Social Proof: Why Fashion & Beauty Brands Should Share Instagram Content On-Site
[Originally published on the Dash Hudson blog.]
The power of word of mouth is nothing new, but despite its proven impact, many brands aren’t leveraging “social proof” in their marketing strategies. We’re here to show you why you should — and how to do it.
What is Social Proof?
Social proof is when your customers promote your products or services for you. Because when your customers love your products and your brand, they’ll talk about it. Social proof can take on many forms across multiple channels. A few key media are:
- Word of mouth
- Customer reviews
- Content creation
- Social shares
- Endorsements
When a friend or family member recommends a product to you, you’re more likely to buy it, right? 83% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase based on recommendations from people they know.
So family and friends recommending products is great and has been working forever. But what about recommendations from strangers? We got the stats. 88% of consumers say they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations, which is great news for brands. It means that as long as you have people talking about your products online, nearly 9/10 consumers will trust your customers’ recommendations as much as they would if it was one of their friends. And when you couple this with how Instagram users are following and interacting with influencers and friends, the untapped potential of fan content comes into focus. 👀
It’s a no-brainer that with social media now an integral part of the vast majority of consumers’ lives, social channels have become a source of inspiration and advice. That’s great to know — but how can you spread the power of social proof from Instagram to your website? We’ll split the answer into two parts: repurposing your content, and on-site galleries.
Put Your Content to Work
If your customers love your products, whether it’s eyeshadow or a new handbag, chances are they’re going to post about it. What’s better than seeing your organic reach soar via your earned content? Repurposing that content on your feed to drive engagement. Below are a few best practices to encourage your community to create content featuring your brand and the steps to follow to repost it on your feed.
- Add a call to action to your Instagram bio. Something along the lines of, “Tag us to be featured” usually does the trick.
- The more you feature your community’s content on your feed, the more motivation you’ll give your followers to be the next regram.
- Leverage Dash Hudson to request content rights of your earned photos and videos in one click. Following the rules has never been so easy.
Photos and videos curated by your customers gives your products context. Sharing imagery of your fans using or wearing your products is an invaluable way to demonstrate how your shoppers can make your products their own. And let’s not forget, it will encourage your audience to post about you in hopes of scoring a feature on your feed. It’s the closest you’ll get to word of mouth on a visual platform, and it’s arguably more impactful because, you know how the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words.
Repurposing is a given, but repurposing content in a way that drives revenue is an art. Any old-school marketer will know the concept “sweat the assets” — basically, getting as much mileage as you can out of what you currently possess. Jason Miller, former head of content at LinkedIn, shared the term “turkey slices”. Originally coined by Rebecca Lieb, “turkey slices” is the concept of taking your content and effectively slicing it up and dishing it out to various channels and applications, Thanksgiving style. What we’re suggesting here is that stretching the content in a smart way will not only make your life easier, it can also improve your results and drive ROI. 📈
In this case, taking your earned content and repurposing it on your website can increase your on-site conversions. Let’s get into exactly how to do it.
On-site Galleries
Here at Dash Hudson, we believe in giving brands the tools to take their visual marketing performance to dizzying heights. Spirit On-site Galleries is one of the ways that we make it quick and easy for social media and ecommerce teams to get the most out of their most important marketing channel — Instagram.
Spirit On-site Galleries allow brands to organize their top-performing earned and owned content, and easily create a photo gallery which can live on any page on your website. You can create an inspirational gallery for your homepage, category pages, and product page galleries, so wherever your potential buyers are browsing, the social proof is there. You’re giving them the chance to see the product in action at the point of sale, while at the same time showcasing use cases.
Spirit On-site Galleries make more than just a better customer experience, they also drive revenue. Skyn ICELAND saw an average sales conversion rate from Spirit Galleries of 5.16%. Now that’s from Spirit Galleries alone, which means you can create a new revenue stream on-site in just a few minutes. We’re not kidding, it is that quick to set up. If you want to read the full case study, click here.
It wouldn’t be a Dash Hudson tool without a heavy dose of measurement. You can easily track the number of clicks for each gallery to understand performance at a glance, and for a deeper dive into the analytics — and everyone’s favorite, ROI — sales conversions can be tracked on Google Analytics among other analytics providers.
So there you have it. Take your ever-so-valuable organic content and repurpose it with purpose, all while bringing your audience into your narrative, and driving tangible results at the same👏 time.👏
Header image: @jimmychoo
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