← The Brainy Business | Understanding the Psychology of Why People Buy | Behavioral Economics
The Brainy Business | Understanding the Psychology of Why People Buy | Behavioral Economics
454. Social Proof in Action: Understanding the Herding Instinct
00:42:21
In this episode of The Brainy Business podcast, Melina Palmer explores the fascinating world of social proof, a cornerstone of behavioral economics and a powerful tool for influencing decision-making. Melina goes beyond mere ratings and reviews,...
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- [00:00]
Melina Palmer
Hey there Melina. Here I'm excited to share. I'm teaching two virtual courses in applied Behavioral economics which are enrolling now. Advanced concepts of behavioral economics and internal communication and change management. So if you're interested, don't delay, learn more and enroll at HBL. Like Human BehaviorLab, TAMU like Texas A&M University. EDU. Again, that's HBL TAMU EDU EDU and click on certificate program when you're ready.
- [00:37]
Steve Martin
Let's start the show. Welcome to episode 454 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy. Today's episode is all about Social Proof. Ready? Let's get started.
- [00:55]
Melina Palmer
You are listening to the Brainy Business Podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now, here's your host, Melina Palmer.
- [01:11]
Steve Martin
Hello. Hello everyone.
- [01:12]
Melina Palmer
My name is Melina Palmer and I.
- [01:14]
Steve Martin
Want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. Today's episode is all about social Proof and let me tell you, I have been saving this one for quite a while while waiting for the perfect candidate for a refresh. There are hundreds of concepts the brain uses to make thousands of daily decisions. Those concep make up the building blocks of behavioral economics and some of them are more common than others and there are some that I reference and bring up all the time. Framing is one of those anchoring, reciprocity and of course social proof. This episode originally aired back in February of 2020, so potentially it didn't get its due focus then anyway, so maybe I should have refreshed it sooner. Anyway, it is such a central concept that I've been holding off to refresh it and today is a great day for it because of my guest on this upcoming Friday's episode, Steve Martin. Steve works closely with Robert Cialdini, one of the central researchers to popularize Social Proof and he has a new book coming out about influence at work. And last Friday's guest, DJ Sprague, is also a Cialdini certified trainer. So being nestled between these two interviews just felt like the perfect, perfect time to refresh this one. As you learn about Social Proof today, remember that this goes so far beyond ratings and star reviews. We are a herding species, so we look to others like us to help us make decisions. Are you showcasing that others love to do business with you? So you're a safe, smart bet. You almost can't overdo the social proof and I recommend it constantly. So even if you're using it, I guarantee you have at least one more place and one more way you can test this this out and incorporate it more. Whatever you decide to do, come tell me about it on social media. Gotta shout out the socials on this Social Proof episode, right? You'll find me as the Brainy biz pretty much everywhere and as Melina Palmer on LinkedIn. Don't forget links for my top related past episodes and books are waiting for you in the show Notes for this episode, which are found within the app you're listening to and at the brainy business.com 45 for all right, let's talk about Social Proof.
