Social proof helps you establish credibility and trust, makes customers feel like they’re part of your brand, and helps position your product as a solution to a problem your customers are facing. So there’s no doubt that you need to be using social proof to market your small business.
But to get started with using social proof, you’ll need to collect it. The best way to get it is always just to ask. Below are five actionable ways for small businesses to collect social proof.
1. Save every positive thing anyone says about your brand
Keep a bank of feedback, reviews, and comments about your business. When you need something to share, pop one of those screengrabs on your social media stories. At DB, we’ve been collecting feedback screengrabs for a while so we were able to put together this very organic testimonials section for our home page:
2. Follow up purchases with nudges for feedback
You can use a Typeform or a simple email to ask them to tell you about their experience or you can send them a link for them to leave a Google review.
3. Engage with your social media followers
You can ask your audience questions on stories or in posts. Or encourage them to share what they think of a specific product or service you’re offering. If someone shares content that relates to your business, reshare it to your page. The more you do this, the more people will tag you.
Your tagged posts are a goldmine.
4. Keep track of your numbers
Numbers are a great way to show the benefits and results of your product objectively. Learn how to use the reporting data on the backend of your website and email software. With these impressive numbers in tow, you can put together a website section like this:
5. Close projects with cool-down meetings
If your business sells a service, end off difficult projects with a cool-down meeting to get your customer’s side of the story. You can use this for an in-depth case study (and also to use as feedback to improve future projects). Just make sure your client is comfortable with you sharing their story – you can leave out the business name if that makes them happier.
Are you ready to start collecting social proof? Prove it.
As we mentioned earlier, the best way to get social proof is simply to ask. But with these five methods, you should have no problem gathering social proof to market your business. We always recommend using at least two types of social proof on your website home page.
If you’d like to see the impact of social proof, read our case study about how social proof made a good website even better.
