Social Proof is psychological and social phenomenon wherein evidence from customers, experts or peers verifies your argument and or makes your case more persuasive to your audience.

Remember as a kid when you said to another kid that their favorite TV show was bad and your choice was great because your dad said so? Or when your mom told you that Cheapie Flakes Cereal tasted better than Overpriced Flakes Cereal?

That was social proof.

Today, social proof is what friends, customers, peers and experts have to say about a product or service.

To put it simply, social proof is essentially anything positive someone says about your product.

Here are 4 types of social proof you can use to increase your sales:

User testimonials and reviews

This one is straightforward. People use your product and then they give you a review on social media, a testimonial on your website and so forth. The best way to get lots of testimonials and reviews is to offer a stellar product or service and then ask for their feedback.

Keep in mind that prospects won’t wade through a lot of long-winded reviews, but they will read a sentence or two from each review. And if the headline of a review speaks directly to a concern they have, they will read the whole thing.

Expert opinions including expert reviews and affiliations

Getting people who are perceived as experts or celebrities to endorse your product can add significantly to your sales figures. It doesn’t matter if you are paying these people to promote your product on their channel or to give their reviews; people will still see this as a sign that your product or service is the one to buy.

If you’re a member of an expert organization, be sure to play that affiliation into your sales writing to enhance your own credibility.

To give yourself even more credibility, back up your facts with quotes from experts who make your point for you. For example, “As reported by Dr. Jones in the Smith Peer Review, consuming alcohol is never healthier than abstaining, despite sensationalized news reports to the contrary.”

This is a way to get expert opinions into your writing without the expert knowing either you or your product.

Crowd social proof

When many people support a particular brand, the brands credibility is enhanced, and it becomes more attractive to potential customers.

Ideally you want to have plenty of active followers on your social media channels because people will gravitate towards brands that appear popular.

Friends of potential users

This one is interesting because it doesn’t have to be someone who has used your product. Rather, this can simply be, “I heard that this product is the best.” That alone can make the sale.

How do you get complete strangers to recommend a product they haven’t tried? Generally, by getting enough customer testimonials and expert opinions out there so that they are seen and then remembered at the crucial point where someone is asking their friend’s opinion.

5 Social Proof Automation Tools

Now you can display your social proof in real time with the help of these tools:

Boast – This one capitalizes on the power of testimonials for your website by collecting and displaying them in various formats.

Crowdy.ai – Packs 6 social proof tools into one. Covers notifications, conversations, testimonials, visitors, reviews and more. Set up various actions and notifications for your conversions.

Fomo – This “Fear of Missing Out” app features templates to get your social proof up and running in no time. Create customized notifications and page rules, adjust settings to increase conversions on your website and use intuitive tracking to increase sales.

Provely – This offers seamless integration into a variety of platforms along with 3 powerful pop-ups that can increase conversions by as much as 250%. First, it displays sale notifications to visitors in real time. Next it rotates sale notifications over time, and finally it displays past data on sales to help persuade visitors to become customers.

ProveSource – this is an easy to set up tool that allows you to showcase verified conversions and purchases. Customize it to show given time periods, notification icons and more. Automatically collects visitor and conversion data such as clicks, hovers, engagement rates and impressions. Connects to Google Analytics for deeper insights.