So What Is Social Listening and Social Proof?
As everything we do moves more and more online understanding exactly what is Social Listening and Social Proof has never become so important. In this world of online connections, instant communication, and constantly changing technology, what you have to say about your business and services is irrelevant and useless. When people are searching for what you have to offer, the weight of others’ words and recommendations hold far more sway.
For this reason, the concept of social proof and social listening becomes so important. While often this makes us feel uncomfortable social proof and social listening should become a crucial part of your marketing strategies and reputable brand visibility.
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How is Social Proof and Social Listening Important?
If you have ever heard me speak, I will often mention, that people “don’t believe what YOU have to say about your business, but they’ll believe a complete stranger they have never met and don’t know.” If you know consumer psychology, social proof is the concept of an individual following the most popular choice or succumbing to the decision of the masses. The assumption for the idea of social proof is, “despite the behavior being correct or not, the greater the number of individuals abide by it is assumed to be the correct behavior.”
Social proof is on EVERY online platform such as Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram. This is where reviews and recommendations matter the most. Aside from these communication channels, traditional methods such as survey forms and recommendation boxes also provide significant help. The other element is the rise of Influencer marketing – social proof at its best.
On the other hand, social listening is an organisation’s monitoring approach to social media, and communication channels pertaining to discussions, feedback, criticisms about their brand. It can revolve around the service, products, and even customer service.
How Does Social Proof Affect Your Brand?
Since the internet has become the primary means of communication, product research and often sales between a customer and your brand, your online presence must show reputable social proof. Understanding how your current customers’ opinions and feedback about your service or product influence a potential customers buying decisions is the difference between you making the sale or generating the lead or your competitor.
Why is Social proof so powerful? Going back to consumer psychology mentioned above, the power comes from four basic principles:
- Uncertainty: Purchasing a product or service, is a risk. To overcome this uncertainty we often look to see what other people around us have chosen. Think about ordering at a restaurant but asking your friends what they are eating first before deciding for yourself.
- Similarity: We’re wired to adopt the behaviour of people who are like us or we want to be like. This has given the rise to Influencer marketing on Instagram, YouTube and also to an smaller extent Facebook.
- Expertise: We’re especially drawn to trust social proof when it comes from experts we trust.
- Number: We can easily assume that when the majority of people have made a decision, it’s a good decision for us as well.
How to Use Social Proof to Maximise Marketing Strategies?
There’s a couple of ways to use social proof, not just for your for your brand visibility, but also as part of your marketing strategy. An important caveat, have a strategy in place to deal with negative reviews. Not everybody will love you and having had a number of clients in VERY competitive industries, I’ve seen competitors using fake negative reviews as a tactic.
First, make sure you do have reviews on your Facebook page as well as the link saved so you can easily send the link through to happy customers. The next social media platform where reviews are critical is on your Google My Business page. If you are active on LinkedIn, recommendations are essential as they build your authority. It may feel like a big favor to ask for your past clients to leave a recommendation but let them know that it will help you immensely and if possible, reciprocate where you can.
Why is social proof essential for your brand visibility? In an interesting statistic, 73% of potential customers are more likely to trust you when there are reviews from past customers on your social media sites or Google pages. Moreover, when people see reviews and recommendations on your social media platforms, 57% of those who view your profile will also check your website.
- Ask for Them One-on-One. This is the most effective way to get reviews: to appeal to someone that you have an actual relationship with and just ask.
- Send Email Requests.
- Offer Incentives For a Positive Review.
- Promote The Reviews You Already Have. …
- Place Call To Actions on Your Site.
Moreover, being able to check for reviews and recommendations lead to active social listening.
Social Listening at Play
Social listening is the monitoring of your brand’s social media channels for customer feedback and direct mentions of your brand or discussions regarding specific keywords, topics, competitors, or industries, which can be analysed for insights and opportunities to act. It is also great for discovering exactly what topics and hashtags your audience use most; so you know exactly what you need to talk about and which hashtags to use in order to reach as many people as possible, while also offering them the type of content they want to see or read.
Three core benefits of social listening are:
- Protect your online reputation – you can follow up on positive comments from your brand ambassadors & respond to a dissatisfied customer before the story gets ahead of you.
- Improve customer satisfaction – by analysing mentions about your business, you can turn this knowledge into action, apply changes and keep customers happy.
- Find new customers – people look for recommendations online, if you are social listening and reply effectively its a great way to grow your customer base.
Uber is a master at social listening. The company keeps an eye on their driver and rider opinions as this allows them to continuously optimise their product. Another company excelling at social listening is international soap maker and multi-million brand, Dove. After running a survey they found the results showed 80% of women had to deal with body shaming, this then led to a collaboration with Twitter to launch its ‘Speak Beautiful‘ campaign to inspire women to speak more positively about themselves on social media.
The campaign involved people reading another person’s diary, which became an avenue for negative self-talk. The advert that this company has created empowered women to talk beautifully about one’s self. As for the effect of this advert? Dove saw a 63% increase in sales that signify the importance of social listening. Since then Dove has used social listening for a number of other successful campaigns.
So how can you as a business owner use social listening as part of your marketing? One of the quickest easiest ways is to setup up a Google Alert for your brand name and service or products. Social listening is active and strategic, from engaging a happy customer to shifting your brand positioning strategy. Social listening uses the data you gather to improve your social media strategy.
Conclusion
Don’t stress and try to go it alone. If you have no idea how to optimally set your Facebook Page or Google Page for reviews and recommendations, I’d be more than happy to help! Although reviews can be a mix of both negative and positive ones, dealing with the not-so-nice ones is for another story.
If you’ve got no idea of how to start mapping out your marketing strategy or social media proof and listening, let’s chat. If you are looking for a guide of how to start online, I do have a the 7 Tools we use here at Marketing Leap to help you pivot your business online, click here to download. There is no better time than NOW to get your business set up for the rest of the year. Know who your ideal client is, know your clear concise message and know WHERE you should show up online!
Whether you have any questions or simply want to chat, drop a comment below! Otherwise connect with me on your favourite Social media platform, as I am on nearly every one! If you don’t know how to pull this all together, I am holding Virtual Digital Success workshops focusing on different marketing elements. You can learn all about those here. Each month these workshops move online as self-paced courses so you don’t miss out on the learning!
So, if you are stuck or overwhelmed with creating the right Marketing strategy for you and your ideal clients, I have Strategy Sessions available. If its time to get a Clear Action Plan, Digital Strategy Map & Checklists, you can check out the details here!
HELP! I NEED TO GET A MARKETING STRATEGY!
FAQs To Social Proof and Social Listening
- Ask for Them One-on-One. This is the most effective way to get reviews: to appeal to someone that you have an actual relationship with and just ask.
- Send Email Requests.
- Offer Incentives For a Positive Review.
- Promote The Reviews You Already Have On Social Media
- Place Call To Actions on Your Site.
Three core benefits of social listening are:
- Protect your online reputation – you can follow up on positive comments from your brand ambassadors & respond to a dissatisfied customer before the story gets ahead of you.
- Improve customer satisfaction – by analysing mentions about your business, you can turn this knowledge into action, apply changes and keep customers happy.
- Find new customers – people look for recommendations online, if you are social listening and reply effectively its a great way to grow your customer base.
