How to use social proof to sell more in your Shopify store

As humans, we always move with the pack. If a larger number of people engage in an activity, we’re most likely to follow them to partake in the same act.

This is because we believe that the actions of others are the correct behavior in a given situation. And we all want to be correct; no one wants to be the odd man out. The same situation plays out when it comes to online shopping. People are more likely to buy a product if they see that other people have bought it. Additionally, they buy the product if other customers have good things to say about the item or your brand in general.

Marketing professionals in the digital field leverage this concept when implementing their social media promotion strategies. This is the sole reason the word ‘influencer’ exists.

Brands use social media personalities with a more extensive following or celebrities to spread the message about their brand. Obviously, as a small outfit, you might not have the financial strength to partner with a celebrity. However, there are still other methods by which you can use social proof to your advantage to grow your eCommerce business.

In this article, we’ll show you more different ways you can use social proof to sell more in your Shopify store.

How to implement social proof to grow your eCommerce store

The whole point of tapping the power of social proof is to lend credibility to your brand. After all, if people see that several other people buy your products and have good things to say, they can get behind your brand.

9 in 10 consumers read at least one review before buying something online. Additionally, 47 percent of potential customers will only accept products rated above 4 stars.

Nevertheless, regardless of the numbers, several businesses don’t have an effective social proof strategy to sell more in their Shopify stores.

Here are the different ways you can use social proof to lift your brand above the competition.

1. Add customer testimonials to your product pages

Just over 9 in 10 online shoppers trust a recommendation of a product from a peer. And that is to be expected. After all, they know the person and, therefore, can trust what’s coming out of their mouth.

You would, therefore, assume that online shoppers won’t listen to what strangers have to say. After all, the stranger doesn’t know what you like and what you don’t.
However, 70 percent of those same people trust a recommendation from a complete stranger. This boils down to if you put up testimonials from people who have already bought from your Shopify store before, potential customers will trust them. This is regardless of if they know them or not.

Customer testimonials are an efficient way to instill a sense of trust in your individual products and the overall brand. This is why it’s so important to get more reviews on your Shopify store.

Your competitors, as well as established brands, are all using customer testimonials as a form of social proof to reel in new customers. Look through a group of online stores you know. Examine their homepage. Five gets you ten; you will find various formats showing as many customer testimonials as possible without compromising the site’s aesthetic.

This form of social proof is extremely effective. And to make it even more so, add photos of the previous customers who have used the product. This humanizes the testimonial, making it real and not something that a computer algorithm spewed out.

2. Show buyer activity regarding different products

The whole point of using social proof to grow your eCommerce business is to get your potential customers to add several products to their virtual carts. And these decisions should be based on what they think other buyers have done.

One of the best ways of doing this is by showing other buyers’ activity for different products.

Take this, for instance. When a potential customer adds an item to their cart, you can display ‘People also viewed’ or something along those lines. The prospective buyer will be compelled to view those products because other customers were also interested in them. This falls under another related phenomenon – fear of missing out (FOMO).

You can also induce this by showing real-time figures depicting buying activity. Some Shopify apps allow you to show purchases from other buyers just as they’re happening.

When a potential customer sees several others buying the product, they are compelled to buy so that they don’t miss out on something potentially useful.

3. Leverage the power of online influencers

Some personalities on the various social media platforms carry sway over the masses. These characters are usually celebrities. Others aren’t celebrities but are considered thought leaders and experts in their given niches.

For any new product relevant to that niche, several individuals in your target market will turn their attention to that personality to see their take on the item.
These personalities are known as influencers.

By partnering with influencers to promote your brand, you stand a bigger chance to gain invaluable clout on social media. Therefore, when your brand associates with the given influencer, your target market sees this as an approval of your products and brand.

If you have the financial muscle to back your social media marketing budget, you can leverage the celebrities’ power. Naturally, the masses already look up to celebrities. They try to emulate the star so that they can have that connection.

