Make More Sales By Giving Your Web Site Visitors Social Proof by Gihan Perera

People don't make decisions in isolation. They rely on external cues to guide them in their actions, and one of the most powerful cues is the action of other people around them.

A psychologist called Solomon Asch put this to the test in an experiment known as "Asch's Lines".

He gathered a group of people and asked them to be part of an experiment to test their eyesight and perception. He passed around two cards, one with two lines A and B of obviously different lengths, and the other with one line that was the same length as line A. Each person in turn was asked to say whether the single line was the same length as line A (which it was) or line B.

The answer was obvious, but Asch wasn't testing eyesight. Instead, almost everybody in the group was a stooge who claimed out loud that "B" was the correct answer. Only one person didn't know what was going on - and they didn't realise that they were the only subject of the experiment.

What did Asch find? Even though that person's own eyes told him or her that the correct answer was A, when faced with the pressure of everybody else in the group saying B, he or she almost invariably capitulated to the peer pressure.

Such is the power of social proof.

Movie distributors use this principle when they show video interviews of happy patrons outside a cinema after just seeing a new release movie. Laundry detergent advertisers use it when they show "an ordinary housewife" extolling the virtues of the latest detergent. Car salespeople use it when they take out full-page newspaper advertisements filled with testimonials from happy clients.

How do you use this on your Web site?

Visiting a Web site is a lonely experience. Your site visitor is probably sitting alone at a computer, wondering whether to continue on your Web site or not, and has to make that decision alone. It's up to you to provide the social proof that guides them.

The best option is to do exactly what the movie theatres, detergent companies and car salespeople do: Put verifiable testimonials from past clients on your site. This gives your site visitor "proof" that the product worked for other people.

A testimonial on a Web site doesn't have to be just text, either. It can be an audio clip, an audio clip with a still photograph, or even a short video clip.

Social proof works best when the "other people" are similar to your typical site visitor. So choose people in the same industry, same demographics, and same requirements as your ideal client.

Modern social networking platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have made social proof common - and almost an expected part of on-line interactions. For instance, when you see a lot of people "like" something on Facebook, or re-tweet a message on Twitter, or recommend somebody on LinkedIn, that's social proof in action. Even if you don't have these same tools on your own Web site, you can still tap into the power of social proof with simple testimonials.


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