Looking for the best social proof examples to inspire your digital marketing strategy?
In today’s competitive marketplace, prospective customers are looking for signals that your brand can be trusted to deliver results. Social proof marketing works because it demonstrates that other people have gotten great results by purchasing or partnering with your brand, which just might inspire your prospective customers to give you a shot.
As it turns out, social proof has become one of the most powerful marketing concepts in the 21st century. All of the world’s leading software companies have incorporated social proof into their marketing strategies and we think you should too.
To help you get started, here are 15 inspiring social proof examples that can enhance the perception of your brand in the marketplace and encourage more conversions on your website.
What is Social Proof?
Social proof is really just the idea that you can use the feedback and influence of your existing customers or brand to influence new customers into trying your product or service.
Some examples of social proof include the use of raw facts and figures, testimonials, reviews, customer success stories and case studies that reflect the impact your brand has had on its existing customers. In these 15 inspiring social proof examples, we explore these and other types of social proof that can elevate your brand in the marketplace.
15 Inspiring Social Proof Examples to Improve Your Marketing
Testimonials
Testimonials are direct quotes from customers about their experience with your product or service. Testimonials have been a part of advertising for hundreds of years and they’re still commonly used by software marketers to convey the impacts that their solutions have on real businesses.
Fomo
Why it Works: Fomo’s customer reviews page is worth a look – it represents one end of the spectrum on how to present testimonials. The testimonials here are short and sweet, highly personal (cited to a specific person at a specific company), and each one links to a customer success case study with a deeper look at how Fomo’s product helped make an impact. The high number of testimonials and case studies featured on the page adds another layer of social proof to this well-executed example.
PieSync
Why it Works: Instead of publishing a list of testimonials on a dedicated page like Fomo does, PieSync implements social proof marketing by featuring a single high-impact testimonial on the front page of their website. This cleverly crafted social proof example highlights the specific benefits of PieSync for Hotel-Spider and even establishes credibility by linking out to the Hotel-Spider website.
Car Gurus
Why it Works: Here’s another clever way of using testimonials as social proof. On the CarGurus home page, users encounter a section with the title “What Our Users Say” where they can scroll through different testimonials by clicking on little arrows that point left and right. Each testimonial is an embedded video that’s hosted on the CarGurus YouTube channel. When users view these testimonials, CarGurus also succeeds in promoting its video content and building multi-channel relationships with prospective customers.
Reviews/Star Ratings
Reviews and star ratings have become one of the most powerful forms of social proof marketing in the Internet age, where everyone has the power to share their opinions and experiences with the world. The brands featured in this section know how to use reviews to demonstrate social proof and encourage audiences to take action.
Amazon
Why it Works: Product reviews are a powerful form of social proof that many eCommerce websites deploy to encourage more sales on their platform. Just the presence of a few positive customer reviews provides instant validation that other people have purchased the product. Positive reviews also demonstrate that the vendor has a history of completing honest transactions, which inspires trust and makes prospects more likely to risk a purchase.
Google Places
Why it Works: When you search on Google for local businesses, you’re likely to find search results that look like this. Google uses its map functionality to recommend places close to you that match your search criteria. To help you choose the best option, you’re also presented with star ratings for each result and the total number of reviews in parentheses next to the star rating. An attractive image and a high star-rating are usually enough social proof for searchers on Google Places to start planning a lunch date.
Zoom
Why it Works: Here’s a different approach to customer reviews that are featured on the website for Zoom Meeting, the remote video conferencing provider. While Amazon and Google have automated the way they display star ratings and reviews, Zoom has chosen to highlight the positive aggregate ratings they’ve received on three of the most popular software review websites. Audiences can then click through to see how Zoom was reviewed on all of those platforms, giving them access to additional social proof about Zoom’s platform.
Current Customers
One of the easiest ways to start building social proof with your prospective customers is to highlight some of your current customers on your website. You don’t need to collect quotes or get a glowing testimonial – just featuring their brand on your website can send the message that you’ve earned the trust of other businesses in the community. Here’s are some social proof examples that illustrate how today’s leading software companies are highlighting their current customers to increase conversions.
