Online marketing comprises many factors, strategies, and tactics, but all of them share a common end goal: to get more people to buy your products or services. To get there, you have to step past the competition, increase the traffic to your site, and build better relationships with your customers. The onset of social media has given brands a new means of achieving all three at the same time, at once improving the reputation of their brand andgaining more visibility and traction.

Online marketing is about more than raw visibility, however. Since the dawn of social media and the overabundance of traditional, sales-driven advertising, consumers have become more discerning, more skeptical, and less easily swayed. In order to win their business, you have to win their trust, and there’s one key strategy that can help you do it: social validation.

What Is Social Validation?

In its traditional definition, social validation is a psychological phenomenon where one or more passive individuals follow or conform to the actions of others within a group. In a psychological context, one or more people set an example of behavior, and their experience leads a second group of one or more people to follow suit.

Social validation in marketing is slightly different, but it still represents a kind of social “chain reaction” that leads others to similar behaviors. In a marketing context, if a user leaves a positive review for a product or a positive rating for a business, other, even non-affiliated users will be more likely to buy that product or work with that business. Because one person went on a limb and confirms that the experience is positive, others are likely to take a similar action.

Why Is Social Validation Important to Marketers?

The idea of social validation is important because self-propagating strategies are no longer as effective as they once were. People have grown to distrust brands, especially large corporations, and instead look to peer reviews and peer actions above any other means of justification. Cultivating social validation in a broad group can sharply increase the trust people have in your brand, and can make them far more comfortable doing business with you.

There are several reasons why social validation has such a powerful effect for businesses.

Why Is Social Validation Important to Marketers?

The idea of social validation is important because self-propagating strategies are no longer as effective as they once were. People have grown to distrust brands, especially large corporations, and instead look to peer reviews and peer actions above any other means of justification. Cultivating social validation in a broad group can sharply increase the trust people have in your brand, and can make them far more comfortable doing business with you.

There are several reasons why social validation has such a powerful effect for businesses.