As the digital world constantly evolves, digital marketing follows with dynamic changes that need constant upgrades and improvements. With that, one of the best things to happen in marketing is the ability to incorporate your customers’ unique creativity within your marketing content.
User generated content (UGC) drives engagement and completely transforms and upgrades your online presence. An experienced SEO agency will advise you that a well-thought out and effective marketing strategy mandates the use of UGC.
In fact, I helped one of my clients to gain a 75% boost in online sales via UGC. Want to know how you can leverage UGC in your marketing strategy today? Let’s go!
The What and Why of User-Generated Content
UGC is any form of content created by a brand’s consumers. It could be images, videos, text, or audio. Say a customer makes an Instagram post featuring your product, or even a review on your website.
Why does UGC matter though? It’s considered more authentic because it’s created by actual users of the brand and not the brand itself. Customers seek out recommendations of their peers, and we all know the value of review in trust building. UGC is also a low cost endeavor, and such campaigns will bring in better engagement.
Lastly, and most importantly, UGC can directly improve your search engine rankings — because fresh, unique content has always been Google’s kryptonite.
Types of User-Generated Content
UGC comes in many forms, and all of them pretty much deliver fabulous results for your brand. Social media posts created by users are highly effective for featuring your brand in a positive light, and they also serve to depict it’s value and usage in everyday life. Reviews and ratings hold the power to directly affect consumer behaviour, and video testimonials can gain views from highly targeted audiences that your brand is seeking to reach. Then there are blog posts that customers write, which can be pieces featuring how they experienced connecting and exploring your brand. UGC can also feature content that highlights Questions & Answers, where users answer specific tricky questions many users may have. User generated content is about being mentioned, talked about, discussed, shared, and getting more of your audience to see you. The use of UGC has made marketing more interesting, dynamic, and impactful. The most UGC-savvy brands have seen results that continue to grow.
The 101 of a Fabulous UGC Strategy
Since you’re reading this, you want to implement UGC in your marketing efforts. For that, here’s a step-by-step guide to get you started:
1: What is it that you want to achieve with user generated content? Are you aiming for Increased brand awareness? Would you like to drive more engagement? Is getting more conversions and sales the goal? Defining your goals with UGC is incredibly important.
2: What kind of content is your audience’s type? Know your audience and really explore what it is they want to create and share.
3: Decide which media channel is going to be your primary focus. Analyze insights, plan, and choose.
4: A unique hashtag has the ability to get your audience interested.
5: What do your participants get in exchange? Provide some sort of interesting incentive.
6: Only showcase the best of the UGC you have managed to curate.
7: Engage and respond to posts, as a way to nurture relationship-building activities. Interacting with participants builds relationships.
Encourage User-Generated Content
Everything about UGC is great, so what’s the catch? Well, getting customers to create content for your brand isn’t exactly easy — and getting them to do it well can also be a massive challenge. A piece of content with such inflated marketing value can’t really be so straightforward to attain. But is it impossible for your brand? No.
Here’s a list of some effective strategies that can convince your users to create UGC:
- Contests and prizes to be won for creating the best content.
- If you have a store, work on curating a spot that will beg users to snap and post on instagram
- Put some work into ensuring your customers share feedback and comments
- Discounts and special offers for customers behind the best UGC
- Clear participation instructions
- Thank customers for their amazing content.
UGC Legal Hoops To Jump Through
Make sure you always seek explicit permission from the user before using their content, and always remember to respect copyright and privacy laws — they’re in place for a reason. For the highest-converting campaigns, setting clear terms and conditions about how the content will be used, where it will be used, and how frequently can also be a great move for relationship building. Moreover, always clearly disclose if you’ve incentivized UGC in any way, because transparency is more important than you realize, and can actually deliver incredible value in customer loyalty.
UGC Across Marketing Channels
UGC is about more than just social media, posts, videos, andreels. Find a way to incorporate the best content to your website to build credibility. Feature customer posts and testimonials on product pages for social proof, and include authenticity in your paid social or display ads with UGC. UGC can also work well within email newsletters as social proof, or setting up in-store displays, or even making product packaging unique enough to be a talking-point. Anything unique and creative can kickstart a barrage of work-of-mouth marketing.
