User-generated content (UGC) is near the top of everybody’s “best contenting marketing tactics” list. And for good reason: When done correctly, you engage your target market and collect content at little cost to your organization.
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For businesses, nothing is more authentic than a customer taking time out of their day to share a thought or feeling. Positive user reviews, in whatever form they take, are much more effective at shaping public opinion than anything you could say about your business.
That’s why 64% of customers actively seek out online reviews before going ahead with a big purchase. And a whopping 93% of consumers find UGC helpful when making that purchase decision.
User-generated content is a relatively nebulous concept in the world of marketing. However, it’s fairly common for brands to make easy-to-avoid mistakes when soliciting content.
From reposting without permission, to sharing sensitive material that is off-brand (and off-putting), businesses should know some best practices before they start a campaign centered around UGC.
Here are seven things to keep in mind when using user-generated content to promote your business:
Create a campaign concept for your user-generated content
As is the case so often when running a business, the first step when deciding to use user-generated content is to come up with a plan.
What are your goals for using this content? What social media platforms are best suited for soliciting the content you need? Saying you want to use UGC is one thing, but only 27% of brands say they have a system in place for finding, managing, and using UGC.
What are your UGC goals?
Decide what your goals are for this campaign up front. This will help guide other important considerations, such as what you’re looking for and where to look for it. Possible goals include:
- Build brand trust: If you’re new in your industry, social proof that your products or services are what they say they are is crucial.
- Increase social engagement: Having a hard time getting likes and comments on your social media posts? UGC might be a good way to get the ball rolling. By sharing user-generated content, you’re pretty much guaranteed to garner likes from the user and their circle of social media friends and family.
- Find better leads and make more conversions: Your current social media feeds may have followers, but are they in your target market and likely to convert as customers? If not, attracting the attention of those in your market is the next step—and content created by their peers can help.
- Have more robust content production: Even if you have a team in place that creates your business-related content, leveraging images, posts and more created by users means your well of content never runs dry.
Once you settle on a strategy for your user-generated content, make sure everyone on your team is on board, from marketing to legal.
You’ll want to make sure you’re covering your bases—understanding where this fits into your greater social media marketing plan, and/or avoiding legally compromised positions by potentially reposting content.
Be open to every kind of user-generated content
Many people think of user-generated content as re-posted Instagram photos. This is probably because Instagram is the hottest social media platform out there right now, especially for brands.
But don’t overlook the power of every kind of UGC, from customer reviews on Yelp and TripAdvisor to posts that tag topics important to your industry on LinkedIn.
UGC is any form of content—photos, videos, audio, text—posted online.
Consider investing in social listening tools to capture every instance of UGC that pertains to your business, so you can capitalize on positive customer feedback whenever and wherever the opportunity arises.
When soliciting user-generated content, be thematic
When you put out the call for user-generated content, you’ll get better results that are easier to find and share if you create a thematic framework for users to follow.
For example, don’t just ask users to post photos of themselves using your product. Get creative and ask them to create posts of themselves using your product when they’re on the road, during their commute, or at brunch.
Create unique hashtags so you can scroll through submissions and find your favorites with ease.
Not only will users appreciate and feel motivated by the creative challenge of thematic constraints, but you’re more likely to find new, interesting ways that people use your product or service that you never considered.
Plus, you’ll be able to set the tone of the campaign, which can help you use that UGC to promote your new product or service in a way that’s on-brand.
Make submitting user-generated content competitive
One way to make sure you receive submissions when soliciting user-generated content is to incentivize users to do so.
Make your submission process a competitive one: Promise prizes and awards to users who submit the best content based on the themes and hashtags you present them.
Your incentive can be simple—promising to repost them on your feed. Or giving them additional accolades and exposure. They can also be more substantial, such as a gift card or future discount.
Once people know there’s something in it for them, they’ll be more likely to create high-quality UGC that your business will be excited to share.
When using employee-generated content, be selective
Another category of user-generated content is employee-generated content, which is particularly popular among B2B businesses that feel they lack the visual pop of consumer-facing companies.
Sharing UGC from your employees—photos and videos from around the office, of company-sponsored events, or even from their vacations—is an accepted and common practice, but be selective in how you use it.
Posts that are over-the-top in praising the business, or too many of one style of “EGC,” can come off as inauthentic. Your employees’ content can put a face to your organization. Make sure that face is seen as honest, rather than calculated.
