What’s the first thing you do when you’re shopping online?
Studies show that 87% of the time you check out social proof to know what others are saying about the product. And like any rational buyers, you go for products with positive feedback, rather than something that has low ratings and negative reviews.
That’s exactly what visitors do when they are shopping on your eCommerce website. Customers trust social proof as much as they trust personal recommendations. Therefore, your customers are more likely to buy your products if they see social proof of other happy customers of your business.
In this article, we’ll show you 4 ways of how to add social proof to your eCommerce website that will quickly increase your traffic and boost your sales.
1. Display User-Generated Content
Displaying user-generated content on your eCommerce website is a great way to add social proof.
User-generated content can be any content like a review, images, or videos of customers using your product. This type of content works great because it’s created by real people and not by the brand.
Most big brands use platforms like Instagram to share user-generated content. Typically, they ask their customers to share photos featuring their products with a branded hashtag. A branded hashtag makes it easy for companies to find user-generated content and repost it to their Instagram account.
But, you can also add an Instagram hashtag feed to your eCommerce site to display user-generated content there.
Here’s how BarkBox does it on their website:
By embedding an Instagram hashtag feed on your website homepage, you can show your visitors all of the real-life happy customers your business has—which can skyrocket your conversions.
2. Add Social Proof Notifications to Your Website
Adding social proof notifications to your website is a great way of showing how popular and trusted your business is.
You must have already seen examples of social proof notification on other websites. It’s a small popup on your screen displaying how other customers are interacting with your business. These notifications look something like this:
By adding these real-time notifications, you can let your visitors know about a recent purchase, a signup, or any other conversion activity that happened on your website.
This type of social proof notification works because it’s honest. With the buyer’s name and location on these popups, they prove to be more authentic and real.
It’s also a great way of creating FOMO. FOMO, or fear of missing out, is an anxious feeling of missing out on something that others are already loving. This in return builds a sense of urgency and makes it more likely for your visitors to take action on your site. By using FOMO effectively on your marketing strategy you can easily take your business to the next level.
3. Add Product Reviews on Your eCommerce Website
Adding reviews from real customers who have already used your product is another great way to show social proof on your website. Reviews and product ratings are so effective because visitors to your site can get more information about your products from people that know exactly what your product is like.
Look at those rave reviews in the example above. This is a solid reason why adding reviews can influence the buying decision of your new users and instantly boost conversions on your eCommerce site.
Want to get more reviews for your products? You can do that by adding a catchy call-to-action on your website that encourages people to review your products.
4. Show Off Share Counts, Mentions, and Numbers
It’s very important for your users to trust your business. A good way of showing that is by displaying your social share counts, or the media mentions that you have received. You can even show off the number of active users for your business if you already have a good user base.
That’s how Avada displays its loyal customers with a call-to-action right below for easy conversion.
This is a proven way to nudge up your customer’s trust and get them to purchase your product.
Over to You
There you have it! Social proof is powerful content that you can flaunt on your eCommerce website. And all you need are some happy customers to validate your business.
No matter how you want to display the social proof on your website, you’ll see a massive boost in your sales and overall conversions.