1st client
- A 10-year masseuse w/ a full-time massage business w/ 500 5-star Google Reviews
Given that information beforehand, you’d likely choose the candidate with the most experience, and those 5-star reviews will carry a lot of weight in determining who the better masseuse is.
2 quick examples:
1 – The intro to this podcast above.
When I can feature several of my podcast guests, this helps adds an aura of “oh wow this podcast has had a LOT of awesome bloggers on the podcast,” or “oh wow this podcast has had JLD, Neil Patel, Michelle Schroeder, Nick Loper, etc, etc…it must be pretty good.”
At least that’s what I’m aiming for.
2 – Amazon reviews/ratings
What are some of the first things we look at when we view products on Amazon?
- How MANY ratings does it have?
- What’s the rating?
We’re looking for social proof.
When we see tons of other people that bought in and supported a product, Leaving awesome reviews, we’re more likely to judge that product as being favorable and a higher quality.
3 – My old personal finance blog
I manufactured a nice collage of several readers holding “I <3 The Smarter Dollar!” notecards lol. I didn’t specifically do this to build a social proof thingy…but it sure worked.
Plus, it was just super fun to put on my homepage!
I couldn’t find the collage, but I did find the individual pics people sent me. Here are two examples 🙂
25 Responses
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Any comment will do.
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P
Great episode! Have recently binge-listened to the last 8 episodes so I should also email you and Jillian from Montana Money Adventures. 🙂
Greetings from Holland!
What! That’s awesome! I wanna come visit you now 🙂
Thank you for listening (and binging) of course. And yes, email Jillian! She deserves it 🙂
Hey Pete – once again a great episode! Short, sweet (thinking of the wine) and filled with applicable ideas and insights from your own experience.
If you send T-shirts to Switzerland, I’d bring it around to Asia and of course to the Swiss Alps to provide you with selfies from all over with cool backgrounds \°o°/ – also, if you’d like to visit or join me travelling, let me know!
As soon as this blog starts making mid-six figures Matt, I AM IN.
Not joking.
Also, I’m not sending one of my local tees to Switzerland…but I DO also have comfy tees on Amazon (they’re a darker color actually close to the brand color). I bet I could send one of those to you though.
Hey Pete super interesting – I’m still waiting on your resume so you can come help us build social proofs among expert recommenders at my day job!
I did a study in my last job with some PhD students and we looked at how ratings and reviews impact conversion on ecommerce pages. Interestingly, a product with 100 reviews and an average 5-star rating performs worse than a product with the same number of reviews and a 4.5-star average. I wonder if the same is true for blogging social proof. Do you need a random detractor mixed into to build some social proof into your social proof (i.e. convince everyone that these reviews/comments/whatever are real).
Omg I love every second of this. Absolutely fascinating.
I’m guessing you’re correct. An element of realism and truth.
Now I’m wondering if I did this on accident when I published the reviews of the first product I did (A 30-day challenge back in October). I also included negative feedback and criticisms, right along with praise.
Eh. Probably not in my case, but you’re definitely on to something (or at least that study is).
RE: job – Just use my failure resume instead! https://doyouevenblog.com/fail I’m more proud of it anyways 😉 In all honesty I was super intrigued by the company and would LOVE to work there, but I also refuse to update resumes, apply, etc right now. I’m straight-up stubborn. Probably not the best trait for potential employees 🙂
All I can think of is Xzibit. “Yo dawg, I heard you like social proof, so I put some social proof in your social proof so you can… social better”
HAHA. I love that one.
Actually, I pretty much love all memes.
Another insightful episode Pete! Also, I really enjoyed the new intro with the clips from prior guest and then a handful of people welcoming you to DYEB podcast.
Thank you Eric!
Super comfy shirt? Help Pete build social proof? Sign me up!
I really like your quick tips or perspective podcasts. The long form interviews are awesome, but sometimes I like hearing the 1, 2, 3 of it 🙂
Wait don’t you already have one?
Oh oh oh, and THANK YOU. I’ve never received a single piece of “yeah I enjoy the short idealistic episodes as well,” so your feedback is incredibly useful 🙂
Hey Pete! Great episode. I’m totes gonna use some of the tips mentioned on the podcast, in fact I already have! I loved the picture idea you did with the notecards. Keep up the awesome/useful content coming!
Love you,
Javi
(See)
Thanks for so many great suggestions to increase Social Proof. I need to implement the ones I’m not doing to encourage people to comment/like/etc more often.
🙂 Thanks for comin to this site, as always Lee!
Thank you For this Pete! I feel like I just binged your YouTube videos and website for the past two hours lol. Thank you for sharing your insights with us 🙂
Breakfast was some scrambled eggs with Thai spicy lime paste.
That is quite the compliment Jack, THANK YOU! Appreciate the binging 😉
Great advice . Social proofing is not to be overlooked!
Just finished listening to your podcast episode of this and yes, I know it’s now Sept 2018 but I’m making my way through all of them and I don’t wanna miss a thing…
….Did NOT mean to sound like Aerosmith then :/
I’m looking forward to listening to the rest of the juicy content and catching up!
P.s. you don’t have to send me a t-shirt as I know that was a thing like a year ago now, ha!
HA. #1 comment of the year.
🙂
Hi Pete,
I came across this post on your FB page, so I haven’t listened to this one (just a read). Super food for thought. As a relatively new blogger it’s something I really have to be aware of and be more strategic.
I wanted to let you know that I found your podcast a couple of months ago and I’ve listened to so many of your episodes. I’m pretty hooked!! I love the way sometimes 15 minutes in, there are these amazing insights while you’re interviewing your guests. I find I learn something every episode! Plus, your flow is very different and I like that – never boring, always real.
Thanks so much,
Ilana
Hey thanks Ilana! I sincerely appreciate that 🙂 🙂
Thanks you for being here!
Pete,
Any chance that your podcast episodes will eventually have transcripts? I’m not much of a podcast listener, but I’ll read transcripts!
Yup! I actually just started this about a month ago, sadly.
One day I’ll go back through older episodes and update–but going forward–yes. I’ll have transcripts 🙂