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How Social Proof Can Make or Break Your Business

Guest post by: Lisa Manyon

Article Overview: Although storytelling and transparency are huge components of copywriting trends, it's not enough to simply tell your story. You must have buy-in. Consumers must believe your story, resonate with you, and believe that others believe in you too before they decide to do business with you. That's why social media and social proof are at the forefront of many successful marketing campaigns.

How Social Proof Can Make or Break Your Business

Although storytelling and transparency are huge components of copywriting trends, it's not enough to simply tell your story. You must have buy-in. Consumers must believe your story, resonate with you, and believe that others believe in you too before they decide to do business with you. That's why social media and social proof are at the forefront of many successful marketing campaigns. It's also vital that the story you are telling is TRUE. Authenticity = congruency in marketing. Often when things aren't flowing your message isn't a good match for what you are delivering and isn't resonating with your end-user as it should. Or what you are delivering isn't what you're presenting in your marketing message. It comes down to not only accurately portraying what you do but actually doing it.

Including features and benefits in your copy is not enough to fully convince savvier consumers your product or service is for them. Testimonials do help support believability and consumers want social proof that what you offer works. Period. Often they find this proof via social buzz on Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, blogs and more.

Your copywriting efforts and brand must be represented in social media platforms with engaged interaction to support any messages your marketing, advertising, and promotions are generating. Of course you need solid copy to engage the conversation and then the rest becomes viral. Think word-of-mouth marketing on the Web. Every social media post, blog comment and Tweet that you create has an impact on your reputation and the same is true about the buzz others are creating about you.

Another great way to build your buzz and enhance your relationships online is to infuse audio and video into your messaging. This is not a new technique; however, the effectiveness is increasing. People want to know, like and trust you and audio and video help make that connection. Although copy truly is the foundation of messaging it can take more than the written word to build relationships especially online. Rather than overlook social media avenues, video and audio consider how they can work for you.

* What are you doing to connect?

* What are people saying about you and your business online?

* Do you have social proof that what you do works?

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Article Tags: copy, copywriter, online business, social media, social proof



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Top 19 Copywriting books - 1. Ogilvy on Advertising. David Ogilvy. Wiley. 2. Positioning: The Battle for your Mind. Al Ries and Jack Trout. Warner. 3. The New Positioning. Jack Trout. McGraw-Hill. 4. Tested Advertising Methods. John Caples. Prentice-Hall. 5. How to Make your Advertising Make Money. John Caples. Prentice-Hall. 6. Guerrilla Advertising. Jay Conrad Levinson. Houghton Mifflin. 7. Direct Mail Copy that Sells. Herschell Gordon Lewis. Prentice-Hall. 8. Sales Letters that Sizzle. Herschell Gordon Lewis. NTC Business Books. 9. Herschell Gordon Lewis on the Art of Writing Copy. Herschell Gordon Lewis. Prentice-Hall. 10. Romancing the Brand. David Martin. American Management Association. 11. The Art of Writing Advertising: Conversations with William Bernbach, Leo Burnett, George Gribbin, David Ogilvy, Rosser Reeves. NTC Business Books. 12. Confessions of an Advertising Man. David Ogilvy. NTC Business Books. 13. My Life in Advertising. Claude Hopkins. NTC Business Books. 14. Scientific Advertising. Claude Hopkins. NTC Business Books. 15. How to Become an Advertising Man. James Webb Young. NTC Business Books. 16. The Lasker Story as He Told It. NTC Business Books. 17. Advertising Concept and Copy. George Felton. Prentice Hall. 18. The Copy WorkShop Workbook. Bruce Bendinger. The Copy Workshop. 19. Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Ads. Luke Sullivan. Wiley. This should keep you busy for at least a year. Enjoy!
Re: How to Promote Your Blog – The Definitive Guide to Promoting - Social Bookmarking sites seems to be ignored by most bloggers, preferring the use of Social Networks like Facebook and Twitter. I have come to observe that visitors referred through Social Bookmarking sites tend to engage and converts to lead more than the former. And the Traffic is more regular! Diigo.com scores highest in terms of traffic in the Social Bookmarking sites I have tried out so far.
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Re: Quote of the Day - "The only people witho - Thanks for sharing this Evan, there are some very powerful quotes in there, I particularly like this one:- You are now at a crossroads. This is your opportunity to make the most important decision you will ever make. Forget your past. Who are you now? Who have you decided you really are now? Don't think about who you have been. Who are you now? Who have you decided to become? Make this decision consciously. Make it carefully. Make it powerfully. regards, Mal.
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