A business with no online presence is barely a business nowadays: 97% of consumers check a company’s online presence before deciding to visit them. On top of that, 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.
Social Validation is a psychological term that refers to the tendency to use other people’s behavior as a standard for judging the appropriateness of one’s behavior; basically, we can look at it as a sort of moral compass. While the original intent of the term was to define social behavior, it is nowadays a way to describe a marketing phenomenon. In areas like Crowdfunding, you hear this a lot: even if you can generate traffic, cold leads will hardly invest in a campaign with zero dollars raised, which makes the initial raise with friends and family crucial for any marketing efforts to work.
Why is Social Validation Important?
Social Validation reassures potential customers that the product or service is legitimate and has value. People are more likely to decide on a product based on the influence of other users and clients: 1 in 3 users will search for your business on their smartphone before visiting while 93% of users will rely on customer reviews when dealing with businesses they are not familiar with.
While having a website that provides valuable content, engaging social media profiles, and a robust content marketing strategy can improve your conversions, having social validation will boost your marketing efforts and help you generate conversions. Having good interactions with followers and potential clients, getting positive reviews, and working with influencers can change the outcome of your efforts profusely.
Marketing efforts are now a two-way communication road instead of just us trying to deliver a message: having an online presence and designing content focused on building relationships and providing useful information, educational resources, and entertainment should be the main focus of our campaigns.
