Part of the sales and marketing
cycle is getting people to know who you are, like what you are
creating and trust you enough to spend their dollars on you. This
timeline can be shortened when you have people in an authoritative
position speaking about your creation in their own words.
In
Robert Cialdini's Influence: The Psychology of
Persuasion he talks about something called "social proof." Social
proof being defined as the following:
Social
proof, also known as informational social influence, is a
psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others
in an attempt to reflect correct behavior for a given situation.
This effect is prominent in ambiguous social situations where
people are unable to determine the appropriate mode of behavior,
and is driven by the assumption that surrounding people
possess more knowledge about the situation.
This is further substantiated by
a mechanism of social proof called the "multiple source effect."The
multiple source effect states that:
The
multiple source effect occurs when people give more credence to
ideas that are stated by multiple sources. This effect can be
clearly seen when social proof occurs. For instance, one study
observed that people who hear five positive reviews on a book as
read by five different synthesized voices perceive that book more
favourably than if they hear the same five reviews as read by
one synthesized voice.
When you invite members of the
press, or people in a position of authority in your industry, to
share about your creation by arming them with what they need to
spread the message, you create social proof from multiple sources,
which reduces the "know, like and trust" factor and creates
confidence in your potential customers.
A prime example of social proof
and authority exists in Oprah Winfrey's Book Club.
It has been said that a book that
makes it onto Oprah's Book Club list is guaranteed to be a success
and, it's true. Out of 70 book club selections, 59 of those made
the top 10 on USA Today's Best-Selling books list and 22 of those
were number 1 on
USA Today's list15. Eckhart Tolle's book
A
New Earth stayed at number 1 for 11 consecutive weeks after he
appeared on Oprah's Book Club list. Authority and social proof
proved to work quite well for the authors of the books that were
chosen by Oprah herself.
Social proof is not only limited
to people with the largest voices. Oprah being among them, as
peer-related social proof is equally as important and sometimes,
more so.
Social media has allowed us to
harness the power of social proof in powerful ways that did not
exist before. Now, a company can identify key "influencers" to help
spread their message and see big returns for doing so. Here's a
powerful example that
TechCrunch highlighted in their article on
social proof:
Klout
identifies people who are topical experts on the social web. Klout
invited 217 influencers with high Klout scores in design,
luxury, tech and autos to test-drive the new Audi A8.
These influencers sparked 3,500 tweets, reaching over 3.1
million people in less than 30 days - a multiplier effect of over
14,000x16.
As you can see, influence, social proof, credibility and
authority are all very important things to pay attention to and use
in your marketing efforts.
CHAPTER FOUR SUMMARY
(TL;DR)
When you invite members of the press, or people in a position
of authority in your industry, to share about your creation by
arming them with what they need to spread the message, you create
social proof from multiple sources, which reduces the "know, like
and trust" factor and creates confidence in your potential
customers.