Why do we trust social media recommendations so much?

When was the last time you tried a new restaurant without looking it up online first? Or spotted a product in a store and bought it without checking what people on TikTok or Instagram had to say about it?

Social media has become one big recommendation engine. Open TikTok looking for somewhere to have dinner and, 20 minutes later, you might have saved three cafés, a new matcha spot and a restaurant you didn’t even know existed.

Sometimes, that’s incredibly useful. Other times, you finally visit the place everyone has been raving about only to wonder what all the fuss was about.

So why are we so easily influenced by what strangers on the internet tell us to try?

We have too many choices

Part of social media’s appeal might simply be that we don’t want to do all the work ourselves.

Marina, a brand manager in the FMCG industry, says consumers today are faced with an overwhelming amount of information and choice.

“We don’t necessarily want to research everything ourselves. We want someone we relate to and trust to filter it for us,” she says. “Social media does exactly that, while also showing the product in a real-life context rather than just through an ad.”

Brenda, 28, for example, says TikTok and Google have recently become her go-to platforms when deciding where to go or what to try because they’re easily accessible.

Dhivya, 34, uses a combination of recommendations from friends, Google and social media. But she says platforms like TikTok and Instagram have opened up even more possibilities.

Recently, she discovered a new matcha spot through social media that turned out to be worth the hype.

“I doubt I would have found it on my own as it’s not in the usual areas I haunt,” she says, adding that the drinks, service and overall vibe were good.

In this case, social media did exactly what we want it to do: It helped her discover somewhere she probably wouldn’t have stumbled upon herself.

But why do we trust strangers on the Internet?

Of course, not every person who pops up on our For You Page is going to convince us to spend our money.

Marina believes relatability and credibility are just as important as authenticity when it comes to making a recommendation persuasive.

“If I find someone whose taste or lifestyle feels similar to mine, I almost let them do some of the decision-making for me,” she says.

The thinking becomes: “If she likes these other things I like, I’ll probably like this too.”

“That can feel much more credible than a brand trying to tell me what to buy,” Marina adds.

The women we spoke to aren’t blindly trusting every recommendation either. Brenda says that if she’s taking advice from TikTok or Instagram, she looks at whether it comes from a legitimate account or influencer. On Google, she’ll check the ratings and reviews.

Dhivya similarly looks at the legitimacy of the account making the recommendation, but also checks what other people are saying in the comments.

In other words, one person’s glowing review might catch our attention, but seeing other people agree with them can make the recommendation considerably more convincing.

If everyone is trying it, shouldn’t we?

See something once and you might scroll past it. See it again tomorrow and you might recognise it. By the tenth video, you’re suddenly wondering whether you should try it too.

According to Marina, repeated exposure creates familiarity, but there’s another factor at play when the recommendations are coming from multiple people: social validation.

It creates a feeling of: “Everyone seems to be trying this, am I missing something?”

Brenda readily admits that she’s “easily swayed by peer pressure”, while Dhivya is similarly open to trying something when it feels like everyone else already has. Her attitude? “No harm trying it.”

And that feeling can be enough to turn a previously unknown café, restaurant or product into something we suddenly feel we need to experience for ourselves.

Except sometimes, the hype is just… hype

The problem is that 20 enthusiastic TikToks don’t necessarily mean you’re going to love something.

Brenda learnt that after visiting a café she kept seeing recommended by influencers on TikTok.

“It wasn’t worth the hype because it was like any other café. Only one drink was special,” she says.

She’s had similar experiences before and acknowledges that following online recommendations will always involve some risk because people’s tastes differ. The same thing can happen even when the recommendation comes from a friend.

Dhivya hasn’t been completely disappointed by anything social media has convinced her to try, but she has encountered places that didn’t quite deserve the level of praise they received.

Instead of the “10/10” social media promised, sometimes the reality is closer to a seven.

Marina agrees that hype can become bigger than the actual quality of whatever is being recommended.

But she makes an important distinction: “Hype drives the first trial. In the end, the actual experience determines whether people come back.”

Social media might convince us to queue for the viral croissant once. It can’t convince us that it tasted amazing if it didn’t.

Are we becoming afraid to try things without a recommendation?

Perhaps the more interesting question isn’t whether social media influences what we try, but whether it’s also starting to influence what we don’t try.

Brenda admits she’d hesitate if she looked up a restaurant or product and found barely anyone talking about it.

“I don’t like to take risks or waste my time,” she says. “I need to do my research, even if it’s Googling the reviews and the menu.”

Dhivya has noticed a change in her behaviour too.

“In the past, we’d walk past a place and be like, ‘Oh, it’s cute, why not?’” she says.

She still does that while travelling, but says she’s less likely to do so at home. “In Singapore, not as much because there are always recommendations and we are a small country.”

And maybe that’s the biggest reason social media recommendations have become so hard to resist. With seemingly endless choices competing for our time and money, recommendations give us an easy shortcut. Someone else has already ordered the drink, visited the café, tested the product and told us whether it’s worth bothering with.

Sometimes, they’ll lead us somewhere we’d never have discovered otherwise. Sometimes, we’ll leave wondering how that place ever got a 10/10.

Either way, we’ll probably still check TikTok before deciding where to go next.