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Using Social Proof to Build Trust and Identity

Welcome back chatbot fans and now we're going to talk about social proof and tribal identity, which is really the core fundamental idea with regards to how people make their buying decisions and back to the beanie. A lot of people were complaining about the baseball cap. They didn't like it, they didn't believe it was me. So I apologize for that disruption in our normal programming, but it's it is me, I promise. Um, anyway, social proof and identity, right? Social proof basically states that one of the ways in an important way that we determine what is good and proper and correct in the world is by seeing what other people think is good and proper and correct in the world. It's a very straightforward rule and it's very powerful and we think about our own buying patterns and we're honest with ourselves, we'll see just how powerful of an influence this could be. In an interesting study by Albert Bandara and colleagues forgot what year this was done, 67% of kindergarten Children who were ...

previously terrified of dogs. We're willing to climb into a playpen with a dog After watching other Children play with dogs for 20 minutes a day for just four days. Okay. That's the principle of social proof in action in youngsters and this concept of social proof applies to all of us throughout all stages of life. When we see things on instagram from people, we admire, we respect, we want to buy that right. When we see reviews and testimonials, we'll talk about that in a moment. Um, we want to buy that way because we, and this is a, and this is, it's not a bad mechanism in our, in our brain. The reason why this has been developed over so many thousands of years is because this usually works in our favor. Right? There's a blizzard of information out there. And if we're able to find a group of people or be able to trust in a group of people when trying to figure out what behavior is proper or appropriate or what products services good. That's an enormously efficient shortcut in making decisions and we'd probably be a lot worse off as a human race if we didn't have something reliable like that in place. So we make decisions like that, the power of social proof is amplified when we see people like us engaging in certain behaviors. Now remember this is important. It's one thing to see just people using a product or people using a service. But if we can identify with them, if they're not like us, then that it has much less of an impact on us. When people that are in my demographic and people who have my interests and desires are buying these products are using these services are acting in a certain way. That's when social proof becomes an, a massive weapon that you could, that you could wield. Um, like I said, aside from just the overall idea of social proof. This is the concept that I was just discussing of tribal identity, we identify with tribes and the tribes doesn't necessarily mean religious tribes. Which, but that could be the case as well. But if I'm a jets fan or if I like a certain band, right, these are all subtle cues that make up my overall identity. These are things that I relate to. And if I see you relate to the world in a similar way that I relate to the world, I will trust your judgment with what products and what actions and what things are good. More so than people who do not share the same characteristics. So this includes interests. Like I just mentioned personality characteristics. If you're more outgoing, I'm more likely to trust your. Um, and I'm outgoing, I'm more likely to trust your preferences than, than somebody who is an introvert. Okay, so same demographics, if you're in my age group, gender, race, ethnic background. Um, other desires of, of just, I like to travel. You like to travel. I like poetry, you like poetry. I like art exhibits, you like art exhibits. Right? So the more we could, as marketers show prospects and show leads that people like you with your interests in your age group, with your religious background or whatever it may be. Pick a dimension as many as you can. And this takes some thought and take some analysis of your data and you could show them how those types of people are using and enjoying our products and services. You have done an enormous amount of good to the effectiveness of your marketing campaign and this is exactly social proven identity. Is exactly, is exactly why websites use testimonials, why they use reviews while you have google. Plus page is set up while you have facebook reviews while you want to get instagram, likes, what likes, why you want to get twitter followers. All that reason you might think you're doing it for fame. But the real reason why it works is because it creates social proof. It's a way for people to understand that you are good, your business is good. That is how we make snap decisions. This is how we are buying patterns develop. Um and interestingly enough I found this over and over with client websites and with my own marketing campaigns that I've run um testimonials and reviews that could tap into tribal identity are more important and are more impactful in the buying decision than actual product information. Think about that if you if I had the choice and I do this all the time, I help clients redesign their landing pages all the time in this way to put product information, details about the product that features the benefits, all that sort of great stuff. I always choose to put to highlight a good testimonial and again the testimonial has to be authentic and it has to tap into tribal identity. It has to convey that people like you are using this product. It's so much more persuasive than all the product information because psychologically people want to buy things and they make that initial impression that initial judgment to buy when they see other people like them buying. Yes, the product information and supporting information in the price of the product and the return policy and all those things are important but they're not as important. They're all um secondary and tertiary to the the primacy of social proof. What's beautiful about what we're doing here with facebook chat bot marketing