How to Take Social Proof to the Next Level with Photographs
Social proof is a psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others in an attempt to reflect correct behaviour for a given situation. It is also a phenomenon seen, and term used, when individuals on social media engage with or buy from businesses because they see evidence (in the form of photographs, posts and videos) that someone else is engaging with that business. For this reason, social media engagement is an increasingly valuable and powerful tool for businesses.
Here’s how you can use photographs to take social proof to the next level for your business:
The Benefits of Customers Sharing and Tagging Images
Social media is an easy and affordable way to help your business be seen by a wider audience, which is why it is such a popular tool with businesses of all sizes.
Some of the benefits of your customers tagging you in their images and posts include:
- It guarantees that you will see the imagery. Businesses are alerted when someone tags them on social media, and this is a great way to ensure that you are aware of conversations taking place about your brand, as well as enabling you to be a part of them.
- Tags increase customer engagement. If you establish your own tag such as #eventsalbum, and other people are following that tag then not only will they see your business content, but they will also see how other customers are engaging with you. Thanks to the concept of social proof, this is likely to grow their own engagement and encourage them to utilise your services themselves.
- When you are tagged in a photo or video, you can retag this to your own account, effectively giving you free and engaging social media content. You can also use those images within your own social media and marketing campaigns, creating a wealth of valuable, user-generated content that is more likely to be trusted by your customers than the content you have created independently. Research has found that the majority of social media users looking for product information prefer posts from other consumers (51%) than from review sites, newspapers and magazines, or the brand itself.
Using EventsAlbum
However, whilst there are many benefits of being tagged in customer images, this also comes with limitations. The small size and low resolution of images saved to social media means that it would be difficult for you to use these images in your own social media or marketing campaigns. And approaching your customers for a higher-resolution version of the image can be both time-consuming and awkward.
The solution to this problem is to use a service such as EventsAlbum. If you are able to send out a QR code to your clients so they can submit their images, rather than ask them to email them to you directly, then this will serve two purposes: making it less of an awkward exchange with customers you don’t know as well as giving you access to the original higher resolution photos at full size. This means that you are able to use those images on your site or social media. This could be mutually beneficial for B2B companies as it means both can take advantage of promotion and social proof where an image is used. However, all businesses could benefit from this system, streamlining the process of gaining high-resolution images from their customers, and making their customer engagement more professional and easier to access.