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The Importance of Social Proof | Testimonial Video
Last week was my son’s 10th birthday and as most parents do, we are trying to pick an appropriate present for his age. Interesting thing is; the older they get, the job is becoming easier and easier for us – they already know what they want!
Our son wanted an iPod Touch. He already knew the features, in what colours they come, and which colour he’d want… Everything was decided, easy task for parents. Of course, we asked him, why iPod – he said:
“All my friends have it!”
Simple. the force that influences you every day when it comes to decision making, from the biggest decisions like which school to choose for your children, down to the smaller every day choices like where to go for lunch, is called social proof.
But what about us in business, how do we use Social Proof in our marketing?
Marketing, to a large degree is about social proof. In an article about social proof, TechCrunch clearly identified 5 different categories of social proof:
1. Expert Social Proof: Approval from a credible expert, such as an infdustry blogger or other authority
2. Celebrity Social Proof: Approval or endorsement from celebrities, especially those that are unpaid
3. “Wisdom of the crowds” Social Proof: Approval from a large group of people (like why you were Nike shoes)
4. “Wisdom of your friends” Social Proof: Approval from your friends or people you know (like the above case mentioned about iPod Touch)
5. User Social Proof: Approval from current users of the product/service, such as customer testimonials, case studies, and reviews.
Video Testimonials
Testimonials are great form of user social proof, publishing testimonials and case studies allows you to highlight the positive experiences of your customers and evoke the “I’ll have what she’s having” effect.
While written testimonials are OK and are widely used in marketing, video testimonials are by far more effective. For several reasons;
Video Production Geelong Testimonial | Master Monique Yoga Video from VideoVault on Vimeo.
First one is the fact that many people are not 100% convinced in the authenticity of a written testimonial, secondly the nature of video is that is more persuasive, you can here the customer, see it and pick up that non-verbal communication that reassures us – this is genuine, as human eye (and ear) is very well trained to pick up when something is fake.
Finally, video testimonial can be easily amplified, for example; firstly by number of views the video attracts, number of likes is also a good social proof. You can track how many views you are getting from other sites, from your channel, or from website. A written testimonial is just sitting on your website and is only accessed by your website visitors.
Video testimonial can be further shared on your Facebook page, by embedding, in your tweets and on your LinkedIn page (both personal and company page).
Then you can share it in your blog and all those views are adding up and contributing to your brand’s social proof and ultimately to better conversion.
No matter what businesses or orgnisation you are coming from, video marketing should not be ignored especially in this new social world.
Video4Marketing blog is powered by Video Vault, your video production specialist.
“fast forward your marketing”
How to use Online Video Marketing in Tourism and Hospitality
According to Google (2011) 68% of business travelers watch TRAVEL related videos online. Among those, 68% are thinking about a trip. Also according to Google 46% of personal travelers watch travel related videos, vs. 36% just two years ago. Google/OTX, The Traveler’s Road to Decision 2011
When you add to that recent finding by SearchEngineWatch that latest Panda update from Google heavily favours sites with video content, reflecting consumer demand for online video, the message is clear. online video is very important for attracting traffic to your webiste
If You Build It, They Will Come?
Sounds like an easy task; show the location and its attractions, if it’s a hotel show the amenities, how the rooms look like, the food, post it on You Tube and voila!
But the phone doesn’t ring, and after two months your number of views is still at 27, most of which are views from your staff and friends.
This problem is pretty common and it’s not reserved only to small business and small hotel operators, even the big boys in the industry, with big budgets are struggling to find the right formula. Big budget is not a guarantee that your video will be successful.
Those videos can be of high production value, but they lack few key ingredients that can make them successful online. Producing for online delivery and social media is quite different from TV style commercials or from old style “corporate video” with your CEO in a suit and tie talking about mission statement and company direction.
The Secret Sauce
The recipe for success includes few different ingredients, but secret sauce is primarily in storytelling. In this testimonial video below, Connie Trathen explains why the Vue Grand Hotel’s video was so successful;
Now we’ve seen the success of nearly a year of having Wedding Reception video, that’s what inspired us and encouraged us to now do Conference Video…
With over 3,000 unique views thus far, the success of this video is not accidental, and these views are incremental, measurable and producing a constant flow of enquiries to the business.
Create Video That Works
To create a video that works, your producer has to have the following qualities, I’ll just number them, as this deserves a whole new blog post.
- Complete ecosystem – set of established procedures (from production, post-production to distribution)
- Proven record of running a successful video marketing campaign
- Networkability, as you distribution is online, your producer must be social media active
- Understanding of Content Marketing and Inbound Marketing
- Understanding of Organic SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and impact of video on your Google search ranking (websites with video are 53 times more likely to appear on 1st page of Google compared to websites with only text – Forrester Research)
- Storytelling
- Creative flair
Online video has changed the rules, reducing costs so as to make video accessible to businesses of all shapes and sizes. And social media has enabled every business to become a publisher.
Last but not the least, your promotional video is easily repurposed into other media like blog (or vlog), or into testimonial video, or a training video. This is important as research also shows that travelers watch online videos in all phases of travel planning.
Travelers view videos online during all phases of trip planning both for business and for personals trips (start from Slide 24).
Finally, you can watch Vue Grand’s video below, and as Connie mentioned in her testimonial above, few months later they produced another video, “Vue Grand Conference Venue” with similar success.
Vue Grand Wedding Reception from VideoVault on Vimeo.
Video4Marketing blog is powered by Video Vault, your video production specialist.
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