- [03:41]
Melina Palmer
Social Proof is very closely related to Herding, which was episode 19 of the podcast and is of course linked for you in the show notes. But they're not the same thing. The concept of Social proof was first introduced by Robert Cialdini. You've heard me mention him and his research on the show before, specifically the Mints study in episode 23 on reciprocity, where the simple mints at the end of a meal and the way they're supplied to patrons can increase tips by more than 20%. Cialdini's 1984 book Influence the Psychology of Persuasion introduced the concept of social proof as one of the six principles of persuasion. The others are reciprocity, scarcity, authority, consistency, and liking. I've linked to Cialdini's website Influence at Work for you in the Show Notes, as well as the past episodes of the Brainy Business, which are dedicated to reciprocity and scarcity. So you can easily access everything all in one place. When I think about Social Proof and herding, it feels a bit like a chicken and the egg situation. Because we're a herding species, we look for social proof to validate our decisions and be accepted by the group group. But when Social proof is present, we're more likely to herd. Which came first? I don't know if this question has an answer or that it really matters, but what is important is how these concepts impact your business. As you know, humans herd like sheep and guppies and cows and all sorts of other animals. As I've said, that episode on Herding is linked in the show notes if you want to learn more about it. It's important to be part of the herd because it keeps us safe or we perceive to be safer because we like to herd. When we humans are presented with a decision or circumstance in which we're uncertain, we look for clues to help us make the best choice. Having a lot of other people who've made the same choice in the past, regardless of whether or not it's actually a good one, is the social proof we need to nudge us into making that same choice. It's very likely you've been using some of these concepts in your own business or notice them being used by other businesses, and maybe you've wondered if they work or why they work well. Now you will have a scientific answer that these tactics absolutely do work and social proof is the reason why. There are six types of social proof and they can all be very effective when done well. Well, of course being the operative term, the six types that I'm going to dig into for you during this episode are an expert, celebrity user, wisdom of the crowd, wisdom of friends, and certification. They likely sound pretty self explanatory, but here's a little detail about each and ways to use them in business. Expert social proof would be when someone who is an expert in the industry recommends or speaks on behalf of a product or service. These could be anything from the four out of five dentists who recommend a toothpaste to the testimonials where someone says I'm not only the CEO, I'm a customer, or when I'm a guest on a podcast or speaking at a conference about behavioral economics. Having me there as an expert extends a halo effect to the organization that has brought me there. The benefit of the halo effect is really present for all types of social proof. It's not just when you're using an expert. One important thing to be aware of in the expert case is authority bias. People are conditioned to believe those who are in authority more than others, especially when they're in a uniform, whether or not they have any credible knowledge on the subject at hand. So someone wearing a doctor's lab coat giving you stock advice would feel more credible than someone in blue jeans, even if the person in blue jeans actually knew more about the topic. The expert halo from being an authority, a presumably professional person in a lab coat, carries into topics that person doesn't necessarily have expertise in. Their doctor could have a lot of debt or maybe has made bad stock choices in the past, but it feels like they're credible because they're in uniform. And authority bias has been shown to carry to all types of uniforms, police officers, military members, firefighters, pilots. And that one makes me think of the movie Catch Me if youf can with Leonardo DiCaprio, where he plays the con artist who posed as a Pan Am pilot and got access to all sorts of places like flying jump seat in the plane when he was still only in high school. By wearing a pilot's uniform and having the right amount of confidence. The authority bias of being a pilot in uniform assisted his cause in a way being in plain clothes would not have done. It helped to kind of make him feel more credible and like he must be a pilot and know what he's doing. He should be here. He's here for a reason. In your business, consider who an expert is on a topic and how you might be able to bring them in to interact with your audience, or how you could be featured as an expert to someone else's audience. For example, I have the authors of books or researchers on the podcast to talk about their work. I've also done a Facebook live with an author in the past. If you do Twitter chats, is there an expert you can bring in that people would want to learn from and who can help your business be validated in the process? Maybe an expert to feature in your email or a testimonial. And definitely there are more on those in a minute. Experts lend credibility and the value of social proof to a brand and they make people feel more comfortable about the prospect of working with you and associating with your brand. Next is celebrity. This one is pretty darn self explanatory, so I won't dig into it too much, but there is a clear value in having a celebrity talk about your product or service and thankfully this extends beyond Oprah and the Kardashians. These days there are micro influencers on social media that can make a big difference for