What is user-generated content? User content - types and methods of creation
Target user-generated content – popularization of the subject of marketing and its owner
User-generated content is any mention by users of the subject of marketing, made independently, free of charge and at the initiative of users.
What is meant by user-generated content?
- reviews of contacts with the subject of marketing and its management of its owner;
- reviews, reports, comparisons, annotations - broadcasting user and expert experience;
- user comments on information posted by the owners of the marketing item and on user content of other target audience members;
- public participation users in discussions, competitions, surveys.
The value of user content for the owner of the marketing item:
- generation and distribution of user experience;
- source of information, innovations, opinions, content to be analyzed, studied and systematized;
- saving resources for promotion;
- growth of trust, loyalty to the subject of marketing and its owner;
- coverage target audience;
- increase in SEO indicators.
User Content Management– stimulating, generating and disseminating positive user experiences and preventing the spread of negative user experiences.
Working with user content involves:
- encouraging users to create it;
- moderating user activity;
- storing information about the essence, source and place of publication;
- use of such content.
- publications;
When it comes to making a purchase decision, who would you rather trust - the brand or another customer who is already using the product?
User Content(or UGC) is any form of user-generated content about a brand or product. Companies do not pay for UGC, but users voluntarily advertise their product or service.
User-generated content is especially popular on Instagram, where it can be easily found and published on the official brand page.
An opportunity like this simply cannot be missed. After all, 76% of users trust content shared by the average consumer more than branded content. In addition, almost 100% of users trust recommendations from other people.
In today's article we will look at 10 examples of the most successful campaigns with user-generated content on Instagram.
Why user-generated content?
UGC helps increase engagement on Instagram, such posts receive more comments and likes. And engagement is very important for a brand’s success on social networks, because the more popular the content, the more likely it is to be displayed in news feeds subscribers and in the first positions in search results.
Many global brands repost user content on their profile:
To appreciate the importance of user-generated content, let's look at the most successful uses of it from brands on Instagram.
1. The UPS Store
The UPS Store uses Instagram to highlight its small business customers. They post content using #TheUPSStoreCustomer:
Posted by The UPS Store (@theupsstore) Feb 25, 2017 at 9:03 am PST
All B2B brands should take note of this campaign, especially if it’s difficult to tell an interesting story about your product or service. Few people will find photos of packaging materials and boxes attractive, but the stories told underneath them real people really hits home.
Posted by The UPS Store (@theupsstore) Apr 13, 2017 at 12:38 pm PDT
Conclusion for marketers: Use user-generated content to highlight an unexpected or unique side of your brand. These could be stories from your customers, users, or community members. Ask people to share a little-known side of your brand.
2.Aerie
Brand campaign women's clothing Aerie #AerieReal is something to strive for. It's simple but effective.
There has been controversy surrounding the over-processing of marketing photos for a long time. Many are sure that such images negatively affect girls’ self-esteem and distort their idea of a real female figure.
That's why Aerie decided to stop retouching photos of their models in swimsuits. And for every follower who shares their raw photo with the hashtag #AerieReal, the brand donates $1 to the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA).
Posted by aerie (@aerie) May 26, 2017 at 1:49 PDT
Conclusion for marketers: Give people a reason to participate in your campaign that goes beyond Instagram. Customers love to buy from companies that stand up for themselves and want to help others. If you have the opportunity, support a current movement or charitable organization. A gesture like this will generate interest in your campaign. You'll be doing good while increasing user engagement and building brand awareness. Isn't it wonderful?
3. Buffer
Posted by Buffer (@buffer) May 31, 2017 at 12:05 pm PDT
4. Wayfair
Posted by Wayfair (@wayfair) Mar 8, 2017 at 5:52 PST
Wayfair then reposted the user-generated content and included a link to the products shown in the photo. A great combination of real reviews and inspiration.
Wayfair has another campaign that is not as popular, but helps show the brand's product in action - #WayfairPetSquad.
Conclusion for marketers: Use user-generated content to help people find and buy your products. Remember, people trust reviews. If you show them how other customers are using the product effectively, they will be more likely to want to visit your site.
5. IBM
Tech giant IBM posts content from customers and community members on Instagram using the hashtag #IBM. They have quite simple strategy, but it allows you to look “behind the scenes” of the world's largest corporation.
Posted by IBM (@ibm) Nov 21, 2016 at 1:49 PST
It's great to see people working for IBM and using the brand's products and services in their daily lives.
Conclusion for marketers: show the human side of your brand, especially if your product is not easy to convey visually. Share content from customers, employees, and community members to show it in action.
6. Netflix
The popular video service Netflix shares fan posts dedicated to certain TV series and films.
A great way to tell everyone about upcoming premieres. After all, everyone is already looking forward to the new show, which awakens natural interest in the subject of heated discussions.
Conclusion for marketers: if you release New Product or want to break news, use UGC to generate interest in the topic. This way, more users will know about you and your new offer.
