Social proof: More sales, but at what cost?

You walk into your local café, excited to sit down and get some deep work done. Your usual seat is taken, so you glance around for another free one. That’s when you notice:

Everyone at this café is barefoot.

They’re seated at tables, sitting criss-cross-applesauce in booths, even walking into the bathroom…with no shoes on.

You glance down at your own feet, delicately laced up in your favorite pair of sneakers. You briefly wonder if this is some kind of practical joke. Then a thought crosses your mind:

Is it me? Did I miss something? Am I the weird one…for wearing shoes?

How Social Proof Influences Our Decision-Making

As humans, we tend to look to others for insight and clues on how to behave. This is a social and psychological concept called social proof, and it’s why we’re so obsessed with reading reviews and Reddit threads about products before we buy them.

Social proof is a strong form of influence. There are two primary types of influence at play when we use social proof to help us make a decision. There’s normative influence, the pressure to conform to the majority, and informational influence—which describes our tendency to turn to experts or more knowledgable people when we don’t feel confident in our decisions.

If you’ve been selling products or services for any amount of time, you’ve probably implemented social proof into your marketing strategy. Services providers, for example, know that referrals from happy clients are one of our most powerful and profitable sources of new leads. It is easier for someone to trust us when they know that someone they trust already does.

We are appealing to social proof when we include testimonials on our sales pages and 5-star reviews on our eCommerce sites. It’s social proof that businesses are betting on when they add those “Jane from Florida just bought this!” plugins to their site, and it’s social proof that brands are relying on when they send their new products out to influencers for public review.

One of the most…interesting uses of social proof I’ve ever seen was at a marketing conference, or what we in the entrepreneurship industry might call a conversion event. I didn’t know this lingo at the time. I was 24 and had bought an online course that came with a “free ticket” to an in-person event across the country. I was flying for free that year thanks to my flight attendant friend’s buddy pass so I figured, “Why not?”

Little did I know I was about to witness one of the strangest and most transparent uses of social influence I’ve ever seen.

On the first day, I had no idea what to expect. We gathered in a hotel conference room, ready to learn and network. I was excited, in large part because I knew I was in a room with hundreds of people who were probably looking to hire support from someone like me.

After sitting through a few webinar-y workshops and breaking for lunch, we were invited back into the room to learn about a charity founded by one of the speakers. As we watched the video on screen, we were invited to donate at a table in the back of the room and, in exchange, receive a “free” bracelet.

By the time we got to happy hour that night, we were told we’d collectively raised tens of thousands of dollars for this speaker’s non-profit. Those bracelets were everywhere. Very quickly, the conference organizer had established a social norm, complete with a visual symbol of our group behavior.

The next day, these established norms were put to the real test. As we gathered for what we thought would be the biggest and most transformative workshop of the weekend—a presentation by the course creator himself—event staff walked up and down the aisles passing out blue folders.

“Don’t open it until he tells you to,” they told us. Again we see normative influence at play. To open the folder early would mean to stand out from the crowd, to break a rule that no one else seemed to be breaking.

Luckily, by this point in the weekend my antennas were up and my journalism hat was on. A few of the workshops had left a strange taste in my mouth, and I was feeling disillusioned by the pomp and circumstance of the event. So I looked.

Inside the folder, I found a sales pitch and an invitation to join a “mastermind” for $11,000.

If you’ve spent any time in the entrepreneurship industry, which spans from banks selling credit cards to all of those online courses, you probably have an idea of what this signature workshop was to be about. If not, let me draw back the curtain for you:

His workshop was, of course, about how to generate money (perhaps even $11,000, if you so choose!) “on-demand.”

As we got to the sales pitch part of the presentation, we were instructed to open up those blue folders sitting on our laps. And here is where the social proof really gets sticky: Those interested in joining the “mastermind” were told to walk to the back of the room and sign up—in front of everyone else. Meaning the audience actually watched as their fellow attendees, who we’d spent all weekend establishing camaraderie and good will and a sense of group norms with, made the decision, in real time, to buy an $11,000 product.

I’ve since learned that this is an old “free seminar” trick, one that’s been in use for as long as people have been selling how to get rich. If you remember that scene at the end of The Wolf of Wall Street, where the real Jordan Belfort introduces Leo’s Jordan Belfort as “the world’s greatest sales trainer,” you can imagine that at about 3/4 of the way through that presentation he’d tell the audience to walk to the back of the room to buy his mastermind or “Signature Sales Secrets” CD-ROM.

