What Is Social Acceptance and How Does It Fuel Marketing?
By Michael Le
In marketing, social acceptance is a person’s willingness to recognize and promote a brand. Socially accepted brands are established players in their communities and are primed for growth. But how does a brand gain social acceptance? And what should a brand do to maintain and leverage its influence?
Our blog explores the psychological background of social acceptance, how it translates into successful brand relationships with their communities (with examples!), and 5 ways brands can build social acceptance.
Related: Learn which brand elements companies disregard when defining their brand identity.
The Key Takeaways
Social acceptance is based on a desire to belong. For a person to feel socially accepted and for a brand to earn social acceptance, they must find ways to build a community.
Personal and brand social acceptance signifiers such as endorsements, reviews, and user-generated content influence buying decisions.
Social acceptance is one of the main drivers of word-of-mouth marketing. Brands need to delight customers (going beyond satisfaction) to convert them into brand advocates.
What is Social Acceptance?
In psychology, social acceptance describes a person’s sense of belonging within a group or relationship. It’s the experience of being valued and included, and it’s rooted in our fundamental survival instincts as social creatures.
Does the group appreciate me and my contributions? Do people like me or just tolerate me? What is my worth in this relationship? All of these questions relate to an individual’s perception of their social standing within a spectrum (tolerance vs outright rejection).
While it’s difficult to quantify social acceptance, people often turn to external indicators to gauge their status.
Signs of social acceptance include:
Accepting a friend request and messaging each other regularly
Choosing teams for a game of basketball
Looking at how much buy-in your idea has at a company meeting
Getting a glowing letter of recommendation for a job
Asking someone to attend a wedding as a +1
Advocating for a friend and describing their positive traits
Liking, commenting on, or resharing content online
All of these behaviors demonstrate an implicit inclusion and endorsement from an external group or individual. They’re measures of a person’s willingness to be associated with a person, group, or brand.
So, how does this relate to marketing?
Understanding Social Acceptance in Marketing
From a marketing perspective, social acceptance refers to people’s willingness to acknowledge and endorse a brand. It is intrinsically tied to a person’s sense of belonging within a community and is one of the main drivers of word-of-mouth marketing.
When people share content or endorse a brand, a few things are happening:
People pay attention to and share content that resonates with them—typically because it’s entertaining, informative, aesthetic, or aligns with a personal value.
Engaging with content indirectly reinforces a person’s internal beliefs, whether through building their self-image or establishing their social standing.
Endorsing a brand through positive interactions acts as social proof, which signals to prospective audiences that the brand is trustworthy and therefore socially acceptable.
For brands, gaining social acceptance is pivotal to word-of-mouth marketing because people are more likely to talk about brands they feel connected to.
Wouldn’t you feel more inclined to try a new restaurant if your foodie friend posted about their excellent experience? Isn’t your friend posting their experience to share their opinions with their community and establish that they have good taste?
It’s a two-way street!
5 Ways Brands Build Social Acceptance (With Examples)
1. Build and Maintain Your Community
Reaching your target audience is one thing, but building a community takes your brand to the next level. Communities consist of active participants who feel connected to your brand. Individuals form communities based on shared interests, goals, or personal investment in the brand. To build a community, you need to give people space to bond.
Fitness brands like Peloton are prime examples of community building because they craft environments that encourage people to feel included and celebrated.
Peloton does this through a modified version of the in-group and out-group format. First, they define the in and out-groups as those who decided to start their fitness journey (current you) and those who are still “on the couch” (past you). Anyone can become a Peloton athlete, but only some rise to the challenge. Then, they offer a personalized choose-your-own-adventure experience, nudging members to try different trainers, workouts, and music sessions to identify their preferences.
Within the classes, several tools help reinforce a communal environment. Members can virtually high-five each other and form teams to complete fitness challenges. And a minimizable leaderboard with past and current participants encourages more competitive members to gauge their performance and join the pantheon of Peloton athletes.
Even alone, you never feel like you’re on this journey by yourself.
The result?
Peloton members feel a sense of belonging to the larger Peloton community while having a gamified, highly tailored personal experience. Building a community helps customers accept your brand and, in turn, promote it.
2. Create Connection Points and Interact With People
Many successful brands interact with their communities, in some form or another, to grow a personal connection. If a person feels good about your brand and how you treat them, they’re usually more inclined to be loyal to your brand.
Savvy brands prioritize several in-person and digital connection points to build rapport. Think of connection points as any place or moment when a customer interacts with your brand.
For example:
Attending and sponsoring community events
Improving your customer service to set your brand tone
Hosting special events or meet-and-greets for regular customers
Responding to comments on your owned social media profiles
Reposting user-generated content to highlight top customers
Commenting on your follower’s posts
Using polls or surveys to gauge audience interest
Responding to company or product reviews fairly and graciously
Brands should evaluate their content ecosystem to map their distribution channels and ensure their content addresses a customer’s behavior or needs on a specific platform.
