social proof

Social Proof (noun) – The impact that an individual’s friends and acquaintances have on their likely hood to buy a product or service from a brand, derived from the commentary and activity the friends and acquaintances have with the brand on social networks and in social settings.

Ok so like I said in the video, Andolini’s has been open to the public for less than two full nights as I write this and I wanted to give examples of many kinds of social proof that have happened already. Its a motivator to be out there and get involved, and to ask for help if need be. This results in sales as you will see right now.

Open Announcement and Reactions Social Proof

Here you can see a post on my personal facebook page where I announced that Andolini’s was open. You can see that in the hours since it was posted 10 people have liked it and three more have commented. What this means is a few things:

A high level of engagement will likely push this post into the ‘Top News’ feed, which will result in just about all of my friends and all of these people’s friends seeing the post and comments.
By commenting on this, each of these people have brought it to the attention of all their friends via their Wall, where facebook places a notification that Dental Bright ‘likes’ the post.

Interaction and Testimonial Social Proof

As you can see here we have posted several photos of the food that we are serving at Andolini’s which a customer who had been waiting for us to open saw. The restaurant being responsive and answering him in a timely fashion is key here, and I think it is clear that he will be in soon. Down at the bottom Mr. Newman had been in the night before and posted a comment that serves as a quick review and endorsement. This post is a great example of social proof for a couple of reasons:

Interaction via the posts comments led to Mat letting us know he was coming soon, any of his friends who see his post will take that as an endorsement and be more inclined to try the restaurant.
A customer that has already come in raves and encourages people to try it. You don’t need me to explain why that is social proof I hope!

Third Party Generated Social Proof

This example differs from the previous two because in this case neither I nor the restaurant initiated any of the posting, it was purely the result of these people being inspired by something they saw or heard about Andolini’s. This is the best kind of social proof, because their friends will see that they were inspired to post and the friends will have a natural curiosity as to why.

The Social Proof of a Champion

Champion (noun) – An individual who is devoted to your brand and is passionate about promoting it for you.

As I have been writing what you have been reading, the above dialogue has been going on on facebook. The social proof of a Champion is a nice thing to nurture and enjoy. In this case the role of Champion is played well by Meah, who starts by praising the restaurant after her first visit tonight. When a friend of her refers to another Italian restaurant in a neighboring town she quickly re-iterates her preference and strong endorsement for our new place. You can see from the rest of the comments that having a champion is a great source of social proof.

Social to Sales – Social Proof

This is actually a husband and wife, and as you can see a post leads to them coming in for dinner immediately. Which is nice as that is the end goal, that in itself is not the social proof. Though it is proof that social media leads to sales. 🙂 Anyway the proof is in the fact that these messages were broadcast to all their followers on twitter, who may very well be influenced just by that, and or ask them how it was today. Anytime a customer shares the fact that she/he is spending money at your place with all their social contacts, repeat after me: THAT IS SOCIAL PROOF.

I have ton more screenshots to share, but I think you get the point by now. If you want to see more just check out the gallery at the bottom of this post.

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Note: I have written a Post Full of Examples due to the popularity of this post here: Social Proof

You have heard it before: This is social media, be social. Interact with people who post on your wall, who tweet about their dinner the night before, and post reviews of your restaurant online. Doing so will encourage these positive members of you social circle to be more active with your business online, and create what is known as Social Proof.

Social Proof is magnetic, it make people want to be a part of what everyone else is talking about. You see it on a Facebook wall all the time, here is something from today:

Someone posts something about an event at a restaurant and people pile on, building credibility to the event, and a sense that one should attend to see what the deal is. Would it be good without the hype? Probably. Will it be better with the added bodies, minds, and buzz? Definitely. Does that add to the profitability of the night, and most importantly the thousands to follow? Absolutely. We build social proof for our clients all the time at GuestFeed.

Three things you can do to make this happen:

1) Post happenings, specials, pictures, and video in creative ways to spark conversations.

2) When conversations happen, make sure you do not neglect them, show enthusiasm for interacting with your guests, and always acknowledge their comments.

3) Be sure to monitor the mentions of your place online as best you can, take advantage of google alerts, twitter searches, and to a lesser degree the news stream on facebook. When they happen jump in and show that you are there, you care, and you want to make your place special to them. Seeing that someone is coming in with five friends for a birthday dinner… you could comment that you are happy they chose your place, and then when they are there do something to make it special (dessert martinis or something), and after they leave comment again saying it was a pleasure to host them.

I promise you will see a flood of comments from them, and when they do their entire social network will see that your place is obviously a good spot for birthday dinner.

THAT is Social Proof.

Lets build some right now. How about you comment or retweet this and see where it goes.