Social Proof Optimization: How to Make Your Website Appealing to the Masses

Need to reach your website’s target audience? Or perhaps you want to improve your product sales and increase the number of clients your business handles.

While driving targeted visitors to your website via advertising and marketing campaigns can do wonders, it is also important to grasp and convert these visitors into buyers, clients and regular readers.

One way to do this is to harness the power of social proof, which is simply the theory that people’s behavioral patterns are highly influenced by the actions of the people or community around them.

This article will examine how you can use the concept of social proof to optimize your website and make it more attractive to your target audience.


What is Social Proof?

Wikipedia has a rather concise definition of Social Proof:

Social proof, also known as informational social influence, is a psychological phenomenon that occurs in ambiguous social situations when people are unable to determine the appropriate mode of behavior.

Making the assumption that surrounding people possess more knowledge about the situation, they will deem the behavior of others as appropriate or better informed.

Robert Cialdini has written about Social Proof extensively in his influential book Influence: The Psychology of Persausion. In the chapter on Social Proof, Cialdini suggests that “[O]ne means we use to determine what is correct is to find out what other people think is correct…We view a behavior as more correct in a given situation to the degree that we see others performing it.” (source)

Paul Rutherford, a Professor at the University of Toronto offers similar insights. While he primarily focuses on the advertising of public goods, I feel that his thoughts on propaganda do apply to social proof as well:

Propaganda can set the agenda (determine what issues are of importance), prime discussion (determine what criteria are used to assess a person or issue), excite controversy (where news outlets take different stands), or generate support (where the media elaborate its message). Whatever its impact, the result is productive–of comment, argument, and discourse.

The key point to note here is that social proof is a lubricant in the public sphere. It encourages interaction around a specific topic, personality or event. It forces collective mental focus through catalysts such as group behavior, public debates and organized reporting.

Here are some common examples of Social Proof. I’m sure you would have encountered some of these on a daily basis:

• People being attracted to a crowd looking at a spectacle.
• People ignoring public fights because most people seem to ignore it.
• The use of canned laughter in sitcoms to encourage audience enjoyment
• The seeding of tip jars at bars or cafes to encourage tips
• Manipulation of the line-up queue at clubs to boost its attractiveness
• The use of crowd-centric headlines such as ‘Most popular’ or ‘America’s best’
• Personalities who surround themselves with objects of social prestige
• The gradual increase in standing ovations as more audience members join in.

An Introduction to Social Proof Optimization

The term social proof optimization is not used in common parlance. While Social Proof is primarily a sociological construct, it has gradually been co-opted by marketers seeking to validate or explain the marketing techniques they use.

What is missing from the marketing articles that I’ve read was the detailed application of Social Proof specifically on online entities such as websites or online social profiles

Most of the material I’ve come across largely focused on customer testimonials for ECommerce setups, while neglecting the application of Social Proof for blogs or other types of websites.

In a bid to provide more detailed information, I’ve used the term social proof optimization to emphasize the use of various types of social proof within the limited framework of a website.

Here is my definition of social proof optimization: It is a process which legitimates and promotes a website to its target audience, through the integration and use of objective external measures, social networking frameworks and existing public opinion.

The goal of social proof optimization is make visible the opinions and actions of others toward the website itself, while connecting the website to specific external entities and communities which validate or enhances the website’s reputation and reach.

Eight Social Proof Indicators that Market Your Website

Using the concept of social proof to optimize your website is fairly simple. You’ll just need to cater to the instinct of visitors to look outside themselves. Visitors to a new website often need affirmation and validation from others around them.

The primary aim of using these eight social proof indicators is to generate trust and liking. You want people to trust your content and suggestions. You want them to like your website or personality so that they’ll return or even better, recommend it to people they know.

Here is the list of social proof indicators, which one can easily use to effectively present your website in a favorable light.


1. Product testimonials from Satisfied Customers

If you’re selling a product or service, this is absolutely essential. Testimonials are one of the most effective ways to encourage an impulse sale. Try asking for testimonials from your clients or customers and display the notable ones prominently on your site.

An effective way to encourage and manage testimonials is to set up a forum or a separate section in a forum for them. Lucky draws can also be used to encourage customers to submit testimonials. For clients, you can offer them a link back to their website.

2. Unique Recommendations from Experts

This is similar to a testimonial but there is a major difference. First of all you do need an authority on the specific topic and it should be one that is academically qualified or simply an individual with an great reputation in the specific field.

