How To Generate Social Proof Using Chat Marketing
6 min read

How To Generate Social Proof Using Chat Marketing

We discovered that one of the best ways to boost our conversion rate is by using social proof in our online store. Jameela from Alora Boutique explains how.
How To Generate Social Proof Using Chat Marketing
This is a guest post submitted by Jameela from Alora Boutique.

We discovered that one of the best ways to boost our conversion rate is by using social proof in our online store.

As the store owner of Alora Boutique, a Shopify store that retails meaningful jewelry that gives back, one of my main focuses over the past year has been generating social proof to make it easier to sell our jewelry.

The thing about fashion is that people LOVE to have what other people have and need to see what it looks like IRL. The best way to give people that feeling and understanding of the product is to have social proof.

Social proof, specifically a photo wall and reviews/testimonials, has turned out to be a game changer for me because when our website visitors see that our products are popular with other people, they are more inclined to purchase from me!

Showcasing-social-proof-photo-reviews-in-online-store

In this post, we're going to walk you through:

  • What social proof is
  • Why you should generate social proof
  • How you can gather it with chat marketing
  • The best way to display social proof

When you finish reading this post you will be convinced that generating and displaying social proof is the only way to go online.

What is Social Proof?

Social proof is what happens when people change their behavior and are influenced by the actions of others.

A quick, real-life example is when a waiter seats people close to the window of a restaurant so that the place seems more popular to passersby. Making the restaurant seem popular increases the chances that people passing by will check out the establishment!

You can replicate social proof like that on your online store, by displaying things like:

  • Reviews
  • Testimonials
  • User-Generated Photos
  • Recent Sales Pop-ups
  • And more!

Why Generate Social Proof?

The main reason you want to generate social proof is to make more sales on your online store.

That is the whole reason you went into business right? To provide customers with amazing products and make money during the process.

According to FastCompany, "people naturally want what other people have, and they feel a certain level of comfort from following the choices of others rather than having to think about the situation for themselves."

That is why you will choose to go to a busy restaurant over an empty one even if the quality of food is better at the empty one.

At the end of the day, generating and displaying social proof on your online store can be the difference between a 0.5% conversion rate and a 2% conversion rate.

How to Generate and Display Social Proof

In this section, we're only going to focus on the types of social proof we have found works for our brand.

Just to give you a little overview of who our customers are, they are women ages 25 to 40 who love to look and feel good. They spend a lot of time on visual social media sites like Instagram and Pinterest.

The social proof we try to gather is typically customer photos and reviews. Those are the things that matter to our customers, so we generate that type of content.

Generating Social Proof With a Conversation

Most customers (70%) will leave a review if a business just asks! While that may seem like a great stat...how can you put that into practice?

When you are asking customers for feedback, you want to make sure that you are reaching out to your early customers in person via email, Instagram, or Facebook Messenger after you know that their order has been received.

A chat marketing service like ShopPop has lots of templates to choose from, and that is why they are so great to use. You can set up a flow for your users post-purchase in the backend like this:

POP-chat-marketing-Campaigns-dashboard

When you are reaching out to your customers you can do a few things:

  1. Personalize the message
    a) You can say something like, “Hello [FIRST NAME], this is [YOUR NAME] from [YOUR BUSINESS] …”
  2. Specifically ask them about their experience with your product and use prompts
    a) Was the product as described?
    b) Did you like the packaging?
    c) Did it ship quickly?
  3. Ask them to take a photo review of your product in use in exchange for a discount or gift.
Generating-social-proof-in-Messenger

Benefits of Generating Social Proof Via Chat Marketing

The best part about using messenger to have conversation with your customers is that you will get a much higher open rate than when you use email. You can get up to 80% open rates and 10X CTR compared to email!

Sending a review request via Facebook messenger also makes your request feel more personalized, and more likely to get a photo review.

PRO TIP: Make sure when you are asking for a review via messenger, you are using more casual language than if you were sending an email. Remember, messenger is still social media, and people want to feel connected to your brand when they are one social.

Displaying Social Proof

Once you have gathered social proof using chat marketing you need to beautifully display it!

To do this effectively you should use a social proof app like Fera.ai. The reason we use an app to do this is because we don’t have the coding skills or time to display every single photo or review manually on all our product pages.

How-to-display-social-proof-on-your-store


When you are trying to display social proof on your website, you want to make sure that it is done in a natural way.

If you are trying to display reviews, you want to make sure that you display them at a point of friction for your customer. A point of friction is a point in the buying process where your customer may question if they actually want your product or have unanswered questions.

For example, you want to display the reviews you gathered on a product page or at the checkout cart when people are wondering how the product looks and if it is as described.

Display-social-proof-on-product-and-checkout-pages

Why is displaying social proof important?

Having a review or customer photos on your website from a customer will help you build credibility and boost your conversion rate because your website visitors trust other customers more than they trust your brand.

If you are not sure where to add your social proof, try the following places to display the positive feedback you have gathered:

1. Home Page

  • Testimonials

2. Product Page

  • Reviews
  • Photo Wall

3. Entire Website

  • Recent Sales Pop-ups
  • Reviews

Displaying social proof in these places helps to showcase that many other people know, trust and like your brand and product.

Showcase-products-using-Fera-ai

Our Experience

We found that using social proof on our store and generating social proof by connecting in the right ways with our customers has improved our conversion rate, and reduced the amount of time we have to spend working on repetitive tasks.

Using social proof and conversational marketing in tandem helps to build brand trust, gives your brand an authentic voice, and helps you make more sales with the same amount of traffic!

Jameela-Alora-Boutique-author-picture

Jameela is the owner of the online jewelry store Alora Boutique. You can find her on the interwebs on LinkedIn and Instagram.


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