social proof for small business

Building trust with consumers is one of the fastest ways to build your brand. Customers often seek validation from others when looking for products and services. Here’s how to build social proof for your business to make it easier for customers to choose you over competitors.

If you are you struggling to generate leads and traffic for your small business, you’re not alone. A recent survey shows you are one among the 63% of marketers and business owners who are facing the same challenges in keeping consumers invested in their brand. Why?

The main reason why customers fail to trust businesses is they don’t see any signs showing that they are valued. If you want people to stay connected to your brand, you have to do everything in your power to gain their trust.

Here, we are going to talk about gaining social proof for your business. Essentially, social proof is when people are likely to commit to a company or a brand once they are influenced by other people liking and using the same product. Similarly, interactions with businesses that may be new to customers can lead to more sales and engagement.

Don’t Compete. Create

Start by polishing your website. It is safe to say that we have all come across an unpolished website with low-grade animations, a basic website with dangling lines of different font colours and hosting just a few pages. Whether you are an online business or offline, your main priority should be your website. This is the first thing a new user or an existing customers see when they need something from your company.

  • Create an attention-grabbing homepage that demonstrates your value to the community.
  • Add instructions to help people navigate around your website.
  • Test different links and see where your users lands and what they see when they do.

Gather feedback and reviews

Feedback and reviews are crucial for building social proof for your business. You can collect feedback on social media, as it one of the best platform where users spend most of their time in a day. When you gather feedback from social media, email, or on your website, it is a long term process but worth the investment.

  • Reviews are great for building trust with new customers
  • 72% of users hesitate to buy a product without reading reviews.
  • Allow customers to leave feedback on each product so others can get a better idea before buying the same.

Social Media Engagement: Make it a priority

It is estimated that over 3.81 billion people use at least one type of social media and a whopping 80% of internet uses have at least one social media account. You can start actively building a social media account related to your business and let people know that they can reach out to any services you are ready to offer through this channel.

  • Stay active on social media and never forget to interact with your existing subscribers.
  • Use the tools offered by a few social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, where you can be exposed to learn the demographics of the users and provide the right content by personalizing them accordingly.
  • Host online giveaways, create pools and share helpful and valuable content to strengthen your presence in their feed.

Building trust with your customers is not only about offering optimal solutions or services in the time of need. It is also about what others think of your brand, try to maintain an excellent online reputation and to err is human; and you will have come across a faulty page, product, or a service. Make sure that the issue has been resolved at the earliest to keep the consumers happy and loyal to your brand.

Creating a following of customers that see your brand as a reputable figure in your industry will help you thrive and skyrocket the results in your small business.