This means that you shouldn’t request recommendations from customers or clients, unless they are renowned experts or professionals within the niche itself. These recommendations are similar to the author or critic blurbs at the back of any newly published book.

3. Awards, Links or Mentions from Other Websites

This refers to the display of awards and mentions from authority websites or organizations. I’ve previously linked to the Customize Google website in my post on picking the right longtail keywords and their website has a good example of this social proof indicator.

Right at the top of their website are banners featuring quotes from Lifehacker and Mozilla, both of which recommend Customize Google as a ‘must-have‘ firefox extension.

The banners both link back to specific posts promoting the Customize Google extension. Why? Recommendations from reputable sites make your product or website much more attractive, especially in the eyes of those in the know.

4. Pictures taken with Experts and Famous people

This confers authority or buzz via association and is useful for attracting people who are already in favor of the expert or personality in question. It might be important to set this up in a way which does not suggest that the person in question endorses your product, views or website.

A good place to put this picture would be in your ‘About‘ page instead of a specific article page, unless you are directly referencing or interviewing them on a specific topic.

An example of a webpage which effectively uses a picture to its advantage is Wendy Piersall’s article on 8 Ways to get Venture Capital Attention from Guy Kawasaki. Note the prominently displayed picture of Wendy with Kawasaki.

5. Visibile Buzz: Feed Count, Comments, Pageviews and Product Downloads

A large number of on-site comments denotes popularity and encourages more participation from visitors. The same goes for the number of views for an article or blog post and downloads for any specific file or product.

A decent comment, post view and download count will pique the interest of casual visitors to your website and will convince them your site is worthy of deeper exploration.

For Wordpress users, you can set up pageview and download trackers by installing the Post Views and Download Monitor plugin. (I’ve just set up the post views plugin for the first time today and you can see an example of it in action at the bottom of the single blog post page.)

Displaying your site feed count can also be a major catalyst towards gaining more subscribers. According to the results of a feed count survey I conducted several months ago, most bloggers seem to suggest that a high feed count display is an act of social proof which encourages more casual visitors to subscribe to your blog.

6. Social Widgets and Membership Badges

Social blog widgets display the size and interconnectness of your website within an online community. The three main social blog widgets I know off come from MyBloglog, Blog Catalog and Bumpzee, three blog-based social communities which offer widgets that display the recent visitors for any specific blog.

Networking social sites such as LinkedIn offer more direct benefits because their available social buttons can link to a specific networking environment which includes testimonials and recommendations from others in the same industry.

On the other hand, membership badges refer to badges conferred upon websites within a specific network, community, profession or group of websites.

An example of a membership badge embraced by many bloggers comes from the 9rules network, which makes its members to place a 9rule badge linking back to the network.

I consider social blog widgets to be the weakest form of social proof as they don’t really sell your site in any way. These widgets can however, make your website seem more lively or populated.

Membership badges are only useful if the network itself is prestigious or elite with a high barrier of entry. This sort of membership badges will usually lead visitors to assume that your website has high quality and standards.

7. Site Rankings on any Hierarchical list

This can refer to industry-specific ranking lists, blog top lists as well as more general hierarchical lists like Technorati and Alexa. Displaying a good rank within a list always encourages more attention from others.

Visitors might be impressed by your website’s position in the ranking system and hence come to believe that your site is popular and has a large audience base. I wouldn’t encourage displaying your ranks if they are mediocre or below average.

8. Display Professional Certifications

If you own a health and fitness website, it might be useful to put up any official fitness certifications you might have. If you’re working in an online search marketing firm, listing the Google Advertising Professional credit next to your profile will increase client trust.

Display of professional certifications demonstrate professionalism and expertise in the chosen field and this is a very effective way to make visitors and clients feel more confident that the content they are reading or services they are receiving are top quality and legitimate.

Conclusion

Like the Long Tail, social proof is a valuable concept that you need to understand if you’re interested in growing your website, reaching your target market and building a larger audience base.

I’ll leave you with one final note of advice: Don’t assume to know what social proof your audience needs. While you might think that putting up a brief mention or quote about your site might be useless, visitors do develop greater trust when they see other familiar websites or people talking about you or your website.

Similarly, you might believe that the Alexa Rank is a flawed method of measuring a website’s traffic levels. However, your visitors might be initially drawn to your site because they think it accurately denotes actual popularity and size.

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