We live in a digital era, and it is amazing how it has brought us all together. But it also has changed the way people make an opinion about you or your brand. When you start a new blog, it is difficult to get visitors to trust you. And to make them trust you, you need to showcase how many people trust you and what opinion they hold about you.

Hence social proof. Social proof is a psychological and social phenomenon that helps people establish an opinion about you or your brand by looking at others’ actions and decisions in a particular situation. For example, the reviews on a product help you decide whether you want to buy the product or not. The same goes for restaurants, services, or anything where you look for people’s opinions to decide.

Types of Social Proofs

There are six types of social proofs. Here are they:

• Customers: the social proof that comes from the existing customers and readers.
• Experts: Social proof that comes from credible sources such as industry experts, researchers, etc.
• Celebrities: Social proof from celebrities or social media influencers.
• Crowd: When you have a large following on your blog or products.
• Friend: Comments, review likes from friends of your website visitors.
• Certifications: Certification and badges from credible 3rd party sources.

These social proofs don’t just help you make a decision, but also as a business owner or blogger can greatly help you establish trust amongst your users or readers. Many companies use these social proofs as a marketing tactic to encourage people to connect with them. They help make a community around your brand, make a loyal reader base, make people subscribe to your newsletters, and eventually generate more sales.

Ten Easy To Go Social Proof Examples To Try On Your Website

Now that we have piqued up your interest in social proofs, here is how to use them on your blog and benefit.

1. Blog post comments

People love to hear what people are saying, and that helps them establish trust in you. You must allow people to leave comments on your blogs and see if they are enjoying your content and finding it helpful. It also helps you in improving your content and sees what people want to read.

Comments also encourage other people to comment or reply to other people’s comments, which is how you build a community around your blog. It will encourage more people to read another post on the blog page. You achieve more engagement on your blog page.

2. More Email Subscribers

Another way to establish trust amongst your readers is by showing the number of email subscribers you have. You can also display this one on your blog page. There are many plugins available online for integrating email metrics on your blog page.

If you have many subscribers to show off, you can use it to your benefit by encouraging people to subscribers to sign-up for your newsletters.

If you don’t have email subscribers to show off, you can grow your email list fast by using tools such as OptinMonster that help you create catchy email pop-ups. You can use this handy tool to design different email campaigns and attract more people to join your email list.

Useful Read: 41 Landing Page Optimization Best Practices For Higher Conversions

3. Testimonials

Testimonials are a great way to show how effective are your products, and many services and product companies are using them to show off the comments and reviews written by happy customers. It is a good way to establish trust and also helps you boost your sales.

The inclusion of customer photos, along with their note, makes it more interesting for other users. It helps them make a choice much faster about your products. Tools like SeedProd have been well-loved by people to create testimonials on your site. This tool is very easy to use; it offers you drag-and-drop options to add elements into your testimonial section headlines, images, star ratings, videos, images, and so much more. It helps you make your testimonial landing page very attractive.

4. Video Testimonials

While we talked about image testimonials, you can also use video testimonials on your website to show social proof. It works very well when you want to show any transformation because of your product or services.

You can connect with influencers, and use their video testimonials to attract more sales. As per facts, 84% of people voted for video testimonials to make a better decision while purchasing a product.

5. Case Studies

Case studies are also like testimonials, but they are more detailed. They tell about the entire process a person has gone through to achieve success through your products or services.

A case study helps your readers understand the entire process and how it benefits them on every level. Also, it conveys the effectiveness of the product and services by efficiently communicating the situation the other person was in and how you turned their life around with your services.

You can tell the story of your real customer and divide it into beginning, middle and end. Add the problems people had and the results they have achieved. People who are genuinely interested in your product would love to know the process involved and make them more confident and trusting of your brand.

6. Popular Posts and Products

Popular posts and products help you to showcase the most loved stories or products on your website. It helps you capture your readers’ attention and directly take them on the product or the blog post to take action.

You can use the Portfolio Designer plugin to showcase the most popular posts in prominent places on the site. It can increase your page views, generate engagement and keep your visitors on your website for longer.

7. Social Media Shares

Social media shares are one of the best ways to boost your blog popularity. People check out how many people have shared your blog on their social media and helped it gain more outreach. It shows that your content is worth reading, and people have found it interesting and useful to share with their friends on social media platforms. It is a great encouragement for others to read it and share it further.

Plugins such as Shared Counts help you easily add social media sharing buttons on your blog and display the social media share count.

Related Read: Make Social Media Work For You! (A Small Business Guide)

8. Social Media Followers

Like social media shares count, social media followers can also encourage people to read your blog and join your online community. You can use Social Stream Designer by Solwin Infotech to display your social media feed on the top of the blog page.

Using the plugin, you can embed the most engaging posts on your social media account and how people have reacted to them. It would help people see how many people trust you. It would also help you grow your social media following.

9. Social Media Shoutouts

You can also add social media shoutouts and testimonials to show social proof on your blog. You can embed a social media feed of shoutouts and testimonials using the Social Stream Designer plugin.

The tool helps you create the feed in 30+ different feed types and can help you search for any tweets, blogs, or company names in them and display them on your website. Moreover, it comes with 6 different engaging layouts that able to showcase social media feed attractively on the wall or page of your website.

10. Guest Posts from Experts

If you have a blog page where you allow expert guest posts, you can use them to create engagement on your website using the same tools mentioned above. You can also add a feed of these posts on the blog page and allow your readers to explore the content from experts and create more engagement on your site.

Also showing that experts trust your site to display their content helps you gain the readers’ trust and benefit from the premium content.

Wrapping Up

These were the top 10 social proofs that you can use on your website or blog sites to improve engagement on your site. Tell us what worked best for you and how you are using these suggestions to achieve your goals. We would love to hear how the tools are helping you see more conversion, engagement, or sales.