Are you looking for the best social proof examples that you can use to drive more sales and conversions?
Social proof can be a powerful tool. It builds credibility and can give you an instant boost in revenue. But one of the most common questions online business owners ask is, “What is an example of social proof?, and how can I best use them on my site?”
That’s why we’ll give you over 35 examples of social proof you can start putting on your website now.
Since this will be such an in-depth resource for online social proof examples, we’ve broken it up into three categories:
But before we start, let’s clarify what social proofing is and how it can help your company grow.
What Is Social Proof?
Social proof means that consumers adapt their behavior according to what other people do.
In his book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert Cialdini defines social proof as “we view a behavior as more correct in a given situation to the degree that we see others performing it.”
In psychological marketing, social proof is a powerful concept that suggests people are more likely to buy from you when they see others approve of your brand in some way.
It leverages FOMO (“fear of missing out”) by showing consumers all the positive benefits people get from your brand, product, or services.
As you’ll see, there are many types of social proof, such as
- Expert social proof is when an industry expert, thought leader, or influencer approves and recommends your product.
- Celebrity social proof is when a celebrity uses your product and promotes it.
- User social proof is when current users post a positive customer review and recommend your products and services.
- Wisdom of the crowd social proof is when many people endorse your brand; others tend to follow it.
- Wisdom of your friends social proof is when people we know and trust recommend your product.
- Earned Media social proof is when the press publishes positive reviews about your product or brand.
- Social Media social proof is when you get a lot of reshares and engagement on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. A blue checkmark also is an example of social proof.
And much more. Again, we’ll cover this in more detail in a moment.
But one of the most effective social proof examples is notifications. These small messages display on your website when a user positively interacts with your brand. They look something like this:
The best part is that you don’t need coding skills or technical experience to build these social proof notifications. And that’s all thanks to social proof plugins like TrustPulse:
TrustPulse is the world’s #1 social proof plugin and software that brings social proof notifications to any website.
It’s super easy to set up, design, and launch social proof notifications. You can create targeting rules to make specific messages for certain pages of your site, show individual or group activity (which we’ll cover below), and link to whatever activity you’re tracking.
That way, your site’s visitors will be more motivated to take similar actions on your site.
Whether you want to grow your email list, increase webinar attendance, or make more sales, social proof notifications are a powerful tool you should be using.
With that said, let’s dive into our list of the 35 best social proof examples you can start using today to boost conversions today.
Social Proof Examples – Notifications
1. Individual activity: We’re starting the list with a general social proof notification you can display on your website. This is an individual activity and shows when a single person has taken some action on your site:
Individual activity notifications are used with any of the following social proof notifications on the list, except for the next one.
2. Group activity: Unlike individual activity notifications, group activity messages show when large groups of people take the same action on your site:
This is an excellent example of social proof that you can use for popular promotions, email subscriptions, webinar sign-ups, and more.
They’re super effective because they display how famous your brand, product, or event truly is.
3. Recent sales notifications: This specific type of message lets users know any time someone has purchased from your site:
This is a great social proof example for eCommerce stores. As we mentioned before, we’ve seen recent sales notifications give an instant boost in sales of up to 15%.
4. Low-stock notifications: Do you have a popular item starting to run out of inventory? If so, you may want to let your audience know about it with a low-stock notification:
This ensures that your potential customers don’t miss out on the item they’ve been wanting.
5 New email subscriber notifications: These types of messages are an excellent strategy for growing your email list. As your audience sees your monthly newsletters’ popularity, they’ll be more inclined to join.
6. Webinar registration notifications: Webinars are undoubtedly one of the best ways to drive more sales for your company. That said, getting new attendees can be tricky. That’s where webinar registration notifications come in handy:
These messages let your online audience know that they won’t be the only attendee joining your online presentation. As a result, you get loads of new registrations.
7. 3rd party review notifications: Not every interaction with your brand takes place on your actual website. Sometimes, you get reviews from sites like Google My Business and Yelp. In that case, why not redirect your site’s visitors to see those stunning reviews?
These social proof notifications can drastically increase your credibility, especially since the glowing reviews come from a neutral 3rd party site.
8. Survey response notifications: Just like getting new webinar registrations or email subscribers, getting people to respond to your surveys can be challenging.
That’s why you can make a survey response notification for any survey forms on your website.
This will inspire others to fill out your survey form, which means more user-generated data for you.
Hopefully, you’ve started to see a common thread: you can create social proof for nearly any interaction users have with your brand online.
And with TrustPulse, you can create these campaigns in a matter of minutes with no coding skills required.
That way, you can spend more time and energy on other parts of growing your business while your social proof notifications run on auto-pilot.
Want to check it out? Sign up for your risk-free TrustPulse account today.
Now, let’s turn our attention to another type of social proof example: the kind you can display on your web pages.
Social Proof Examples – Website
9. Written testimonials: If you’re looking for multi-functional social proof website examples, there’s no better option than a written testimonial. These usually go into more depth about why a user loves your product or service and provides other potential customers with the confidence they need to buy from you.
