“Social proof is the is a psychological phenomenon that occurs in ambiguous social situations when people are unable to determine the appropriate mode of behavior. Making the assumption that surrounding people possess more knowledge about the situation, they will deem the behavior of others as appropriate or better informed. ” – Wikipedia article.

In the context of a website and its popularity, this phenomenon is opnipresent. When a visitor first hits your site, they are judging you, your content and your design to determine their next move or action. Or indeed if they will bounce somewhere else.  People instinctively look for the acceptance of others as proof that your content or website is viable and that the consumption of that content is worth their time.

When a visitor hits your website it is analogous to a first date. First impressions count, and how you are perceived on that first date e.g. how similar you are in personality and how you look determines whether things go further and you get a second date. The same can be applied to a visitor. If your content floats their boat, and if your look is impressive it will determine if they come back to check you out again.

Social proof is that extra dash of aftershave that helps seals the deal, and turns a first date into a steady relationship.

Seducing your audience

A site owner will have an idea of site goals, and what they want a visitor to do, and it is their job to convince that visitor that

a) other people are performing that action – and
b) that same course of action is exactly what they should be doing

The basic gist of this, is that if you want someone to subscribe to your rss feed – you have to show them that others have done so. If you want someone to bookmark your stuff, you can encourage them to do so by showing that this content is being or has been bookmarked by other people.

Website growth is exponential, partly due to this fact – if I asked the tech community which websites and blogs are large out there and are popular, they would probably rhyme off a few major sites that will crop up time and time again. SmashingMag, Mashable, Problogger etc.

The reason that these sites are at the forefront in people’s mind as ‘good’ sites is partly because they have worked their asses off at generating awesome content, and partly because their audience are extremely vocal about being a visitor, and indeed promote that website content and brand themselves.

The psychology of sharing means that people are more likely to share content from sites which they already know are popular. For a couple of reasons.

1). Promoting authority content, is partly self-serving

Yes, sometimes people just want to share stuff, but more often than not, people share content on the web to get that “thank you” back from others within the network. In the context of Twitter, many people enjoy sharing throughout the network because of the likelihood of getting retweeted, thus increasing their own (personal brand) and exposure.  If someone comments (first) on a large website, they get the goods. They get a part of the traffic if that post is popular.

People who find great content get retweeted often, and thus grow in popularity and in following. Ultimately the sharer / commenter themselves achieves kudos and authority in an environment which rewards sharing.

2). Finding authority content is easier than hunting the web for perhaps better content

Authority content is easy to find, especially with the way the web is structured now – it tends to find you. The larger sites dominate networks such as Digg and Delicious simply because of the number of subscribers they have. This content floats to the top, and in turn gets promoted by the share pirate’s looking to piggy back off that websites authority. This effect is increasingly obvious across the Twitter network. When something goes viral, its not uncommon to see it hit the home page of delicious and vice versa.

You are also less likely to face a comment such as “that article is shit” – if it comes from a large well known authoritarian source.

Whereas before Twitter was around, authority and individual status was achieved through the provision of content – it is now partly achieved through the sharing content. This will become more and more important as the web evolves. But the balance at the minute is starting to reward people who share almost as much as the people who create, and in my opinion this is a trend that will continue on the web. Services such as Twitter that create this environment of sharing will continue to grow and provide an increasing amount of traffic to sites.

In summary – you have to appear to be being shared to get shared in the first instance.  There’s not really any way to fake this, but needless to say, it pays to be promoted by people who are authorities in their own right. For example with the Digg network in particular, content which is Dugg by popular users within that network is algorithmically more likely to reach the home page.

Getting a second date

So how do you go about proving your social worth and reeling in your audience on your blog or website?   There are a couple of very basic ways that you can do this on your site or blog?

Twitter retweets

Firstly consider installing something like Tweetbacks to show the world that your post has been tweeted before.  The TweetMeme button is another very easy way to employ the social proof technique in particular for bloggers and site owners who are using the Twitter network as a form of site promotion.

Feedburner chicklets

The feedburner chicklet, has been a bone of contention for many bloggers. Frankly it’s numbers go up and down like a kid with joy. That said however, it does give some indication of how many subscribers on average your site is getting. If you can show that other people are subscribing then it helps to reinforce your worth.

Your content itself.

If you are getting big links from other places around the web. Shout about it. If you are getting written about it. Shout about it. Won an award? Shout about it. No-one else will promote you and your business if you are unable to do it yourself, and publishing PR and blogging when you’ve scored a few goals is a great way of proving to your audience that you are worth listening to.

Comments

Turn commenting on, and display how many comments a particular post has received. This can help encourage others to comment, and prevents your visitors from feeling as if they are in an empty space.

Show your traffic

Let others see that you are getting traffic either to a particular post, or to your website as a whole. Either with a widget approach or directly publishing your stats. Whilst this is a step too far for many people it can be a great way of gaining increased exposure for a new blog, as people want to be a “part of the story” in your potential success.

What other ways do you think social proof can be used to separate your blog from the crowd?

Related Posts

• No Related Post