MailChimp
Why it Works: MailChimp highlights some of its current customers on their landing page as a form of social proof – but there’s actually a highly unique angle here. Instead of showcasing the Fortune 500 companies that use MailChimp to execute on their email marketing campaigns (and be assured, there are very many of them), MailChimp instead focuses on its small business customers and even links to their websites so you can see for yourself how MailChimp is powering their marketing campaigns.
Slack
Why it Works: Slack writes that their product is trusted by teams of every size, but its clear what sorts of clients they’re targeting by highlighting their current customers: big ones. The companies featured in this social proof example are all considered market leaders in their respective industries. By highlighting their relationships with these massive brands, Slack is staking its claim as a leading productivity app for enterprise organizations.
Social Proof Widgets
Social proof widgets overlay on your website and feed social proof to your visitors in real-time based on real user interactions.
TrustPulse
Why it Works: TrustPulse makes a website plugin that displays an overlay on your website (see related image) whenever a user completes a desired action like subscribing to your service or purchasing a product. This provides an instant source of social proof for anyone visiting your website that transactions are happening and encourages them to get started and avoid missing out.
Fomo
Why it Works: Have you heard of FOMO?
It stands for Fear Of Missing Out, and it’s something that consumers may experience when they see someone else walking around with a shiny new product or service.
FOMO presents an overlay to all visitors on your website any time someone completes a transaction on one of your sales pages, providing instant social proof and encouraging visitors on your website to avoid missing out and make a purchase themselves.
Awards and Badges
Brands can feature awards and badges on their websites to highlight their areas of best performance and demonstrate that other members of the community love their services enough to present them with prestigious titles and honors.
KnowBe4
Why it Works: Awards and badges are like any other type of credential: they’re worth as much as the organization that bestows them. Here, KnowBe4 highlights its favorable review profile on Gartner peer insights, excellence award from the 2019 cybersecurity excellence awards and its inclusion in the top 100 SaaS companies of Q1 2018.
Athena Health
Why it Works: Athena Health is one of the largest SaaS companies operating in the healthcare space. Here, Athena Health uses space on its home page to highlight its recent performance in the Best in KLAS 2020 awards. KLAS research allocates these awards each year by aggregating feedback from industry professionals, enabling award recipients to obtain strong validation that their products are making a difference and out-performing the market.
Media Coverage
Mentioning past media coverage on your website is one of the most common social proof examples that digital marketers should leverage whenever possible.
GitStart
Why it Works: Not only does GitStart mention and link to news articles where its product was mentioned or reviewed, it includes quotes from those articles as direct endorsements of their product. Presenting the publisher’s logo in large print strengthens the association between GitStart and the media brands that have positively recommended it through their coverage.
Raw Numbers
Brands can present raw facts and figures in their marketing, advertisements and search results to convey social proof surrounding the value of their content. The brands highlighted here use statistics and metrics as a form of social proof that drives engagement on their platform.
Shopify
Why it Works: On the home page of its website, Shopify uses statistics to highlight its global reach and the impact it has had on driving revenue for small businesses. While this type of social proof does not directly mention specific Shopify customers, it does position Shopify as the world’s leading eCommerce platform by highlighting the sheer volume of businesses they’ve helped power.
Case Studies
Case studies or customer success stories are some of the best social proof examples. They offer an end-to-end look at how a specific customer was positively impacted by your product or service. Case studies are one of the best ways to convince prospects near the end of the purchasing process that you really can deliver the results you promise.
Twilio
Why it Works: Twilio is a messaging and connectivity platform that’s been put to use by some of the world’s largest technology companies, including Uber, Shopify and Instacart. Twilio puts audiences in control of how they want to consume customer success stories. Users can play embedded testimonial videos for each of Twilio’s highlighted customers or click through to read a more in-depth case study on how the platform helped grow their businesses.
Summary
Thanks for checking out our list of the 15 best social proof examples to inspire your marketing in 2020.
We hope this list encourages you to leverage your existing customer relationships and brand authority into social proof that inspire your prospects to take action.
Brian Bui
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