brands. These micro influencers have large audiences that trust their judgment and recommendations, and there are micro influencers for basically any niche market these days. If you've been listening to the show for a while, you know my vice is watching Instagram videos of people frosting cakes and cookies. Oh, I could seriously watch those all day long. They're always showcasing a specific brand's piping tips or sprinkle mix or cookie cutter or food coloring. The opportunities are endless and these people are celebrities to their followers. Too often people in business get swept up in needing to reach as many people as possible, and in my opinion that's not the best strategy. You need to reach the right people in a way that will encourage them to take action. Think about your business and what you need to reach your goals. This year if you're in a service based business, it might be only 10 more people. Or maybe you want to move from selling 10,000 products to 15,000 products. Whatever it is, you still don't need to have every single person on social media get blasted with whatever you're selling. Why market to 5 million people to try to reach those extra 5,000 when you can target 50,000 who are more likely to buy for a lot less money? And maybe you can have them see your ad multiple times and get through that subconscious filter. Whereas if you're trying to reach everyone, they're only going to see it once and probably not really notice it as much as those in a smaller, more targeted group. It's a smart investment for a business and also helps real people make a difference in their bottom line. I love the idea of micro influencers, where you know that for the most part that investment that your business makes into a micro influencer to talk about your brand is helping a real family and has impact. You can of course use big name celebrities too, and if you have access to them, definitely do that. If Ellen was willing to tweet about how much she loved the brainy business, which I would absolutely love because I'm so such a huge fan of hers, it would arguably influence way more people to start listening and subscribing faster than a micro influencer would do. And one reason is because people know she isn't just throwing her name and endorsement around to everyone in the world just to make another buck. Just because a celebrity is easy to get doesn't mean they're a good fit for you or your brand. It's important to be discerning and make sure there's alignment before you just jump on any celebrity train. Research, which is of course linked for you in the show notes, has shown that the perceived personality of the celebrity carries over onto the perceived personality of the brand. And to have the biggest impact, this should definitely be congruent. You don't want to have somebody who is a celebrity endorser of your product that is completely different than what it is that you're selling or talking about about. In general, it would be better to have the right micro influencer endorsing your brand who's just spot on than it would be to have the wrong big name celebrity because it just feels off for people who might be wanting to buy from you. And this also leads into that next form of social proof, which is having a user to talk about your product. They don't have to be celebrities or experts, they're just someone who has direct experience with the brand. And if you can though, kind of stack these on top of each other. So having a celebrity who actually used your product is valuable because it incorporates these two different types of Social Proof Incorporating users as social proof is any and every testimonial and review that you've seen out there. People who give you a shout out on social media because they love what you're doing all the way to those who give you a written comment that you can share on your website. One big thing to note here is that people are more likely to be influenced by those they consider to be like themselves. This is the Herding piece in action, along with our personal biases toward our own in group. I've linked to episode 45 on personal biases in the show notes@thebrainybusiness.com 87 if you want to go back and listen to that. So if you can demonstrate that those who are like the person who is thinking about making the purchase have enjoyed and found value in the product or service, it is more likely to influence that buying decision. This gets back to Cialdini's towel example, which I shared in the episode on Herding. We have likely all stayed in a hotel that had the sign asking us to reuse towels. Most of these signs show the economic impact and reference the benefit to the environment. And this is useful. It gets 35% compliance overall for people to reuse their towels. But Cialdini asked what if incorporating social proof could encourage people to reuse even more? His study tested a different message sharing the true statistic that 75% of people will reuse their towels at least once during their stay, and that message increased compliance by 25%. What about then taking it a step further when the message said 75% of people staying in this room reuse their towels, please do the same. Compliance went up 33%. Maybe it's partially because the strange statement about people in your room reusing towels gets through your subconscious filter because it makes you wonder if they're visible same towels. But in reality it's because this shows you how people like you who stay in this room, just like you're staying in this room, have behaved in the past, which is incredibly powerful when using social proof. One kind of funny experience from this was last week's episode on Peloton. As I said, it wasn't my intention for it to be a testimonial for Peloton, but I've been amazed by the number of people who have already reached out to let me know that they're now thinking about buying one. A genuine user talking about the product is