How Social Proof Can Make or Break Your Business

Although storytelling and transparency are huge components of copywriting trends, it’s not enough to simply tell your story. You must have buy-in. Consumers must believe your story, resonate with you, and believe that others believe in you too before they decide to do business with you. That’s why social media and social proof are at the forefront of many successful marketing campaigns.

It’s also vital that the story you are telling is TRUE. Authenticity = congruency in marketing. Often when things aren’t flowing your message isn’t a good match for what you are delivering and isn’t resonating with your end-user as it should. Or what you are delivering isn’t what you’re presenting in your marketing message. It comes down to not only accurately portraying what you do but actually doing it.

Including features and benefits in your copy is not enough to fully convince savvier consumers your product or service is for them. Testimonials do help support believability and consumers want social proof that what you offer works. Period. Often they find this proof via social buzz on Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, blogs and more.

Your copywriting efforts and brand must be represented in social media platforms with engaged interaction to support any messages your marketing, advertising, and promotions are generating. Of course you need solid copy to engage the conversation and then the rest becomes viral. Think word-of-mouth marketing on the Web. Every social media post, blog comment and Tweet that you create has an impact on your reputation and the same is true about the buzz others are creating about you.

Another great way to build your buzz and enhance your relationships online is to infuse audio and video into your messaging. This is not a new technique; however, the effectiveness is increasing. People want to know, like and trust you and audio and video help make that connection. Although copy truly is the foundation of messaging it can take more than the written word to build relationships especially online. Rather than overlook social media avenues, video and audio consider how they can work for you.

* What are you doing to connect?
* What are people saying about you and your business online?
* Do you have social proof that what you do works?