Social proof is a cognitive bias where people follow the actions of the majority because they believe that is the norm.

A lot of marketers and salespeople have been using this psychological trick to increase conversion rates and, eventually, sales. It’s not surprising since we, as human beings, are social animals and in order to belong, we want to be part of the majority. Who wants to be left alone, anyway?

Even statistics attest to the power of social proof. Nielsen said that 92% believe what their family and friends recommend more than any other forms of advertising. The Consumerist, on the other hand, said that product reviews influence 70% of consumers.

In the same way, you can use social proof to increase the lead and consumer interaction with your brand.

Getting Social with Socials

If you’re looking for a place where you can tap into large social proof sources, no other place is as powerful and large as the social media platforms. Think about the millions, even billions, of people from around the world that use them every second, every day.

It’s where you can find and interact with not only your family, friends, and colleagues but also celebrities, influencers, and company owners. In other words, social media is the perfect platform to let you create a unique lead and customer interaction with your brand.

How could you use it to attract consumers from Facebook or generate leads via Twitter?

You will be surprised at how many strategies you can use to take advantage of social proof on these platforms.

Every time someone mentions you on any social media platform, your brand’s reputation increases. Your brand can even get more traction if a celebrity or an influencer mentions it.

Your brand becomes more appealing when people see an influencer on that page use your product, use them, tweet or share about it. On Twitter, the number of mentions becomes a deciding factor for many whether to try the product or not.

In some cases, the number of likes and social share counts are used to provide social proof for your business. You can increase brand likeability if you can reply to all of those posts, tweets, and mentions immediately.

Social Media is Good but…

The examples mentioned above are enough proof that you can generate leads via Twitter and other social networks. However, monitoring each tweet, mentions, likes, and questions will be very challenging when your network grows unless you have a dedicated person who mans all your social media accounts.

Even if you only have two kinds of account, you don’t want to waste your time waiting for a tweet or a mention. Just imagine the back and forth between these sites.

Tasks such as this can be streamlined and done in one place through various tools like Xeno. Once you connect your social media accounts with Xeno, you can monitor every “action” (tweets, mentions, etc.) in real-time and reply to each of your messages and mentions in real-time as well. Such interaction boosts your customer service, and people begin to trust you and your brand.

Guess what happens next?

People begin talking about how awesome your customer service is. They mention it on their Facebook posts; they tweet it on Twitter; they post your logo or product on Instagram and many more possibilities. There goes your social proof!

So yes, social media is a powerful source for social proof, but there is no other powerful strategy in attracting consumers from Facebook or generating leads via Twitter than engaging with them in real time. Use them together and see how your conversion rate will shoot up.