influential and there's no benefit to me if my listeners go buy them. As I said, I have no affiliation with Peloton, but in many ways that's why it's such a valuable testimonial. When you can help people to see that others like them have found value from your business, it's a win. This can be done through the use of priming as well. If you remember from the episode on how to Sell from the Stage, which was episode six, I talked about giving a presentation and the importance of sprinkling little reminders and tidbits about how people work with you if you're in fact trying to encourage more people to work with you. And that's why you're out speaking, which is pretty common. When I'm doing a keynote presentation or speaking to a group, and you'll often hear me do this throughout the podcast as well, I do find key moments just to mention that I have clients just to remind people and get through that subconscious put it out there again that people do work with me. So I might say something like last year I worked with a client who or someone in my membership group just asked a very similar question. This is helping people to see that others like them work with me and have good results even without a direct testimonial. Of course, the key word there in talking about this is sprinkling. It can definitely be said too much and then it feels just gross and turns people off. But when it's relevant and you did work with a client on something very similar to what someone is talking about, say it, let them know and cater to your audience. I speak to a lot of those in financial services and so I'll use examples of my banking clients during the presentation. Presentation and when I'm speaking to a group of veterinarians, which I have a lot of those presentations coming up this year. I will mention other veterinary products or those from related industries like projects with dentists or chiropractors, and mention how and why they're similar to the veterinary profession. And in many ways banking projects are similar because they're heavily regulated industries working in delicate areas. Understanding where the common ground is and bringing that to the attention of someone who's interested in working with you or buying from you can help them to feel comfortable and want to move forward. One thing I do want to touch on has to do with my general advice for testimonials because I know a lot of my clients are listening and are going to be curious if I don't mention this. So when I tell my clients to use testimonials, I also tell them that they do not need to Put the name of the person who used the product or service and they do not need to list out the complete testimonial. This may sound somewhat counter to the advice about like minded people and showing how someone is like you, but I promise they do go together. One example would be on my speaker sheet and in my speaker reel video. There are very short snippet quotes on the front side that have the words fantastic, terrific, engaging, informative, entertaining, wonderful, awesome and interesting. While some of those came through as single word responses on reviews of a presentation, for the most part they were part of maybe a longer sentence or even a piece of a short paragraph. Pulling out the relevant word that gives the gist of the entire testimonial and and thinking about those testimonials like they're part of a movie trailer is the general advice I give to my clients. When you're looking at incorporating them into your pieces, there's already context implied in the item where these appear. These are quotes from people who have seen me present before. The back of the speaker sheet then has three longer quotes that were really valuable beyond a single word and provide a little bit more context. By the time someone gets to the second page, they've already looked at more of what I'm talking about and they're ready for a few little more tidbits. And those quotes say my favorite speaker. The second one is love, love, love this session. Super funny and on point. Bring her back next year. And the final one is Change the Way. I think those were very specifically chosen from many testimonials because they're important in what I want to come across. When someone is considering having me come in to SPE at an event, being able to show that it's funny when it could be feeling like a very weighty session is important. Saying Change the way I think is important because it feels transformative and that you're learning something when you're there. None of those quotes include a line to who said them because it's not important in this place. In this case, there's a real risk of encouraging the person who's looking at this to start thinking too much about if that individual was the same or different from their audience members. And it could really backfire. So if someone booking for an event for those in a fintech group saw that this quote was from a veterinarian, or someone who's at a corporation saw that this is from someone who works at a bank, it doesn't feel like it translates or it makes you ask if it does. When really, it does. These are all just people looking at a presentation and I know that this is catered to anyone in any type of group. And so putting the who is there is not as important as the context of these were people who were in a presentation and these were the responses they gave to the organization that brought me in. If I felt obligated to include the entire paragraph that each of those came in, they would not have near the same impact because it's just far too many words and you would look at that and think, bleh, I don't want to read that thing. So when you just see those keywords, it helps the brain to feel that value and understand the social proof. There are a lot of great quotes there and there is a lot of value for the person reading it. It's super important to be thoughtful about all of this