The Psychology of Social Proof & How Marketers Leverage it to Drive Conversions

So What Is It?

Social Proof is the psychological phenomenon where people use the actions of others to make a decision on a given situation. For example if you wanted to get a cup of coffee and there were two coffee shops across the street form one another, but one had a long line and the other was empty which one would you want to get the coffee from time not being an issue. The norm would be to go with the pack cause they must know something that you don’t. The saying “but everybody was doing it” may also come to mind.

How Marketers & Companies Leverage This.

1. Email Acquisition
Social proof can boost email subscribers by simply telling visitors how many people have subscribed to your list. (join the 131,342 people who receive our monthly newsletter) If this is something you are not currently doing it’s a good use-case for a/b testing where your original form would be the control group. Why am I not doing this on TheEmailGeek? Simple my list size is too small at the moment being that I am just starting out.

2. Apple Store Openings

There are a lot of things happening in the video that plays on the human psyche like the sun rising cueing that it’s a new day. Very uplifting music with the vocals “your sun’s coming out” paired with the perfect symmetry of the building and store layout which is very esthetically pleasing to the eye, but I digress. Social proof later in the video they show the cheering crowd outside waiting, then what was a empty store fill with happy employees that do a countdown to build excitement then open the doors (people at the front of the line waited the longest). Next product interaction ahem I count 8 kids cause who doesn’t like kids, lastly to the end there is a time-lapse of people out front.

3. How many People use your Product / Service