The importance of social proof

It might come as a surprise to you but almost 70% of customers online will first check out the product/service reviews before they make a decision to trust your business. In that respect, you can’t ignore the power of social proof. In the age of digital media, it’s easier than ever for people to find evidence of the quality of the product/service they’re interested in, and businesses that fail to understand this will be the ones setting themselves back. After all, there’s no other way for an online business to prove their trustworthiness than to provide their target audience with social proof. In that respect, turning to your existing customer base could be crucial for continuously growing your business.

Boost your reputation with the following social proofs

Customer testimonials

Source: Pixabay.com

Using customer testimonials is one of the most popular types of social proof to build trust on your website. After all, people are more inclined to believe their friends and family if they get a recommendation from them. What’s more, even customer testimonials from complete strangers can boost your conversion rate considerably compared to not having anything to show in this regard.

It’s important to gather your customer testimonials in order to use them on your business site. This isn’t that difficult to do with the right approach. Essentially, you want to make sure that your testimonials contain the problem that the customer had, the adequate help they got to solve that problem thanks to your product/service, and the benefits they experienced overall.

You don’t even have to go through this process manually thanks to the comprehensive social proof tool options available. With this kind of tool to back you up, you’ll get to increase your conversion rate, boost ROI, and mark a notable rise in your site visits. Integration that picks up data is quite easy and can save you a lot of time.

Online features and mentions

Even in the world of online marketing, getting mentioned and featured means a lot. It’s not uncommon for businesses to hire PR specialists to help them widen their reach on the Internet through the positive mentions and features in other online magazines, social media and blog posts, YouTube videos, and so on. Actually, combining traditional with digital marketing, in this case, works exceptionally well, as being featured on TV or newspapers still looks rather good in the eyes of the consumers.

So, if your brand has been mentioned, featured or otherwise reviewed favorably on the Internet or traditional marketing sources, don’t hesitate to utilize that fact to your advantage and turn it into the social proof on your own business website. Doing this is a great way to boost credibility and authority in the industry, and stand strong against the competition.

Notable customer brands’ logos

Source: Pixabay.com

In case your main target audience consists of other businesses, showcasing the most notable brand logos that have already put trust in your products/services is a great way to build up your social proof and grow the credibility of your business.

However, you won’t be able to showcase every single logo of every brand that has purchased from you. That said, it’s important to focus your attention on your target audience once more, and choose those brands that perfectly represent your ideal customer.

Number of customers (sold products)

If you have a large customer base that’s in the hundreds or even thousands, you should definitely make the most out of this number and showcase it on your business website as social proof. The same goes for a product or service that’s been selling really well. After all, when people go to your website and see the counter that shows this huge number of customers who already trust you or the number of products/services sold, they’re bound to think you must be doing something right (and better than your competitors).

When numbers are concerned, you can spread your wings freely and use the statistics to your advantage. For instance, aside from the number of customers and/or sales made, you can also showcase the number of your blog readers, subscriptions, social media followers, and so o

Great website design, meaningful content, exceptional customer service, and admirable SEO are all essentials for putting your business on the map and improving your rank. However, the way to the consumers’ trust is through social proof. 

Featured image from Pixabay.com

LinkedIn is the place to be if you want to achieve one of the following:

• Build your brand and authority,
• Drive sales,
• Generate quality leads,
• Recruit top-notch workforce,
• Optimize your business reach.

The first step in achieving this is creating a recognizable and well-optimized company page. Before immersing yourself in this task, try exploring the LinkedIn page solutions of other companies. You could draw some inspiration and quality pointers from them.

Putting Together a Company Page

Start with the profile image. As the most striking element of your company page, it has to be:

• High-quality and professionally made,
• Authentic and recognizable,
• Bold and engaging.

The banner gives you space to be more creative. You should use it for brand exposure, the company's missions and values, or to announce an ongoing activity or a campaign.

The Summary needs to be brief and to the point. Use the Overview to tell others everything they should know about your company. The language here should be simple, succinct, and accessible.

The Overview should answer these basic questions:

• What is your business?
• Where is your company located?
• What do you offer to others?
• What are your company values?
• How can customers reach you?

Try to find out beforehand which words and phrases best describe your business. Use those keywords when composing a Summary and Overview to achieve maximum reach.

Creating Content and Posting

After setting up a company page, it's time to proceed to the next stage: creating content and posting it regularly.

Whether it is articles, blogs, images, audio or video clips, data reports, opinion or values pieces, or simply short updates about certain company affairs, LinkedIn offers a variety of methods to inform and entertain your followers.

Use the built-in LinkedIn analytics to keep track of your most successful posts. Sometimes the LinkedIn algorithm omits posts from your followers' feeds, so it shouldn't be a bad idea to occasionally do a re-post.

Furthermore, feel free to hire copywriters if possible, to produce a regular and steady flow of quality page content.

This can certainly pay off because nothing attracts new connections better than targeted, amusing, and knowledge-driven storytelling techniques.

Growing Your Audience

There are a plethora of ways to win attention on LinkedIn. Some of the methods are as follows:

• Inviting people to follow your page,
• Targeting posts to reach certain audiences,
• Paying LinkedIn ads to promote your content,
• Using business-related hashtags to reach connections within the same industry,
• Engaging your employees to share content,
• Cross-platform leverage by sharing LinkedIn posts on Facebook, Instagram, etc,

Often the key is to create interaction with your audience. If you find a way to ask for their opinion, you will learn something new about your consumers, and make them feel important and valued. An easy way to do this is to create polls. A poll with good interaction is a reward in itself.

Networking With Your Contacts

While making new contacts on LinkedIn is important, it is equally significant to nurture the existing ones. Whether it's asking for recommendations from specific clients, sending follow-up emails, using blanket emails to various connections, or sending custom messages to random followers, it is crucial to possess knowledge on how to keep track of networking contacts.

LinkedIn's built-in connection overview has its limitations, so using a connections manager may be a good idea. Such managers can bridge LinkedIn's lack of useful features, e.g. adding custom tags and notes to different connections. When using LinkedIn tags you can quickly and easily find existing accounts according to their assigned categories.

Another hallmark of this platform is LinkedIn groups. An active, dynamic group is a unique place to see and to be seen. It's a meeting point inside your industry where you can promote yourself and your brand by creating distinctive content, while directly engaging with your future clients and associates.

Conclusion

Now that you've learned how to make full use of an optimized LinkedIn company page, it is up to you to start applying this knowledge and enhancing your presence.

By applying the aforementioned tips and tricks in creating quality LinkedIn business profiles, knowing the importance of posting regularly, engaging and communicating with your connections, and finally growing your audience, you gained your entry pass into the peculiar world of LinkedIn.