How to Create Persuasive Social Proof Content

Yesterday, I shared why I believe Social Proof is the best form of #Marketing. The impact of strong social proof that your organization has permission to use is: humanizing your organization 🥰 ➡️ Always ask for permission to use a piece of social proof vs. asking for forgiveness later. This isn’t one of those times when that’s an OK route to go. Today, I I’m sharing 5 ways for organizations to use social proof to support their business outcomes: 1. #EmployerBranding — Ask a few employees who post about your company’s culture on LinkedIn and are involved internally to contribute quotes to for your “Careers” or “About Us” pages on your site. ➡️ Give the employees a shoutout for contributing to the project at an All-Hands or Townhall meeting AND give them praise. They’re free for you to give and mean a lot to the people who contributed to it. 2. #Events — If you host an annual conference, summit, etc., then I hope social is part of your strategy for it too. When it is, you can thoughtfully build into the event moments for people to engage with your company on social or post a learning from it. Then, ask the people for permission to use the posts on next year’s landing page for it or in the prospectus for sponsorships under “What People Say About [Conference Name]” in the deck. ➡️ Use posts in the deck that are from notable people in the space or your ICP that’ll also resonate with sponsors for it. 3. #Community — Ask members who are highly engaged to contribute a quote and their preferred name and headshot for a “Why People ❤️ [Community Name]” section on your community page that’s public. ➡️ Using their quotes, names, & headshots, turn them into a fun “Why Members ❤️ [Community Name]” LinkedIn carousel post with a human-first CTA to support membership growth goals. 4. #CustomerMarketing — In today’s market, with buying committees larger than ever and putting more scrutiny on each purchase, I’d work closely with Sales & CS/CX at your organization to collect quotes + preferred name and headshot from the most common personas you see in your buying committees. Then, work with sales leadership and product marketing to add slides into decks with the quotes from the various personas to show that your organization has worked successfully with people like their buying committee before. ➡️ For SaaS/tech vendors, I’d always get Legal/Procurement, Data Security/IT, & Finance quotes given that they’re involved and 100% have the power to kill a purchase swiftly even if it’s the best solution for your company after conducting your research. 5. #CustomerAdvocacy — Ask your super admins and fans to contribute in content opportunities (e.g., articles, events, etc.). ➡️ Create a title like Content Contributor for them to add to their LinkedIn profiles under “Experience,” allowing them a place to publicly celebrate their work with you. 🥰 People buy, work, & engage with other people, so humanize your organization today 🥰

Creating content with your customers is my favorite way to extend your brand halo. A shift towards customer collaboration transforms your content motion from a mode of constant self creation to a drumbeat of curation. The challenge is creating the right collaboration opportunity where your customer doesn’t just share it once, but makes your thing a part of their external promotional stream. Here’s what I do to make this happen: 1. Selecting the right topic: It’s always good to ask your customers up front what messages that they're taking to market this year. If you build something that centers around their main messages then you're instantly designing content that will have more shelf life for their promotion. The most impactful content strategies not only allow for your customer’s point-of-view to be a part of it, but also have it work cohesively with your own messaging. 2. Prioritizing organization: Your customers don’t want to have to do a ton of additional work during a collaboration. It’s your responsibility to make the request stupid simple and easy for your customer. Creating a brief for your customers to absorb on their own time can cut out a ton of back and forth. 3. Setting expectations up front: If you're creating content with your customers and you want them to share it with their audience you need to ask them to do it. The ask should come up front and you should earn commitment from them. It’s really important to let your customers know exactly what you’re looking for them to do and also ask the right questions to identify other opportunities for them to share. 4. Early access: Give your customers early access to the content, your promotional plan, and graphics that they can use for their promotion. When you give your customers access to the deliverables early it also gives them another reminder to share. 5. Make your customers look like heroes: Your customers have offered up their time to help promote your brand. The most important thing that you can do during this process is to create content that is going to make them shine on your stage. This always means going above and beyond to make sure that they’re being featured as true thought leaders in the space. Customer collaborations can’t be viewed as a one and done thing. Customer collaborations need to be a part of your strategy and happen consistently in order to make the impact that you’re looking for. When it starts to work you’ll see your audience grow. You’ll know when it’s really working when your customers not only signs their renewal, but wants more from your brand.

I've seen some great results with social proof in ad creative and copy, really boosting CTR and ROAS in an ad account. Social proof ad creative concepts start with mining customer reviews. Here’s the exact process on how I mined reviews for Philosophy and came up with 3 hooks and reviews: 1. Identify Key Themes: The first step was to identify key themes and sentiments from Philosophy's customer reviews by product. I looked for recurring phrases or words that captured the customers' experiences with the product. 2. Craft Compelling Hooks: Once the key themes were identified, I crafted 3 hooks that were the most persuasive aspects of these reviews. These hooks were designed to grab attention and resonate with our target audience. 3. Select Reviews for Testing: After creating the hooks, I carefully selected reviews that best supported each hook. These reviews were chosen based on their authenticity & relevance that a customer could resonate with. Using the voice of satisfied customers through social proof can significantly enhance the performance of your ad creative. By mining reviews, crafting compelling hooks, and conducting rigorous testing, you can optimize your ads for maximum impact and ROI.