Here’s a great example of using testimonials from OptinMonster:
You can use these on your website, social media strategy, or email campaigns. If you’re not using written testimonials to boost sales, you’re likely leaving tons of money on the table.
10. Video testimonials: Much like written testimonials, video testimonials are a great example of social proof for your digital marketing strategy. These tend to convert better than written testimonials because the visual aspect adds more credibility.
One study shows that social proofing your site with video testimonials convinces 77% of users to purchase.
11. Audio testimonials: These are less used than written or visual testimonials and are more likely something you’ll find for radio advertisements and podcasts.
The type of testimonial you choose will likely depend on where your audience consumes your content.
If your podcast is posted on your website, you can add audio testimonials before, during, or after each episode.
12. Quick quotes: You’ve likely seen this social poof website example in the past. Quotes are the perfect way to quickly boost credibility with your site’s visitors.
Here’s an example from a popup form for Beaver Builder that uses a quote to get more engagement:
The more well-known the reference is, the better. But even adding a small photo can go a long way in making quotes a powerful social proof example.
13. Displays of past clients: On the homepage for most websites, you’ll likely see a section that displays the company’s previous clients:
This lets you borrow social proof from other company brands. This can be a compelling example of social proof when done ethically (meaning they’re actually your former clients).
14. High-profile guest posts: You likely know about guest posts for content marketing purposes. They help you get more site traffic from other sources and, usually, help build backlinks. That said, they’re also a great example of social proof.
If your guest poster is well-known, it speaks volumes about your brand’s authority within your niche.
Any time you get a guest post, even a short one, from a popular persona in your niche, it can build trust with your audience.
15. Recent Publications: On the flip side, where have you or your brand been guest posting recently? One of the strongest forms of social proof is showing that you’ve written articles or posts for other popular publications:
If you can get your articles accepted by big-name online publishers like Inc. or Forbes, you’re sitting on an excellent form of social proof.
16. Expert approval: This is like a high-end quote from an expert in your niche. If you can get someone well-known in your area of business to speak positively about your brand, product, or service, that’s one of the best examples of social proof you can put on your website:
Again, the key here is that the person providing the quote needs to be an expert within your niche.
17. Influencer endorsement: Similar to expert approval, an influencer endorsement can boost your sales and conversions. However, the difference is that the person giving the endorsement doesn’t need to be an expert.
They need to be popular.
An excellent example is when the podcaster Joe Rogan off-handedly endorsed Bernie Sanders for president. Joe Rogan is not a political expert, but his casual celebrity endorsement caused news headlines and controversy.
The reason? He has a huge audience who trusts his opinion, even knowing he’s not an expert in that field.
18. User metrics: This is your website’s perfect social proof example. You can display how many users your product or service has helped. Here’s a great example from OptinMonster:
This works best if you’re well-established and have many people using your services.
19. Best-selling products: If you want to boost sales, you can display your best-selling or top-rated products to increase social proof. When website visitors see that other people are enjoying certain items, they’ll be more comfortable making a purchase themselves.
You can easily display best-selling products on any landing page with SeedProd.
SeedProd is WordPress’s best landing page builder and comes with custom WooCommerce blocks.
Drag the Best Selling Products block and drop it onto your page. You can also display top-rated products, sale products, and more.
20. On-site reviews: Many websites will have forms that let people leave them direct feedback or reviews. This can be through a form on a web page or, often, in a live chat.
Either way, you can take screenshots from these positive reviews and post them on your website.
21. Blog post comments: Have you ever been the first one to arrive at a party? It’s usually a bit uncomfortable until other people arrive. The same is true for blog post comments.
The more people you can get to interact with your content, the more people will feel comfortable leaving comments, too.
Once you get that flywheel started with some social proof, you can start consistently bringing in more blog post comments.
22. Number of email subscribers: If you’re trying to grow your email list and already have many subscribers, why not let people know about it? Adam Enfroy does this frequently as part of his strategy to grow his list continuously:
Again, showing how many people are receiving your emails makes the content appear more valuable. As a result, you’ll get loads more sign-ups.
23. Number of unsubscribers: Rather than showing the number of subscribers on your list, you may want to add the number of unsubscribers (if it’s relatively low):
This is an excellent way to show that you have a large email list and that people love consuming the content you produce.
24. 3rd party review sites: We already discussed using 3rd party site review notifications as a social proof example. You can also take screenshots or quotes from these review sites and post them directly on your homepage.
Having a neutral logo from a 3rd party site can create trust with your audience.
Now let’s turn our attention to social proof examples from social media and platforms like YouTube.
Social Proof Examples – Social Media Platforms
25. Online contest shares: Though online contests aren’t technically a social media platform, they’re usually widely spread via sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and so on.
We also recommend using an online giveaway contest plugin like RafflePress:
RafflePress is designed to help your online contests go viral. As part of the submission form, you can display the number of entries you’ve had for your contest:
This social proof persuasion example is great for getting more exposure for your brand, building your list, and getting a larger following on social media.
Ultimately, this means driving more sales.
26. Social media shares: If you write a post on social media that begins getting a lot of shares, you’re bound to capture more of your audience’s attention. That’s because your audience can use this as a metric to indicate the content is worth viewing.
