What is Social Proof?: A Detailed Guide for Event Marketers

Social proof plays a vital role in building trust among people about a brand. When it comes to events, it helps increase attendance by building a positive perception. That's the strength of social proof for events. In this mobile driven era, with a low attention span and high skepticism, you need solid social proof to convince people to stop scrolling.

Right from attendee testimonials and the number of event attendees to social media engagement levels, event marketers are fully utilizing the power of social proof for events to build trust, create a buzz, and turn target audiences into event attendees. When people scroll through viral reels containing your event clips, attendee reviews, and influencers creating a hype, it automatically creates FOMO and builds interest among them.

If you are an event marketer, using social proof for events can help you reach a wider audience through trust building. In this article, we have shared a detailed guide on social proof for events to help you in this process.

What is social proof?

Social proof is a psychological concept in which people look at others' actions before deciding what they should do. In simple words, people mostly trust products or attend events when they see a lot of other people buying a specific product or attending an event.

Some of the examples of social proof include:

• The tendency to check reviews and ratings of products and services before purchasing and picking up the ones that have positive reviews and 5 star ratings.  
• Preferring a crowded restaurant to an empty one.
• Registering for an event after finding out about its high attendance.
• Relying on brands promoted by your favorite celebrities or influencers.

Now that you have a clear idea about social proof, let us explore how to utilize social proof for event marketing.

How to use social proof for event marketing

The concept of social proof gives your event marketing a significant boost, and it is proven to be effective when used strategically as a part of an event marketing campaign. It simply removes skepticism from people's minds and encourages them to make a purchase as many people have shared their positive opinion on the same.

Here are some effective ways of incorporating social proof in your event marketing journey:

1. Testimonials

Testimonials are the most commonly used social proof that businesses use to promote their products and services. This is because people usually do not hesitate to share their experience about the products that they used. Moreover, most consumers believe that the users would always share an unbiased review of products.

When it comes to events, you can consider the following to utilize testimonials in the best way:

• Collect testimonials from your past attendees, sponsors and speakers. Make sure to feature them on your events website using real images, names and brand logos.
• Do not forget to mention and highlight the benefits your attendee has received after participating in your event. For example a statement like " The event helped me generate 15 qualified leads" is more persuasive than "An amazing event" .
• You can paste your testimonials to your landing pages, promotional emails and registration pages.

2. Influencer marketing

The second in our list is influencer marketing, which not only works as a social proof but is also one of the most widely used event marketing trends. To use this social proof method, you need to research and find an influencer who is well known in your industry and, most importantly, has a huge number of followers for maximum exposure.

Hire a suitable influencer and ask him or her to promote your events in the following ways:

• Add a post on their social media profile about your event and talk about it in a short video.
• Allow them to create a live discussion or a Q&A session with his or her followers about your event.
• Offer discounted tickets to his or her followers for your event.

Influencer marketing is highly effective as many people follow their favorite influencers blindly.

3. Attendee reviews

Attendee reviews are highly impactful social proof for event marketing. When attendees share their reviews on various platforms like Google or their social media profits, they do encourage others' decision to whether to attend an event or not.

Positive reviews work as word or mouth marketing in the digital world. they help your event earn the confidence of your potential attendees or target audiences whereas the way you manage negative reviews also puts an impact. If you leave your negative reviews unanswered, it shows a negative side, whereas answering them responsibly and promising to improve ensures professionalism.

4. Live sales pop up

You can display your registration or ticket sales update on your website in a pop up form to create a sense of FOMO among audiences. For example:  you can create a pop up message stating "Someone in a specific area just have bought a ticket" or simply show the number of registrations with automatic updates. As per the social proof pychology, when your website visitors see that a lot of people are registering for the event, they understand that your event is in demand and they eventually follow the suit.

This also solves queries like " is this event worth it?". In addition to that, the fear of missing out encourages faster decisions and improves conversion rates, especially when paired with real-time seat updates and a countdown timer.

5. User generated content

User generated content is one of the most powerful social proof that is initiated by those who are officially not a part of your event marketing team. When a happy or satisfied attendee post an image, content, or video on his or her experience in your event on any platform, including social channels, it does make a difference.

Here are some ways to encourage user generated content as social proof for  your event:

• Motivate attendees with rewards to share their experience in our event through photos, reels and stories using your official hashtag on their social media profiles.
• Make sure the hashtag you create is easy to remember.
• Run contests to encourage attendees to post more.
• Share all attendee generated content on your landing pages to add credibility.
• Tag attendees to your posts.

The area of event marketing covers a lot of things, and social proof is truly one of the most prominent ones among them. The above mentioned methods to utilize the concept of social proof is recommended to every event marketer who wants to boost event attendance and create a loyal community of attendees.

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Just like every marketing campaign, social proof requires proper strategy and effort. However, apart from social proof, tools like WP Event Manager's marketing addons can automate your repetitive email marketing campaigns, ensuring accuracy.

WP Event Manager offers a bunch of WordPress event marketing addons including Hubspot CRM, Zoho CRM, Sendinblue, Salesforce CRM and more. They not only syncs attendee data but also automates your event's event marketing campaigns with customizable email messages. Discover the addons now!