Social proof is insanely powerful, so much so that following publicised suicides, the number of copycat suicides increase drastically. Social scientist Robert Cialdini also discovered that following a publicised suicide there are spikes in the number of plane and car crashes, for a multitude of reasons the driver or pilot has wanted their demise to look like an accident. Cialdini also points out that statistically speaking the most dangerous time to travel by car or plane would be between 1 and 10 days following a publicised suicide (day 3 being the most dangerous). Norway knows this and has a national journalism code of, "Suicide and attempted suicide should in general never be given any mention".

Why Should You Care?

Okay, so you know when not to get in a plane or car, but you also realise how powerful this social proof stuff is. We regularly talk about the importance of adding testimonials and reviews to our websites but it's better if we understand why. Because of social proof, when we see or read people like us positively talking about a product or service it greatly influences our decision making.

Make the Move to Video

Marketers surveyed by MarketingSherpa voted text based testimonials as the least effective compared to; customer reviews, video and audio testimonials. This we can safely assume because of the ease of forgery. This means you should consider video and if text is the only format available to you, make sure you add their name and photo.

1) Customer reviews (most influential)
2) Video Testimonials
3) Audio Testimonials
4) Text Testimonials

Be Contextually Relevant with Social Proof

A testimonial talking about how great "xyz product" would be relevant on the product page whereas someone talking about how great your service is would be more influential on the order page. And remember, people like "us" influence, so if you read or watch a video testimonial of a rich celebrity taking about how great "xyz product" is, it won't be as influential as someone that better matches your demographic. So consider who your target audience is and carefully select the testimonials you use.

Amazon are experts at adding social proof messages to boost online conversion. View the examples below and think about how you can be more influential using the power of social proof on your website and marketing communications.