Plus, once you get a few extra shares on your post, you’re likely to get even more as the post gains exposure.
27. Social media followers: It can be tough when trying to grow your social media presence. But like the old saying, “It takes money to make money,” it also takes followers to get more followers:
That’s because your follower count is an indicator of social proof that can motivate people to join your online community.
28. Social media likes: Similar to the last two social proof examples, having a post with tons of “likes” can go a long way in reaching more people online.
When people see a post, they may quickly glance at the content. But if they see it’s been liked by hundreds of people, they’ll likely go back and read the post in more depth.
29. Social media shoutouts: Twitter and Facebook have become two great resources for creating social proof persuasion. If someone speaks positively about your brand online, you can collect these testimonials from social media and display them on your website.
With a plugin like Smash Balloon, you can easily embed an entire feed of social media shoutouts anywhere on your site.
For example, with Smash Balloon’s Custom Twitter Feeds Pro, you can display of feed of tweets that mention your account.
Here’s how it looks:
The feeds are also highly customizable, so you can decide exactly how you want your social media shoutouts to look.
You’ve likely seen this example of social proof on many sites, and for a good reason: it works!
30. Social media engagement: This form of social proof is a mix of the last few examples we looked at: how are people engaging with your brand? When people check out your social profiles, they likely won’t be influenced by just one of the social proof examples we’ve covered.
Instead, they’ll consider everything, such as your follower count, your posts’ popularity (from likes and shares), and how many people are discussing your brand online.
If you can boost your social media engagement as a whole, you’re looking at a massively powerful social proof example that can bring you new leads and drive more sales.
31. Social media response time: Response time matters! About 40% of social media users want you to respond within one hour. Users who find your response time quicker than the rest are most likely to interact with your brand first.
Rightly so, Facebook allows you to state how responsive you’re on Messenger. Similarly, if you provide customer support on Twitter, you can display the time when you’re most responsive. It encourages people to message you, knowing that they’ll quickly get a response from you.
32. Social media blue checkmark: You can get verified on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram and receive a blue checkmark on your bio.
A blue checkmark is also an example of social proof. The blue tick is awarded to top celebrities and brands who develop authority and are deemed famous, influential, or interesting by the social media platform.
Apart from gaining credibility and respect from the community, you would also gain access to new features reserved only for verified accounts or Pages.
If you wish to get the checkmark on Twitter, here’s a guide to getting verified on Twitter.
33. Social media webinars and live events: You could invite experts as guests for your social media events and webinars, such as Twitter chats or Facebook Live video discussions. Such collaborations can allow you to tap into the experts’ positive influence and let your social media audiences hear and learn from experts in the industry.
34. YouTube subscribers: YouTube is much more than just a video-sharing platform. It’s a way for you to share your knowledge and drum up new business for your online store.
Just like social media platforms, though, your subscriber count will go a long way toward getting people to trust your brand:
Like all the other examples of social proof we discussed today, getting started can be tricky. But with each new subscriber you obtain, it becomes easier to get the next one.
YouTube video views: Moving away from your channel, you may try to promote specific videos to a segment of your audience. The more video views you already have can greatly impact the number of people who decide to watch.
YouTube video likes: Just like your social media posts, getting likes on your YouTube video is crucial. This example of social proof doesn’t just indicate that people watched your videos; it’s proof that they liked it:
Regarding social proof examples for YouTube, the video with the most likes ranks high on the list.
35. YouTube video comments: Another example of social proof on YouTube is the number of comments your video can produce. Remember that the goal of your brand is to connect with and engage your audience.
Comments under your video show a higher engagement rate and, as a result, inspire other people to leave comments, too.
Once people leave a comment underneath your post, you have an excellent opportunity to nurture that lead into a new customer.
36. Podcast subscribers: Podcasts don’t get much attention when it comes to social proof examples. Though they probably should. That’s because podcasts have quickly become one of the most popular forms of content.
One thing people may look for is how many subscribers your podcast has. Like with YouTube, the more you have, the easier it’s to get more!
37. Podcast downloads: Another metric for social proof on podcasts is how many downloads you’ve acquired. You may not have a ton of subscribers, but certain episodes may have high download rates.
You can display this to get more subscribers to your podcast and more exposure to your brand.
And that’s it! These are over 35 social proof examples that you can start using today.
Though you may not be able to use all 36 at the same time, we encourage you to go back through the list and see which ones would most help your company’s goals.
We hope you found this article helpful. If so, you may want to check out the following posts:
- Social Proof Statistics: 42 Reasons Your Business Needs Social Proof
- 9 Tips on How to Get Customers to Trust Your Website
- 11 Best Social Proof Tools to Explode Your Conversions
- Best Social Proof Apps for Shopify
- Product Recommendation: The Key to Enhanced Shopping Experiences
These resources will have everything you need to get more sales from your social proof marketing strategy.
Leverage the true power of social proof with TrustPulse to instantly increase site conversions by up to 15%! Sign up for your risk-free TrustPulse account today!