UGC Campaign Success
I get this question all the time: How do I know whether UGC is giving my brand concrete results? Some important metrics to look at and track:
- Engagement rate
- Hashtag usage
- Conversion rate
- Brand sentiment
- UGC volume
- UGC Reach
UGC Drawbacks to Consider
It can’t all be good, right? Everyone is on the bandwagon to integrate UGC into their content strategy, Why is it working for some and for others? Beware of the following:
- Lack of control
- Solution: Have clear guidelines and moderate content before sharing.
- Inconsistent Quality
- Solution: Curate carefully and don’t feel obligated to use everything.
- Negative Content
- Solution: Address negative feedback promptly and professionally.
- Copyright Issues
- Solution: Have a process for verifying content ownership.
- Lack of Participation
- Solution: Offer incentives and make participation easy and fun.
The UGC and Influencer Marketing Pair
Let’s explore how you can find a balance. These two very different strategies that have the potential to complement each other perfectly.
- Encourage your most engaged customers to become micro-influencers for your brand.
- Partner with influencers to create Influencer-Generated UGC
- Getting influencers to judge your UGC contests can boost participation.
- Ask influencers to share and promote your UGC campaigns.
UGC for Product Development and Insights
The most savvy brands are extracting the most gold from UGC and campaigns focused around such content. If you’re able to play the UGC game astutely, you may be able to leverage it for valuable insights that can amp up product development — and better customer service.
Some brands are going all out and gathering real-world product feedback that can optimize product development and future production efforts. They’ve also managed to turn UGC into an idea generation tool and incubation center to inspire them for new product lines. UGC also uncovers new and unexpected pain points that businesses can then focus on resolving — either with improvements or a new range of complementing products. To the best marketers, UGC also unveils usage patterns that can help optimize everything from content creation, marketing campaigns, to product development.
The Future of UGC
Some marketing trends that are leading the way in reshaping how UGC is implemented in content.
- The rise of TikTok and Instagram Reels is making video UGC increasingly important.
- Using AR filters to encourage UGC creation is gaining popularity.
- As VR and AR become more mainstream, UGC is expected to appear in these spaces.
- Artificial Intelligence makes it easier to sift through, and select, the best UGC.
- Use UGC to curate more personalized customer experiences.
Nurture Community Discussions With UGC
As a brand, creating the space to nurture community discussions around your brand can drive brand loyalty, and trigger an avalanche of word-of-mouth marketing.
- Whether it’s a Facebook Group or a community page on your website, creating a dedicated space gives your UGC creators a place to e-meet and connect.
- Feature top community members and creators on a regular basis
- Encourage interaction among community members to engage with each other’s content.
- Host virtual or in-person events for your UGC creators.
- Provide value with exclusive content, tips, or perks to your community members.
UGC and Customer Service
It may seem at this point that I’m exaggerating the applications and value of UGC — but hear me out. UGC plays a much bigger role in customer service, too.
How about using customer questions and answers as a basis for your FAQ section? That would target actual, targeted questions that users may have. Can’t you help users troubleshoot by encouraging other customers to share how they solved common problems? What about product usage tips created by actual users?
See what I’m talking about? It keeps getting better and better. How are customers using a product in unique ways? How about customers offering support and assistance to one another? Your brand continues to benefit from UGC in a myriad of different ways.
Educate Your Team And Get Started
For a UGC strategy to be truly effective, your entire team needs to be on board. Explain the value and ensure your team understands why UGC is important. Provide clear guidelines for how to encourage, collect, and use UGC. Train your team on any specific tools you plan to use to manage UGC. Last but not least, encourage participation and get your team involved in creating and sharing UGC too.
Optimize how you’re leveraging UGC for your brand, and you can then build more authentic connections with your customers. As a result, you’re also gaining highly valuable insights that ultimately create better product experiences for them. This dedication to delivering value to your customer speaks volumes about your commitment. They’ll see it, too — it basically snowballs from there.