When reposting, always ask for permission
Regardless of how you find content you want to repost, the number one rule is always to ask the user for their permission to do so.
It doesn’t matter what the content is: Whether you solicit it via your custom hashtag, or you find a post you like by another content creator, it’s imperative that you get their express permission before reusing that content on your own feeds.
The bad press that comes along with using someone’s intellectual property without their consent isn’t worth it.
Authenticity beats every other factor
Some user-generated content presented by big brands looks like it was made by professionals in a studio. While you probably want all of your UGC to have the high-gloss sheen of a commercial (without shelling out for a commercial-level budget), the truth is that authenticity beats quality every day of the week.
The vast majority of UGC is going to come from amateur photographers, videographers, writers, and content creators. Paid influencers who try to ride your hashtag wave are only looking to promote themselves.
Find the posts that come from real customers, and you’ll be more likely to influence the decision of other potential customers than you would with any other type of content.
*** Using Use-Generated Content ***
User-generated content is a not-so-secret weapon for marketers looking to make an impact online. While it’s an easy tactic to use, it’s also an easy tactic to misuse.
Using UGC should create bonds between you and your customers, not raise suspicions. Keep to the above practices to ensure you don’t end up on the wrong side of a viral exchange.
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Eric Goldschein
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What you said is right it is an easy way to misuse. We need to give quality time to moderate the content. It is a great article. We are into healthcare segment and tried user generated content as a way to market the service.
Hi Anoop,
The bad thing about UGC is the time it takes to moderate. 98% of the comments in blogs and forums get deleted because they’re blatant advertisements, outright spam, or “nice post”. When will people realize they must add something of value or their comments get removed?
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Shared to my LinkedIn feed. If that’s ok with you. 🙂
Hi Colleen,
Sharing is always appreciated. Thank you.
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Hi Eric,
Great tips. I really liked “Be open to every kind of user-generated content” point.
I have lean about technical skills from Skill Cafe. This might be useful for others.
Thank you Eric, for sharing a nice article.
Thank you for sharing wonderful ideas. Loved the idea of making guest posting competitive.
Thanks 🙏
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Hi Eric,
I have designed an education niche website where I have encouraged users to submit quality contents but without some solid incentive, nobody is ready to give his/her voice. SO, in my opinion, all your listed points only matter when users are actually ready to feed your website.
Am I right?
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This is the best article for all user who generated unique content. Thanks a lot for sharing with us.
thanks Eric…
it was a wonderful information you have given wonderful suggestions to me and many others thanks for the article
Trying to used all the tips you mentioned. and building brand trust is the must
Actually i am looking for this kind of article. This is best practiced for using user generated content and thanks for sharing your brain with us…
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Thank you for sharing the article, I really enjoyed the reading, and also like the way you explained it.
Thank you.
Hi Jack,
Your comment is an example of what can go wrong with user-generated content. Yours is what bloggers refer to as a “generic” comment. These types of comments provide no value to anyone who reads them. And they are likely to be flagged as spam.
Because most blogs run Akismet, eventually, your comments will be automatically blocked and few will ever see them. A good comment requires actually reading the post and adding to what is in it or at least mentioning something specific from it.
(And for that does NOT mean putting the full title in the comment. That is another way to get your comments flagged as spam. I mention that as another commmon issue with comments.)
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Sound tips here Eric. User-generated content can make your life easier if the content aligns with your brand. Nobody can do it solely by themselves, or, via their employees. Users can add trust and cred to our brands when we allow them to create on our behalf.
Hi Eric,
Thanks for sharing ! We (Marketers) should focus on User-Generated Content. Give our target audience a fresh and unique content, nice images, good vibes videos, packaging with a smile and crazy campaigns, or anything else worth sharing.
Give them a reason to share your brand on social and start influencing their content.
Again, thanks for sharing and more power! 🙂
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Thanks, Admin,
This is something interesting to know for user-generated content.
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Nowadays is so important to be truthful with the product marketing we do. One of the ways of doing it is using influencers and consumers to advertise your products… but, how to know which one to choose?
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Hi Ale,
There is a lot of content online and also many tools to choose relevant influencers. The best tip to know is that you want to use the influencers who already have the audience you are trying to reach.
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