My grandfather had a favorite saying: “How you say it is more important than how you mean it”. I remember thinking that he somehow had it in reverse and meant it the other way around but because of it’s yoda-like appeal, I didn’t ever bother rectifying him. Today, after many years of exposure to the online social ‘verse; from the early trout-slapping of IRC to the nostalgic netscape chat crashes to the free-thinking forums and eventually to the social-hungry tubes, twits and faces; I can humbly say: Granddad had it right all along.

Social Media is an amazing platform for the candid spokesperson. The right message at the right time can start a movement that changes the world, at least until the next brilliant message gets posted, tweeted or blogged about. The keen observer of social media would by now have come to accept some of the realities of the social sphere:

• Blog posts with many comments receive many more comments
• Blogs that display a higher subscriber count attract more subscribers
• Twitter users with a large number of followers, follow less yet receive many more followers
• Twitter users are followed based on their social entity status (celebrities, musicians, etc)
• Facebook users, while more individual-driven, often reflect a user’s social sphere - i.e. the more ‘real’ friends you have, the more facebook friend’s you will gain.
• Youtube videos with more comments and exposure over popular social sites, gain more in popularity.

All of the this and more is indicative of Social Proof, which is simply the theory that people’s behavioral patterns are highly influenced by the actions of the people or community around them.. Also known as herd mentality or the bandwagon effect, it shows that people (or users) tend to follow the crowd without first evaluating the merits for themselves.

A simple analogy is that of producers using canned-laughter in prime-time sitcoms. Research has shown that even though the viewers find the automatic ‘haha’ annoying, they perceive the show to be funnier than shows that omit using canned-laughter. The same can be said of a clever status update or tweet. Using ‘LOLs’, ‘ROFLs’ or ‘LMAOs’ in your tweet or post, followed by some informative link or quirky message, grabs user’s attention more than a boring ‘I’m feeding the cat’ message would.

In fact, a well-intended, but badly thought out message can result in negative social proof, in that it motivates people to do the opposite of what you want because you’re inadvertently trying to change the behavior already supported. For example, the U.S. Forest Service posted the following message at the entrance to the Petrified Forest in Arizona:
“Your heritage is being vandalized every day by theft losses of petrified wood of 14 tons a year, mostly a small piece at a time”.
This actually had the opposite effect than was desired and an increase in 7.92% in theft of wood as opposed to a 2.29% no-sign approach. This was simply because the negative social message was being interpreted as “I better get mine before its all gone!” A more suitable approach may have been “We’re saving our forests, leave the wood alone!”

On the positive side we have Apple’s iPhone marketing campaign. The launch showed us news footage of long lines of excited and exhausted Apple fans, all eagerly queuing since the early hours, flanked by reporters and social celebrities, and being applauded as heroes on receiving their new iPhone. Furthermore, the blogging world was abuzz with the iPhone. Not only were bloggers writing about the iPhone every day, but some enterprising folks took videos of their experience. Some even showed the event in real-time.
Apple was clearly using social proof marketing to their advantage: They HAD enough iPhones in stock to negate the need for long queues, yet seeing hundreds of people in line for something automatically caused the rest of us to assume that they were in line for something worthwhile. My choice of purchase was clearly influenced by the positive hype from Apple at the time. This was social proof at its finest - In situations where we are unsure of the correct course of action (i.e. Buy or don’t buy the iPhone) we tend to watch and rely on the behavior of others to determine our own.

The proof of social proof is in the pudding. Trends are determined simply by users who follow what others follow. So the next time you post, tweet or blog, keep in mind that what you mean is often not as important as how you go about meaning it.

Resources:

• Social Proof Optimization
• Social Proof: herd it through the grapevine