My Mom Is Secretly Cool. (Don't Miss This Step In Your Marketing As A Solopreneur):
Wanna know how I know my mother is cool?
When she was 20 years old, she left South Carolina to live the ultimate NYC-in-the-early-1960s life.
She worked at a New York advertising agency, à la Mad Men.
She lived in Greenwich Village at the height of the Beatnik movement.
Her best friends were artists, and they'd ride out to Coney Island on motorcycles for fun.
She told me that there was a saying at the time, that if you lived in NYC, it was only fun if you were either very rich or very poor.
“I was the latter.”
One way being poor was fun: She and her friends were “Claquers” for the Metropolitan Opera.
They would put on their long gowns and gloves, (“It was the 60s; the Opera was elegant then,") and go to the Met, where they'd be given free tickets in strategically-placed seats.
In exchange for the tickets, they were to give standing ovations and yell “Bravo!”/“Brava!" at key points in the show. The rest of the audience would see these lovely young ladies clapping, and follow suit.
Yep, my mother was an Influencer, before “Influencers” were even a thing. (Take that, Kardashians.)
The Met knew something very important about marketing:
We are social animals.
We are impacted by others' behavior more than we know, so Social Proof is powerful for building trust and shaping feelings & behaviors.
There's a reason I give my coaching clients training in how to get great testimonials. Social Proof matters.
There's a reason that when you offer a workshop, webinar, instagram live, or other presentation for the first time, it helps to have some “plants” (claquers?) in the audience to ask key questions and normalize speaking up.
The thing is, even thought it's a little sneaky, it doesn't mean being harmful or dishonest.
My mother said, “Honestly, they didn't even need us. The Opera was glorious. But we helped people enjoy it even more.”
Expectations shape people's experience. Social proof isn't just about making yourself look better, or about bragging.
It's about helping people see how wonderful an opportunity it is to work with you, so they enjoy the experience even more.
Yes, even Influencers can come from a place of service. (But let's not give any Nobel prizes to Kourtney, Khloe, Kim, et. al.).
Are you using social proof in your marketing? How can you use testimonials or customer stories to boost trust and enthusiasm? Let me know in the comments: