One of the tools of persuasion Dr Robert Cialdini makes a big thing about is social proof. If lots of people express the same opinion about something you are more likely to be swayed in that direction.
This is a very simple concept and it is worth examining different ways of using this simple device.
We are about to have a referendum on an alternative voting system in the UK. You can imagine how much of a political hot potato this is. I was reading a newspaper the other day that was strongly in favour of the vote. On the first two inside pages of the paper they had plastered photos of about twenty people that supported their view.
The photos were all of different celebrities including actors, authors and TV personalities. Underneath each photo was a quote from each of them telling you why they supported the referendum. What I found interesting was that the only qualification they had for their opinion is that they are in the public eye.
When I started thinking about this I was reminded of my mate John (name changed for anonymity). John is a massive fan of the TV show Doctor Who. He travels the length and breadth of the UK going to signings to get photographs with personalities from the show. His pride and joy is a photograph album full of shots of him and some celebrity from the show. Without even the merest suggestion he will launch in to long monologues about how he met some minor extra that was wearing a monster costume in a 1967 episode that no one remembers. And if you are lucky John will have his album with him so you can see the pictures to go with these enthralling tales.
If a star from this show gave John advice he would take it seriously. Even if it were an area where they have no qualification to speak. I am sure that an opinion on financial advice from a star of that show would hold more weight for John than a qualified financial advisor. And if you spend a few moments thinking about this consider how much advertising is based on celebrity endorsement. What qualifies these people to give us advice?
I get inundated with requests to promote products. I make the choice to work with a few select people who I trust and whose work I like. I do this because I know the power of referral marketing.
I buy things that are recommended by people I like and trust. But I might not like them as much if they continually made bad recommendations, particularly if they gained from the transactions. But so long as their advice is good I will continue buying. When a lot of your friends are telling you how good a product is the inclination is to try it out for yourself. This is one of the reasons many marketers are running towards social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
I remember as a child trying to convince my father that I should be allowed to stay out to play because “all” the other kids were allowed to stay out later. When that didn’t work I tried pointing out that Chris from a few doors down had much better grades than me and he was allowed to stay out later. If I had had the opportunity I would have got a national celebrity to call on my father to point out how much psychological damage he was doing to his child by not letting me out to play as late as all the other kids.
In his book Influence, Doctor Cialdini goes through lots of examples of how people use social proof as a persuasion technique. I thoroughly recommend his book. If you want to see some practical examples of using social proof take a look at the sales page for my New York Hypnotic Sales Seminar.
On the course we will discuss quick linguistic devices to demonstrate social proof and you might have already noticed a few in the article above. But in the meantime have a quick look at the Hypnotic Sales Seminar and see if you agree with some of the great feedback we are getting on it. You can click through and read the page here.
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Tags: Books, Case Studies, Influence, Persuasion