If the celebrity endorses your brand, their fans will jump on the bandwagon, buying your products and further spreading your brand’s name.

Take care to collaborate with celebrities and influencers who relate to your product. This will make their message to the masses more genuine. Genuineness carries a lot of weight in social media influence.

On the flip side, if you team up with an influencer solely because of their massive following, you might not make any inroads in your plan to sell more in your Shopify store.

4. Take advantage of expert authority to win over your target market

The words and opinions of an expert carry a lot of weight. When they speak about a particular product, interested individuals pay attention.

When potential customers see these expert contributions on your social media channels, they take notice and view your brand through a new respectable lens. They are then willing to buy your products because a respected expert lends their authority to your brand.

Furthermore, the expert’s fans and followers can find out about your brand and products. This opens up another market for you –  a market that you hadn’t even targeted when you researched who to target with your products. You can use experts to vouch for your product. Alternatively, you can decide to omit the direct sale altogether.

Instead, let the expert take and answer questions directly from your audience. Just the fact that you were able to host a thought-leader plays well in the minds of your target audience and other interested parties. An added advantage is that people will look to your brand when looking for a solution to a problem in the niche. The increased brand authority is more than worth it.

5. Show off the number of times your content has been shared on social media platforms

Your social media marketing strategy probably includes sharing content like blog posts through various social media channels.

How can you show the readers and potential buyers that your brand is worth the time? You can display the social share numbers on each blog post page.

In many blogs, the share buttons are located near the author’s name under the title. You can show the number of times the article has been shared on the different social media platforms.

To conform to the herd, the reader is more likely to share the article via their own social accounts. This increases brand visibility and increases traffic to your site when people follow the links embedded in your blog posts.

Additionally, if you have quality content up on your site, your audience will feel more compelled to share it. After all, they also want to feel like they’re experts at something. Sharing quality content fulfills this need. Your Shopify brand benefits from this because your content spreads at an even faster pace without your direct input.

6. Display your previous big-name customers

If you have a more established Shopify brand, you can use social proofing to grow your eCommerce business when you display other brands that have used your products.

On several online store homepages, you can see a selection of notable brands displayed. This makes your target audience have more belief in your brand because they see that other significant businesses are your customers.

Even when your brand isn’t a big mover in your particular niche, displaying the brands you’ve worked with lets you ride their coattails. This way, you can feed off some of their industry authority.

This serves to win over any potential customers who are on the fence about using your products. After all, if a big brand used them, the items are more than good enough.

7. Show audiences instances when your brand has been mentioned in the media

Mass media shapes the way people view several topics and notions. This can range from current affairs and extend to specific brands and their products. Traditionally, powerful media can be television, radio, newspapers or even magazines. In the digital era, websites and noted social media channels carry equal, if not more, weight when it comes to shaping public opinion.

You can use the power of media over people’s perceptions to take your brand over your competition. If your brand has been mentioned in different media, show off these mentions on your homepage. These can be excerpts from magazines, websites or videos which featured your product. This shows potential customers that your brand carries authentic pull in your industry that’s worth mentioning in the different media platforms.

You can set up Google Alerts that let you know each time your brand is mentioned by a media outlet.

Another media form that’s popular in the digital space is podcasts. On your social media channels, you can post links to the podcasts where your product or brand was featured. Better yet, you might have been invited to a podcast revolving around your particular niche. You can display links to these podcasts on your various channels, ringing in more potential buyers interested in your given niche.
When your target audience sees or listens to these media mentions, they are likely to pay more attention to your brand. This leads to more conversions because respectable outfits have mentioned your brand or products.

To Wrap Up

Social proof isn’t something that was dreamt up in a master marketer’s mind. This concept runs deep in our DNA, something that was essential for the survival of the human race. We always move with the crowd; it’s where we feel safest.

You can use this exact concept to sell more in your Shopify store. Through the various ways we’ve gone through above, you can grow your eCommerce store by making potential buyers follow the actions of previous buyers, especially if you have a great theme for your store.