K-Pop group NewJeans exemplifies how music artists leverage multiple connection points to interact with their fans (affectionately named “bunnies” to establish a community).
Each NewJeans member regularly posts in their fan-based group chat, occasionally going live to catch up with fans and share snippets of their life. At times, they mention fan-edited content that they’ve seen, which gives a sense of a shared inside joke with fans while highlighting user-generated content.
Fans can meet NewJeans members at virtual and in-person fan meeting events—the largest of which is a fan concert called Bunnies Camp. Finally, each social platform features unique content based on community preferences. By creating content that appeals to their fandom, NewJeans maintains and grows their social acceptance among their community.
3. Leverage Socially Accepted Brands to Grow Your Audience
One of the most efficient ways to grow your brand’s social acceptance (and audience) is to appeal to an existing audience through strategic partnerships.
That’s what we did for New Wave Energy when we partnered with Josh Allen to establish brand trust. By leveraging Josh Allen’s popularity, we increased New Wave Energy’s social acceptance in the public eye and drove an 88% jump in enrollment.
There are several benefits to associating your brand with a current socially accepted brand:
Aligning with socially accepted brands builds your trustworthiness.
The strategic partnership essentially acts as an endorsement, which can greatly amplify your reach and establish your brand as a player in your space.Collaborations help establish your brand’s values in the public eye.
If your brand values community resources, then investing in partnerships with community pillars can cement your reputation. Consistency between your actions and words is key.Micro-influencers and shareable content drive word-of-mouth marketing.
Not only do micro-influencers already have an established audience, but they also showcase how your brand can integrate into the audience’s daily lives. It’s social proof at its best and encourages people to hop on a trend.Strategic partnerships get you closer to your target audience.
You typically want to partner with socially accepted brands that have lookalike audiences—AKA, audiences with a similar profile to your brand’s target audience.
Let’s say you’re a hot sauce company with a rebellious, playful marketing tone. The obvious strategic partnership would be to provide product review kits to popular food content creators whose audiences are primarily people interested in indulging in food.
But you might also become a primary sponsor for a local skateboarding competition where the audience consists of people who consider themselves outside the box and would choose a bolder hot sauce over the standard national brands.
The bottom line is it’s always easier to appeal to an existing audience than to grow one from scratch, especially when your niche is saturated. Building social acceptance through lookalike audiences means evaluating parameters based on needs and personal values.
4. Share User-Generated Content As Social Proof
User-generated content (UGC) is a powerful form of social proof indicating a brand’s trustworthiness. It’s arguably more effective than traditional ads because it’s unsponsored.
More consumers are turning to social media platforms and review sites to evaluate a brand before making a buying decision. They’re looking for social proof—evidence that real people have tried a product or service and can vouch for the experience OR that people feel positive about the brand.
Social proof is generally considered more transparent and trustworthy because it’s a self-regulating space.
As a result, user-generated content:
Reveals a consumer’s true feelings about a brand
Helps determine which products are relevant in the public eye
Can influence new prospective audiences over time by improving brand sentiment
It’s textbook mere-exposure effect (AKA the familiarity principle)!
This strategy was a core pillar of our Bud Light partnership, which sought to associate the lager closely with hockey culture.
The campaign combined in-person pop-up events with social media contests, both of which inspired hockey fans to post about their experience for a chance to win an uni. The flood of user-generated Bud Light and hockey content solidified the lager’s brand affinity while solidifying its place in hockey fan rituals.
The lesson being that social proof can take many forms, from contest entries and get-ready-with-me videos to product reviews and testimonials. By celebrating user-generated content, companies can deepen the brand-audience relationship to build social acceptance for their brand.
5. Focus on Customer Delight to Encourage Brand Advocacy
Going beyond satisfaction into customer delight is a core step in transforming customers into advocates (and, consequently, driving social acceptance)!
Satisfied customers often don’t leave reviews or talk about your brand because, in their eyes, you’ve merely met the bar. There’s no emotional driver compelling them to recommend you without a direct question.
On the other hand, exceeding expectations to fuel customer delight means you’ve made the customer feel so good that they genuinely want to talk about their experience.
But delight is not easy.
You have to give reasons for people to advocate for you before they accept your brand.
Does your product or service answer a pressing need in a way your competitor hasn’t? Have you helped your customer reframe their thought process to discover innovative or unexpected solutions? Do customers resonate with your brand values and mission statement? Do your aesthetics elicit the right emotion? Does your audience feel heard?
Most importantly, are your consumer connection points genuine and personable enough to form a loyal relationship?
Growing a Socially Accepted Brand
Social acceptance is more than a psychological concept; it’s a powerful marketing phenomenon that, when harnessed correctly, can foster deep connections and loyalty between brands and audiences.
By cultivating and engaging with their community, brands can grow their social acceptance, ultimately strengthening their reputation and expanding their reach!
Need marketing support? Talk to our team to see how we can support your next campaign!