is that facebook provides us a trove of demographic information that we could tap into and we're gonna talk about how to use mobile monkey to personalize messages with specific variables. I'm going to show you an example of the very next page. So here we have a chat bot that I created. Um and here's basically what it says, it's for selling strollers and just pretend this is an example. So just pretend here that I'm a mother of two. Okay, I mean, I don't know, it might not be that hard to imagine but just imagine it. So it says hey Isaac we just completed a massive customer survey and we found that 90% of mothers with two or more Children rated this stroller five out of five stars for portability comfort and easiness to clean and here's a picture of the stroller. This is what jennifer smith, a mother of two said about this particular model. This is by far the best roller I have ever used? The accessories are affordable and they make it so easy for me to stroll my toddler and my newborn around town at the same time, this stroller makes me want to have two more kids just so I have an excuse to buy another one in a different color. Okay, now, of course, this testimonial is not real. I made it up, but you get the idea if you're running your business well, you have good reviews. You should be using them in your chat bots and notice how we segmented this out to mothers of two. This is a chatbot that will go out to all the customers in our database that have identified as mothers and that have two or more Children. Right? And we also have done research of course and we've done um, interviews of course and we've done surveys of course and we've done polls of course to know that easiness to clean comfort and portability are the most important factors. We're combining many elements of good marketing into a chat bot that's gonna have engagement rates that are through the roof. So when you're building your chatbots and when you're drafting your chatbots, it's important to start thinking about the variables that you want to collect about your customers. Right? Which attributes are important. So in our case of the stroller company? It's important to know, are you a mother, how many kids do you have one of the most important product features to you if you're a negotiating seminar, it's important to know um what industry are you in? What type of negotiating do you do? And what location are you in? Because then we know exactly how to market to you and which testimonials to show to you. Right? So it's very important to understand the specific important attributes of your customers that are relevant to your business. Then you're gonna go into mobile monkey and we're gonna build out buckets of specific attributes that we can target and speak with each tribe in a specific way. So for example, for our stroller company, we're going to have an audience in mobile monkey that is only going to send messages to mothers who are expecting. We're gonna have another audience for mothers with one child with newborns, let's say that are under a year old, then we're gonna have another audience from others to and above. We're gonna have another audience for Father's Okay. And our, our drip campaigns and our chat blasts and our and our messenger ads are all going to be tailored to the needs, the desires and the tribal identity of that specific group. That's the power of mobile monkey and and and chatbots, I hope I'm conveying how sophisticated we can get and how effective we can get and how much more powerful it is when you combine these principles like commitment, consistency, reciprocity and now social proof and tribal identity. We're going to segment your drips and the blast, okay, like like we just, I just mentioned by different audiences and you're gonna see these engagement rates literally go through the roof, through the chat blasts and through the drip campaigns through mobile monkey. We're gonna show testimonials, reviews, um product demonstrations, if you have those on video or even product demonstrations based on an image based series, um customer success stories, The sky's the limit. You guys are the ones that have to get creative to figure out how to implement these specific tactics and these persuasive techniques and into your chatbots through using very highly segmented audience segments. Another important tip for using social proof. Everything has to be concrete. Avoid saying lots of people, lots of people means nothing to anybody. But it's much better to say 300 mothers of to have bought this stroller. That's powerful. Right? So when you're using um, statistics and you're using numbers and you're using testimonials. Use concrete numbers, avoid any unsubstantiated superlatives. Like um everyone says this strollers, awesome. No, it's easy to clean. It's portable. It's lightweight, right? Use things that are actually concrete. That means something to everybody that our objective. Um, that's how you get social proof to really work to your advantage. So think about, I mean there's so much you could do here, right? So what I would recommend is a great exercise is take time and write down 2 to 3 different ways that you could incorporate social proof in the and like I said, whether it be um whether it be a product review, whether it be a testimonial, whether it be a product demonstration, whether it be a customer success story, think of ways that you could take the content you already have or try to generate new content like this and use social proof. Use tribal identity to your advantage, similar to how I set it up with the stroller example for your own business, for your own product, for your own products. Um to nurture leads and to engage new leads in a much more effective and positive way. In the next lecture, we're gonna talk about another very important persuasive technique called likability, and we're going to see a chatbot in real time and an example chat about that I built. So I hope again that this stuff is getting your gears turning, that you're getting some interesting ideas here. You're starting to think about some cool ideas for your own chatbots. Um again, the sky is the limit, be as creative as possible and I will see you in a couple of seconds in the very next lecture