Needless to say, I didn’t spend the $11,000. I didn’t have it. As I walked out to grab my lunch, I remember feeling a sinking feeling at the bottom of my stomach. The appeal to social proof that the event organizers had so “masterfully” executed had worked like a charm on me. I felt like the only one in the barefoot café wearing shoes.

Thankfully, I sat down next to a woman. She was older than me, and she told me she’d helped organize dozens of these events throughout her years in the industry. Over our meal, she laid out exactly what had happened over the last two days.

The charity appeal on day one was typical, she said, as it established a group norm and boosted our “sense of abundance” about money. The structuring of the content, with all roads pointing to a “how to make money fast” webinar before the sales pitch, was also clearly intentional. I’m not sure if she used the terms “social proof” or “normative influence,” but she helped me understand that asking people to walk to the back of the room was an effort to override my decision-making capabilities.

And, in a surprise reveal, she told me that sometimes the first few people to stand up and walk are members of the team planted in the audience.

I have no evidence that this is what happened at that event, but I do remember the way it made me feel. I’ve felt that way plenty of times since, as I’ve sat through sales pitches and read countless case studies full of income claims that are, as expressed later in the fine print, admittedly “not typical results.”

Here's the thing: I am not an ethicist, and it’s not within my scope of expertise to tell you how to run your life or your business. I don't think all persuasive writing or nudges are inherently "bad." I sat in that audience and bought that course just like anyone else, and I employ plenty of social proof for my products and services—showcasing case studies, reviews, testimonials and data about people’s experiences with my work.

So what I won’t do is tell you that I know the secret best way and I’m the only one you should trust to teach you how to run an “ethical business.”

Instead, I hope to be the woman who sits next to you at lunch and helps you see through the smoke and mirrors—to pay it forward so that you, too, can go home and make your own informed, conscious decision about how you’d like to spend your money.

Thank you for reading. I would love to hear about your experiences with social proof, whether in the entrepreneurship industry or outside of it.

Can you think of a time you made a purchasing decision because it seemed like everyone else was doing it? If so, what did you buy? How did you like the product or service? How did purchasing it make you feel? Positive and negative experiences are more than welcome.

References:

• Social Proof via TheDecisionLab.com.
• Three Thought Patterns That Let Advertisers Influence You on Social Media by Hannah Potts via TheDecisionLab.com.
• Social Proof: Why We Look to Others For What We Should Think and Do via fs.blog.

Bored on the Internet?

✷ "The idea of taking care of yourself is not simply virtuous," says Tressie McMillan Cottom at the beginning of this podcast, "it's become a cultural expectation." The rest of the episode, recorded with Dr. Pooja Lakshmin, is just as oof-worthy. Listen here.

✷ I love this advice from Jamie Varon about how to write the first draft of a novel. It feels applicable to just about any project, really.

✷ Here's a hobby drama deep dive: The story of how two ecommerce dudes tried to flip the domain Knitting.com while insulting the "grandmas running little blogs" in the process. Quite a lesson here in actually understanding and caring about the niche communities you sell things to (vs. exploiting their SEO for a quick buck).

⚛ Mini Lab: Tools, Trends & Experimental Ideas ⚛

Is your business on Pinterest?

A few weeks ago, I attended the virtual broadcast of Pinterest Presents where they rolled out some of their latest tools for advertisers. Most notable was their advocacy for an alternative to cookies.

“People don’t like to be followed around the Internet,” the broadcast claimed. Instead, they want advertisers and brands to remember that people come to Pinterest to shop — and that businesses can use intent signals like saves or likes to retarget people directly inside the Pinterest platform.

In other words, imagine someone is surfing the web and sees your product. Not wanting to buy right away, they save the image to their “New Apartment” Pinterest board. As an advertiser, you could then retarget them on Pinterest with another ad for your product (as opposed to hoping they eventually re-open that board and come back to your it).

Here’s where to start: Install Pinterest’s API for conversions into your site. You’ll need a Pinterest Business account. Implementing this will allow Pinterest to automatically update your stock information, as well as get your products into that “You may also like…” section that I keep accidentally tapping into while trying to look at pretty lamps.

If you want to read other insights from Pinterest presents, here’s my whole live thread. (Excuse the typos, I was actively soaking my hands in acetone at the time.)

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