As much as we may think that internet is a busy, lively space full of people, the fact is that it still lacks personal human touch. To that end, around the early 2000’s some social-media concepts came to light. Firefox used to be the thing those days with a growing collection of extensions. Some of them allowed to bookmark pages and surf them along with online friends… make notes about pages which their friends would see when they visit them. This was the earliest sign of online social-proof that one could remember.
What really is social-proof?
Social-proof is a validation-and-acceptance mechanism. It’s because our primitive instinctive brain has this reflex built-in… to act as a survival mechanism.
Funny as it sounds, our brains are wired to follow the masses.
As social creatures, we look to others to determine how to behave in all kinds of situations.
This concept really comes in handy for conversions online since the web medium has limited capacity of interpersonal expression or sublingual messaging.
Much as we might think, we are really not in control of our decisions. Just like optical illusions, decision making is nothing but a psychological illusion. All the time we are carried away into making a decision that’s already made for us. Consciously making a decision is more of an exception rather than a rule.
Neuromarketing & Behavioral Economics — extending social-proof
Social-proof is not just limited to presenting social evidence. Related fields extend the impact of social-proof beyond the obvious. Neuromarketing explores the human subconscious with specially selected sets of messages (images, text, anagrams, logograms) that cause a response and activate hidden images, metaphors stimulating the purchase.
Behavioral economics studies the effects of psychological, cognitive, emotional, cultural and social factors on the economic decisions of individuals and institutions and how those decisions vary from those implied by classical theory.
Applying social-proof to customer acquisition
Social-proof has excellent results when applied to customer acquisition.
- Improved CTR
- Better conversion rate
- Lower cost of customer acquisition
- FOMO Impact: Fear of missing out
With the above goals in mind WP Social Proof sets out to present information in several categories to aid conversion:
- Live Sales & Conversions
- Live visitor stats
- Sales / Conversion milestones
- Limited time, custom offers
- Testimonials
- and more…
The compound impact is larger than the sum of the above. That’s because every visitor has unique triggers that motivate them to convert. A good implementation will grow the conversion rate by 150%. On the contrary, a poor implementation is not shown to have negative effects (unless there are obvious and blatant violations of UX principles).
WP Social Proof is built on the insights shared by Prof. Dan Ariely in several of his TED talks as well as his other presentations on behavioral economics. Based on these principles WP Social Proof helps conversions in several ways.
Improved CTR
When visitors see social-proof they are more likely to click-through to your product or sales funnel.
Better conversion rate
Once visitors land up on the product sales page they are more likely to purchase as evident from seeing other buyer’s actions.
Lower cost of customer acquisition
If you are running PPC ad campaigns, WP Social Proof saves on your cost of customer acquisition by improving the CTR and conversion rate. This means less $$$ per new customer acquired.
FOMO Impact: Fear of missing out
With WP Social Proof you can present limited time offers and impress upon them a sense of missing out on your offers encouraging them to take an action.
The best social-proof plugin for WordPress
I’ll submit: WP Social Proof is not the first to introduce this concept. However it’s the absolute-best and the most powerful implementation thanks to the flawless technical base, thoughtful UX and the conglomerate of sound features that help it manifest in its current avatar.
That’s how WP Social Proof helps you convert more, sell more and save more.