In our digital age, consumers are just as likely to trust the opinions they find in online reviews as they are to trust those of their friends. The numbers prove it: recent polls show that close to 92% of consumers make a purchase decision based on online reviews of products and services.
There’s some interesting psychology behind this phenomenon. First, there’s the time-saving aspect – today’s consumers, even those making thousand-dollar purchases on behalf of their companies, don’t have the time needed to thoroughly research all the options out there. So, they rely on the experience of peers who are like themselves to save time.
There’s also the “I’ll have what they’re having” principle, which explains why companies often highlight their best sellers. And let’s not forget about “implicit egotism,” the psychological phenomenon that explains why we gravitate toward the choices made by people who resemble us. This one is key to understanding why you should always highlight testimonials from people who are most representative of your target audience.
When it comes to your social media marketing strategy, make sure to highlight your testimonials in ways and places where your target audience will be most likely to see them. This should involve finding out which online social channels your target audience uses most – such as LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter – and displaying your testimonials there. This will expose your target audience to your testimonials without requiring them to leave their comfortable ‘watering holes’.
Here are some ways to incorporate testimonials into your social media marketing strategy:
1. Address your target audience’s pain points
Defining your target audience is key when you’re putting together your social media marketing strategy. Indeed, what you determine about your target audience will guide most of your marketing and social media activities. This process involves gaining close familiarity with your target’s pain points – what problems they’re trying to solve, what challenges they’re facing, what goals are they aiming to achieve, etc.
Incorporate your testimonials in your social media marketing strategy by using the knowledge you have about your target audience’s pain points. Listen and participate in online conversations in groups where your target audience hangs out. Based on these conversations and on your buyer personas, you can understand what it is that you can offer them that your competition can’t (or hasn’t).
Within the relevant social media groups, you should answer questions, make comments, and share testimonials and client stories that speak to those pain points and show how you solved their problems – so potential clients can imagine how you can solve their problems, too.
Think about implicit egotism – any testimonial you have from a person experiencing the same issue as your target audience is a powerful tool to help you generate new business.
2. Incorporate social media into your testimonials
You need a social media marketing strategy because social media is so powerful, right? So, why not pull an “Inception”, and incorporate social media into your testimonials, themselves?
Social media, with testimonials, with social media….
Let me explain.
Displaying testimonials that include links to the reviewers’ social media profiles, alongside their profile pictures, gives you the best chances at having your potential clients connect with the testimonials and your brand. This means that the odds of the testimonials positively impacting their buying decisions will be greatly improved.
If your prospects can click on your testimonials to see the reviewers’ profiles and discover what their jobs, locations, ages, etc. are, then they can quickly identify reviewers who are like them (remember implicit egotism?), making it easier for them to imagine that your product, service or solution can work for them, too.
In addition to helping your target audience relate to the stories in your testimonials (which already goes a long way toward creating lead conversions), featuring photos and links to social media profiles makes your testimonials 100% trustworthy and legitimate.
You can integrate social media in your testimonials (to integrate in social media) by using the Spectoos testimonial platform. It enables you to add and aggregate your testimonials from just about anywhere across the web. It then enables you to display your testimonials on your Facebook business page and web assets, complete with the reviewers’ photos and links to their social media profiles.
3. Remember that content is king
As a marketer, you’re surely familiar with the phrase “content is king”, and you most likely understand the validity of the statement. Content and social media marketing constantly intersect. In fact, 64% of marketers consider social media to be one of the top 3 tactics for content marketing, making this junction an ideal place to incorporate testimonials for greater visibility and lead generation.
One way to use testimonials with your content is to create a new content piece, such as a blog post, video or case study, around one or more of your testimonials. This is a great way to highlight a testimonial that specifically discusses a pain point your target audience typically has. It also provides you with a great opportunity to use the powerful tool of storytelling.
Neuroeconomics master Paul Zak has found that storytelling can elicit powerful empathetic responses: “Stories are powerful because they transport us into other people’s worlds,” he says, and this type of empathetic reaction triggers the release of Oxytocin – the “trust hormone.” Thus, when people get emotionally involved, they’re more connected to your brand and more likely to buy from you.
Marketo do a great job with this, using moving video testimonials from real clients on their solution pages, like this one:
Because storytelling gets your prospects emotionally involved, highlighting testimonials in dedicated content pieces and circulating them on social media channels will do wonders for helping you generate more leads.
This is an activity you can schedule to do on a regular basis, or whenever you have a new testimonial that merits a dedicated content piece.
Testimonials have never been more effective at helping businesses grow than they are now, and giving them a spot in your social media marketing strategy will make them even more successful in their efforts to bring you traffic.
The post 3 Tips for Incorporating Testimonials into Your Social Media Marketing Strategy appeared first on Strong Social.
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