Social media builds trust by creating relationships with current and future customers. Trust engenders loyalty. Trust and loyalty lead to more website conversions.
In this article, we’re going to discuss the statement, “Building trust on social media can win your more conversions.”
According to a recent article by the International Journal of Market Research, “Trust is a cornerstone in developing eCommerce.” The article goes on to say that there are different definitions of trust based on different aspects of benevolence, integrity, ability, competence and empathy.
Each one of these aspects of trust can be dealt with using social media.
Merriam Webster tells us that trust is “a belief that someone or something is reliable, good, honest and effective.” When your business develops trust on social media, it can win you more conversions because your audience trusts your integrity, believes in you and thinks of your business as honorable and reliable.
When the stars align, and you’ve built this trust, your audience is much more likely to click your website link, visit your landing page and make the conversion.
Let’s look at some ways to build trust on social media so you can win more conversions:
Be What You Say You Are
Social media can be seen as intrusive and overly sales-oriented. Most people are on social media to learn about their friends, family, interests and favorite celebrities, and they will be unnecessarily bothered by too many sales pitches.
Take a creative approach to your advertising. Build trust in every stage of your social media funnel. Take notes of your audience. Build trust with them by sharing superb, informational and infinitely shareable content.
Provide them with something of value. Match your message to your brand and your campaign.
Use Social Proof
Social proof on social media exists in the form of reviews, social status updates, side conversations and word-of-mouth marketing. Social media is the platform for social proof. Your social media friends and followers are more apt to trust a company because their friends recommended it.
We are all interested in what captures the interest of others. It helps us make decisions and lets us “keep up with the Joneses.” Social media facilitates this.
Social media reviews are often seen as unbiased and reliable. It pays to make sharing easy on your social media platforms and your website. Leverage the social sharing potential to build trust and encourage conversions.
Encourage your current customers to share their purchases on their social networks right after they make their purchase. Consider using a pre-filled social sharing option to make sharing easy for your customers.
You can use a social sharing plug-in that you can customize. This makes it easy for your customers to share with their social media friends about their recent purchase. With a pre-populated form, you can add an interesting headline and great content to leverage your current customers as a trust-building social media machine.
Incorporate a Social Media Checkout
Make life easy for your current customers and that translates to their good feelings for your company. This leads them to positive reviews and positive social media comments.
How? Let users checkout with their social media account. It helps you gather sign-ups and add a second call to action. By making the purchase even easier, you encourage their positive thoughts and trust in your company.
Create Clickable Content That is True
When you create clickable content on social media that fulfills its promise once visitors hit your website, you’ve gone far in increasing trust and encouraging website conversions.
Be crafty when creating social media posts. Every post you create sets expectations for your website visitors. With a social media plan, you can ensure that your posts link to content that makes sense.
Look at your headlines and your copy. Make sure what you promise is what they get. For example, when running a social media campaign, create a unique landing page for each social marketing campaign. Tailor your message and your images.
This shows your visitors that you are trustworthy because you made good on your offer and your promise.
Offer More Information Than Needed
People like to feel good about your business. Suppose a potential customer wants to make a purchase, and it’s down to two companies, yours and another. Before they hit add to cart, they decide to do some research by heading to social media.
Your company has an active, engaging presence on social media. They see your interesting offerings, notice your customer engagement and perhaps look at your reviews. The other company isn’t even on social media, and you can’t find anything about them. Who do you think they’ll pick, and who wins the conversion?
Create Engaging Content
Take and share pictures, use your videos and write engaging blog posts. Share them on social media and link to your website. Ask your visitors what they think.
When you share original content and distribute it on social media with a link to your landing page, you are just one step or click away from the website visit and conversion.
In Conclusion
Social media has a positive effect on your audience’s trust levels. Social media leads to trust. Trust leads to either an intention to buy or perceived usefulness which in turn leads to the conversion.
Research shows that trust and security in your business play an important role in consumer shopping attitudes.
In today’s world, you simply can’t afford to ignore social media. It’s a powerful way to create and pursue conversations with your audience that engender trust and loyalty. Social media is so powerful, it can win you more conversions – over and over again.
As a last note, it’s worth mentioning, that if left unattended or attended to improperly, social media can have a negative effect on your conversions, leaving your landing pages lonely.
So, pay attention to your social media, nurture your customers and lead them to your landing pages. You’ll soon be a pro at social commerce – the way to empower your consumers to generate their own content and influence others to visit your website thus increasing your website conversions rates.
Have you built trust on your social media platforms? Have you increased your conversion rate through added interactions on social media? Share them here – we’d love to hear about your experiences.
If you’re ready to make the move to winning more website conversions, contact us today. We’ll provide you with our FREE site performance analysis to help you decipher what to change and how!
Image: Joe the Goat Farmer