branding piece. Why are you putting this out there? Why do you need a testimonial? And why does it matter to the person making the decision decision and then only use those most important pieces. Those key words, of course, keep the record. So if anyone ever asks who said that or where it came from, you can reference it, but use the least amount of words possible to have a greater impact. Again, think about a movie trailer. Now let's say if I was doing a presentation to a group of CEOs and had a testimonial from another CEO, it could be relevant to name them specifically or the company they work with if they are particularly influential. But again, you don't have to use that. It's more giving you permission to not feel like you have to include it. However, sometimes it is valuable. The testimonials on the courses page of my website include longer verbiage from people who have been through the course before. Those might include a picture name and a business name to appeal to those in similar businesses or roles so you can see yourself in that person. And again, it's just important to know your niche and who you're speaking to primarily so you can cater the testimonials and social proof to those people. Others may also find it appealing, which is great, but it's important to cater to your own people. Those you know are the best fit for your product or service. If you speak to a specific group in a specific way, they are going to find you. It will resonate with them and it will likely have, you know, a halo effect where more people outside of that very specific target group will also find value. But catering your social proof is really, really important to just help make it resonate as much as possible. All right, we are halfway through the types of social proof. Now we've talked about experts, celebrities and users. And next is the wisdom of the crowd. This is when someone follows you on Twitter and you look at their profile and decide whether to follow back based on the number of followers they have. Hmm, only 50 followers? I don't think so. Or, wow, 50,000 followers. I better check out what they've got going on. That second Twitter account may be 49,999 bots and the person's mom, but your brain doesn't know that when it makes the snap decision, you have an immediate herding instinct that this person's tweets are going to be more valuable and they're worth following than someone with less followers. Similarly, a product on Amazon with 100,000 ratings or a restaurant with more Yelp reviews feels like it must be better than those with less. Those buyers, those 100,000 people or everyone who went to that restaurant might be nothing like you, but your brain sees a large number and thinks they must know something I don't and wants to jump on the train. If you have a lot of past customers or clients or downloads of a podcast or subscribers to your YouTube channel or whatever it is that is worth sharing, showing those numbers even off to the side in a proposal or on a website will be noticed as the subconscious is scanning all the information around. Have you ever been to a website where you were going to buy a product and they have a little pop up that said something like, Jonathan B. In Kentucky just bought XYZ items and then Amanda L. In Alaska just bought ABC Item, and another and another. This is wisdom of the crowd and a little of user influence as well. Having those pop up repeatedly can also trigger scarcity and loss aversion. And this is a smart use of social proof because it shows that a lot of people are buying. When you look closely at the pop ups, sometimes they say someone bought that item 45 minutes ago, but it feels like they're coming through one after another after another. It's a really interesting concept and way to incorporate that feeling of urgency and how many people are buying the product, even if it's not in that exact moment. Another version of this is when you go to buy airline tickets and it says 25 people are looking at this flight to Chicago right now or only two left at this price. It makes you think a lot of people must be buying it. McDonald's used to have their signs say 1 million burgers served and then 5 million and then 100 million while they were counting their way up. But apparently after they hit 300 billion hamburgers, which was sometime in the 90s, they stopped keeping count. Their signs will now say over 99 billion served, or billions and billions served, which definitely still show social proof, even though they don't have an exact number. Having a Starbucks on every corner is a version of social proof as well. It must be popular if there are so many. This is also why employees may seed a tip jar to show that others are tipping as well. There are countless examples of using social proof in businesses, and when you're looking at sheer volume, that is the wisdom of the crowd in action. And this is also where having a celebrity endorse you on their social media, where they have millions of followers, is helping with this wisdom of the crowd as well as their celebrity piece. And if they're a user, you're just really stacking on top of each other. All these ways to incorporate social proof and it just amps it all up and makes it more and more powerful. And that could be an expert with a high amount of followers on social media or something along those lines. It's not that it has to course be a celebrity. Next we have the wisdom of your friends, which is a little bit like the user group. But when someone is super closely affiliated to you, someone you actually know, like and trust, their opinion goes further with you than someone that you aren't familiar with or someone who's just like you. You need to hear from less trusted close advisors. Then you might need to read testimonials from random people who are similar to you. So how can you use this in business? One really easy thing to do is Facebook ads to