Social Proof – The New Way to Market and Shop Online
— January 29, 2015What does social proof mean and why is it important? Well, have you ever clicked on a company’s Facebook page to check out their creditability through their social influence? In other words, how many people have “liked” the page and what did they post last. I know I have and statistics are proving that most online shoppers are doing the same.
It’s also known as informational social influence and it’s changing the way businesses market as well as online shoppers buying habits.
The female demographic a prime target for advertisers.
Have you ever asked your Facebook friends about what they think of a certain product, from clothing to shampoo, or from kitchen gadgets to electronics, so that you can make some smart shopping choices? I certainly have. In fact, I not only ask for opinions, but I also read the opinions that others have shared when they try something out.
It’s something that many women do. We talk about our experiences, and that includes the products that we’ve liked and those that we haven’t. Don’t think that advertisers haven’t noticed.
Social media marketing is often designed with women in mind.
A B.I. Intelligence report recently showed that social networks actually direct their advertising more toward female users than male, simply because they know that they are the ones who use it the most, particularly for making smart shopping decisions. While Facebook is certainly taking on this practice, it is considered to be more gender neutral than some of its smaller rivals, such as Google+ and Pinterest.
Is all this advertising changing the honesty of social proof?
No, we don’t think so…not yet at least! Social media can still be a great place for smart shopping information. After all, it’s where you can find a lot of opinions, you can ask questions, and you can learn about a product in a way that is unbiased and that is based on your friend’s real world experiences. You are able to ask lots of questions about a product, before you buy it, and you’ll know that the replies that you get aren’t biased by the promises of commissions or sales bonuses.
Think of social media as a kind of focus group of your very own, where the information that you learn is far more objective than anything that you would see on a television commercial, or the answers that you would receive from a store’s sales rep. Until we could log into accounts where we could share virtually anything at any time, this kind of recommendation and feedback simply wasn’t available to us on such a broad and convenient scale.
Nowadays, it really doesn’t matter what you are considering, from a cleaning product that is supposed to perform miracles without harming the environment, or a portable phone charger that claims to provide several charges before having to be plugged in. You’ll always know what to expect because your friends will help you to know that you’re doing some smart shopping with untainted advice.
Most recently, I was able to use the advice of my friends to choose the perfect new ebook and to select the ideal power bank gift to give for Valentine’s day. Not too shabby when you consider that social media posting takes only a few seconds out of the day!
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