When we began the Social Media Trends ninth trend contest on Monday, I promised I would reveal the winner of two webinar seats today.

I lied.

HAHHAAH! Just kidding. I know I gave some of you a little, tiny stab of the heart. Oh that was fun!

Drumroll please….

The winner of the ninth trend that I am now challenged to incorporate into next Thursday’s webinar and, therefore, wins two seats to attend is…

Social Proof.

From Chris Bradley:

Social proof, as in the evidence that others have confidence in this, so I should too. It plays to the subconscious of power in numbers, so from a marketing or social media point of view, things like reviews and ratings, endorsements from industry leaders or celebrities, highlighting how socially successful something is.

There are already great examples of this, like Amazon, “you’re buying X, other people who bought X also bought Y”.

But what I think will be interesting next year is to see how the power of social proof will be further developed and more deeply integrated, just off the top of my head, your social share buttons, so 466 people have tweeted this, but what if it said 466 people have tweeted this, and it was retweeted 56 times, or that influential names, X, Y, Z were part of the 466 tweets…

There is loads more scope, and obviously things will be application and target specific, but its going to be exciting to see if we can ever reach a trusted standard, and what shapes social proof will take.

Chrisour own Lisa Gerber will send you the registration link.

And don’t forget! The price on the webinar is $40 until Monday night. Then it switches to $50. And if you save the $10 for yourself, it means less shoes for me. Because, let’s be real, I need more shoes like I need a hole in the head. And you likely need some brainstorming to include this stuff in your PR and marketing plans next year.

And now, Gin and Topics.

5. Lady and the Tramp. OK. This seriously made me laugh out loud. When I sent it to Mr. D and said we needed to get a bird, he said, “Jack Bauer would eat the bird.” It’s funny because it’s true. They would not have true love like the dog and bird in this video. Thanks to Deb Dobson for sending along!

4. Two BlackBerry Executives Got So Drunk, They Grounded a Jet to China. To say it’s been a bad year for BlackBerry is putting it mildly. These guys were on a flight from Toronto and made it to Alaska before they had to ground the plane in Vancouver.

3. Robin Williams’ Impression of Siri. Ameena Falchetto shared this on Facebook. I cried from laughing so hard. So. Freaking. Funny. It’s a must watch.

2. The 25 Best Autocorrects of the Past Year. WARNING! If you don’t like bad language, do not read this. But if you can get past it, it’s VERY funny!

1. Welcome to Kansas. And, in honor of my biggest moron award from earlier this week, this is for those of you thinking about visiting the great state of Kansas.

Have a great weekend!

Gini Dietrich

Gini Dietrich is the founder, CEO, and author of Spin Sucks, host of the Spin Sucks podcast, and author of Spin Sucks (the book). She is the creator of the PESO Model and has crafted a certification for it in partnership with Syracuse University. She has run and grown an agency for the past 15 years. She is co-author of Marketing in the Round, co-host of Inside PR, and co-host of The Agency Leadership podcast.

View all posts by Gini Dietrich