friends of people who already like your page. When the potential liker sees the ad, it will say something like Melina Palmer and four other friends like this page, which will make that person more likely to consider liking the page too. Of course, similar to celebrity, you have to hope this is someone who doesn't just like everything in the world and is somewhat discerning. But you can't always know that. I know when I get friend requests from people or a connection request on LinkedIn that I don't know directly. I always check to see the connections we have in common to help determine if I should accept the request or not. There are some of my friends who, when I see we have those in common, I will pretty much universally accept, and some who make me a little more hesitant if we have no connections in common and I don't recognize the name on Facebook. If there's no message attached, I will likely just delete it right away. Since launching the podcast, I pretty much give people the benefit of the doubt on any other platform and I'll connect on Instagram or LinkedIn with the hope that this could be a legitimate and solid connection, someone who's a listener and interested in communicating more. I've had so many listeners connect with me in this way, and I invite you all to do that all the time on the show. And so I think it's worth the risk in my case. And if you don't already follow me or we're not already connected on social media, you can find me as the brainy biz everywhere and just Melina Palmer on LinkedIn. But for many people that don't have that obvious connection to a friend, it's just an automatic delete on social media. So knowing that's a real great way to get an in is to show that that person already is connected with someone who's connected with you. That is a way to use social proof to show that you should make it through that first filter and then, you know, don't abuse it. I have actually linked to an article I wrote for my column on Inc. Magazine about how to send LinkedIn connection requests without sounding like spam. And so that is very valuable for those of you who are using these cold invites on social media. Another way to trigger the wisdom of friends is by asking people to share photos of themselves using your product. Often this is done in contests or some other reason that would entice the person to share the photo or quote or whatnot on social media. Of course, many people do share spontaneously how much they love brands all the time. Making it easy and and fun for people to tag you is great and can help their friends to learn about you, which will make them in turn more likely to want to do business with you as well. The final type of social proof is certification. This is someone else with credibility giving you their stamp of approval. Sometimes a literal stamp of approval, like the blue check mark on Twitter or Facebook, saying you're a verified user. And in other ways. It could be an award you've won, or using the halo effect to show companies you've worked with or places you've spoken, or a publication you write for. This could also be the letters after your name to show you invest in your own learning, or a list of affiliations or accreditations. This form of social proof helps people to feel comfortable with making a decision because it shows someone else did a considerable amount of of due diligence, or at least they assume that's the case, which can help them have more confidence in moving forward and working with you, even if again, thinking back to authority bias, you writing for something or winning an award somewhere else may not be directly related to the type of work you're doing, but it all kind of gets this halo effect when we're looking at social proof. One area that's very similar to this, which could arguably be its own category in Some say it is, would be earned media. This is when you or your business get featured on the local news or quoted in a magazine, or are otherwise getting attention that you theoretically can't pay for in the age of advertorials and where many things that were considered earned can in fact be bought. Sometimes this could be a little bit more gray, but in general the principle holds. If a product is on Good Morning America or talked about in the Huffington Post, people typically give it more benefit of the doubt than if it was in a paid advertisement like a commercial. And this made me think of shows like Shark Tank where a business is featured and even if they don't get an offer from a shark, just being on the show raises awareness and increases their sales significantly. This is social proof because we all know the producers do research in advance. The brain thinks they must have chosen to showcase this one for a reason. People think this is a good idea. Those businesses can now put up a sign in their window or on their website the stamp of approval that they were featured on Shark Tank. There used to be those as seen on TV stores and stickers or Winner of Cupcake wars and all sorts of other certifications and credibility boosters that help to showcase that a brand is worthy of your attention. And those all demonstrate social proof. As I said at the beginning of the show, nothing in this episode is likely so out of this world that you've never heard it or seen it in action. The intent was to show you how our biased brains are susceptible to social proof ways it shows up and how easily it can be implemented into any business and why it is important for you to incorporate it in your work life and business. You may think, well, people must know we have customers, we don't need to say it and that's just wrong. Showing that other people have already been there and liked that is really valuable in getting more customers, clients, members, what have you for your business. Sprinkle these in. Not a fire hose. Sprinkle all over your messaging website copy when you're speaking to potential clients in printed materials. If you're a guest on a podcast, if you're using banners, if you're asking for testimonials, this is one of the easiest things to go and incorporate behavioral economics into your messaging right now and you could see a boost like the 33% compliance in people reusing towels at a hotel. Or remember back to Peloton from last week's episode? I was talking about all the little ways they incorporate social proof and herding. They show the total number of people who have done a particular class or a flag if my specific friends have taken that class. The instructors give shout outs to people as they hit milestones with that I see you language to show that those celebrities in the brand the instructors are paying attention to you. They talk about the numbers of bikes sold on their website and the hours worked out. There are testimonials and shout outs including where people are located and social media hashtags and features of Peloton users in the emails. There are so many ways to incorporate social proof into your business and while it can be overdone in general, you would have to really really talk about this nonstop and put in a crazy amount of mentions and effort to make it feel gross. Even if it feels like you're saying it it quite a bit. Where if you're going from 0 to 10 it feels like a lot of times that you're talking about it. But remember, your customer's brain is so busy scanning the environment and evaluating opportunities, there are a lot of things that don't make it past their filter. You need to put those mentions and notes and references and pieces of social proof out there many times before it will alert the person that they should be paying attention and taking notice. As I've said when doing an hour long presentation I might mention the I worked with a client who or when working with a client on X project half a dozen times and I always have people come up to speak with me after or send a follow up email asking if I work with clients. Mentioning it likely helped them to realize that I have worked with clients and make them curious about asking to see if they might be a fit. But Even once every 10 minutes isn't too much in a presentation like that.
- [38:58]
Steve Martin
So what got your brain buzzing as you learned about social Proof today? For me, as I said at the beginning of the episode, I really love social proof. It is so impactful in nudging human behavior. I constantly recommend it for my clients. I've talked about it in all my books and whether or not you're looking to influence customers or employees or yourself or your kids or anyone else, social proof can be a huge motivator. So you should understand it and look to use it often and prominently. One of the key recommendations I make for people is in using testimonials and not feeling like they have to use the whole long thing but to use that movie trailer approach instead of a paragraph which can get lost saying epic or awesome or everyone should use this or whatever is so much more impactful and it can get lost in that longer paragraph. So you can still share more but have that key summary or most powerful phrase stand out. I actually did some research with imotions when my first book what your customer wants and can't tell you came out testing this approach of the short movie trailer testimonials instead of full long quotes. And this was done with the blurbs from early readers that I had and not surprisingly it performed much better. So keep it short and meaningful and use that social proof often. In my second book, what your employees need and can't tell you, I share an example from Agnes Steeb where one of his students leveraged social proof to get people to show up on time for meetings. At the beginning of every meeting they put up a chart in the room on a television screen. If you were on time you got a color coded box for that meeting. If you were late you missed it and could never get it back. Everyone could see everyone's performance right there in the meeting. Now this may feel a bit heavy handed, but whether or not you show up late is public knowledge anyway. But it just hits different when you see it there and it's reminding everyone and you don't want to keep racking up those negative spaces on your chart. It only took five meetings for everyone in the company to show up on time consistently when they had been chronically late before and no one had to say anything. It's amazing. In my third book, the Truth about Pricing, I showcase how the type of business you are, quality or value will determine which type of social proof, celebrity expert, user wisdom of friends, wisdom of the crowd certification or earned media. I recommend you focus on as they align with the strategies differently. Of course. Check out the book to see which one is going to work best for you and your situation. And this is just a bit of the value of social proof. It's so powerful and such an easy thing to start incorporating into business. What about you? Are you using social proof? Do you have an example where you know it influences influenced your buying decisions. Come share any of it with me on social media. You'll find me as the Brainy Biz pretty much everywhere and as Melina Palmer on LinkedIn. As we close out the show, don't forget about those show notes with links to my top related past episodes, books and more. It's all waiting for you in the app you're listening to and@thebrainybusiness.com 454. And just like that, episode 454 on Social Proof is done. Join me Friday for a brand new episode with Steve Martin, author of Influence at Work. It's going to be a lot of fun. You don't want to miss it. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me. And remember to be thoughtful.
- [42:42]
Melina Palmer
Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business Podcast. Molina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.