7.Hootsuite
Social media service Hootsuite uses the hashtag #HootsuiteLife to talk about what it's like to work in their offices around the world.
The brand prides itself on its culture, and user-generated content helps it attract talented employees.
#HootsuiteLife is about employees and community members who have so much fun working at Hootsuite.
The secondary UGC campaign #LifeofOwly follows the life of the company's mascot.
8. Starbucks
Every December, Starbucks launches the #RedCupContest campaign to promote its seasonal drinks. The brand encourages users to share photos of their red cups for a chance to win a gift card. And fans always actively participate in the competition - more than 40,000 photos with red cups have already been published.
#RedCupContest is a thoughtful UGC campaign. It invites users to compete for a valuable prize, promotes seasonal products and helps increase sales - because in order to take a photo with a red cup, you must first buy it.
Sometimes it's hard to imagine what will happen to you software until you see it at work. The UGC campaign helps Adobe demonstrate the capabilities of its products.
#Adobe_InColor is a brand themed campaign that has amassed over 300 posts in just a few weeks. User-generated content allows a brand to highlight customer talent and promote its unique values and culture.
10. BMW
BMW uses the hashtag #BMWRepost to share content from happy owners of the brand's cars:
BMW sells high-performance cars to consumers who are proud of their achievements, and user-generated content helps spread that pride to everyone around them.
Conclusion for marketers: Give users a reason to seriously consider purchasing your product. At the same time, it is not at all necessary to offer luxury goods. Many brands have loyal fans. Let them tell you how much they love you to attract even more repeat customers.
User-generated content is an indispensable tool in the modern marketer’s arsenal. Motivate your followers to tell their stories and share unique photos related to the brand. After all, sincere user recommendations are more effective than even the most ingenious advertising.
Sometimes each of us needs a muse to start moving forward. We have prepared for you an adapted translation of an article by Amy Millwood from the Yotpo agency with 8 examples of advertising campaigns created using user-generated content and some tips on how to repeat such success.
Using user-generated content will not only increase consumer loyalty, but will also become the subject of word-of-mouth marketing.
How to encourage users to create content? And most importantly, what to do after it is created? How to distribute it to other potential users?
The following few examples will give you new ideas for running user-generated content campaigns and help you improve your bottom line.
Ideas for crowdsourcing (using the example of Lay’s)
Lay's "Do Us A Flavor" campaign invited customers to create their own flavors and then let fans of the brand vote for their favorite new items. The winner of this user-generated content campaign was offered a very attractive prize. Lay's promised to pay one million dollars for the three best flavors.
A huge number of participants gathered (to be more precise, 3.8 million applications were submitted). Lay’s went further: having selected the three best flavors, the organizers invited users to choose the winner themselves by voting for him on Facebook and Twitter.
This epic campaign had great user motivation, and the bottom line is that businesses of all sizes can learn some valuable content advertising tips.
- Allow users to be creative, give them the opportunity to create unlimitedly while enjoying content creation.
- Make your content truly interesting and let your share count go through the roof! People love to share with others what they like.
- Extend the period of user engagement: invite them to participate in the process at several stages in a row, fueling interest in the brand. For example, Lay's asked customers to come up with content, vote for it, and then share it in social networks. The more steps a user has to participate in, the more likely they are to stay in the process.
Brand philosophy as a way of life of users (using the example of Lululemon)
The Lululemon brand, which sells sportswear and yoga clothes, a huge and loyal audience. They were able to wisely use this advantage in their campaign #thesweatlife.
Using their Instagram profile as a starting point, they asked users to tweet or post an Instagram photo of themselves exercising or simply moving around in Lululemon clothing. The application must include the hashtag #thesweatlife.
This campaign became successful due to the fact that the organizers focused on a lifestyle approach: the main advertising message here is - be active with us. For the core audience, such content is not advertising, but a way of life. For example, users were happy to publish photographs where they demonstrated not only the brand’s products, but also their emotional connection with it.
By launching ads featuring user-taken photos, Lululemon had one of its most successful campaigns to date. social campaigns. A separate tab with user photos has appeared on the Lululemon website: now a potential buyer can view them if he wants. In addition, the gallery can act as a visual hook, showing the buyer what the product looks like in motion. And if you click on the photo itself, the site, using hashtags, will direct you to a page with the brand’s products, where you can immediately buy them. This makes the purchasing process much easier.
There are many more examples of brands implementing a lifestyle approach, and this technique works great.
- To touch the user's emotional connection with the product, launch campaigns that focus not only on the product itself, but also on the brand's philosophy.
- Encourage fans of your brand to post photos and publicly reward them with gifts for using your products.
- Create a couple of campaigns with catchy hashtags that demonstrate your brand philosophy.
- Make it easy for your customer to purchase a product directly through user-generated content.
Use Fun and Helpful Content (Lowe's Example)
In just six seconds, Lowe's does a great job of showcasing customer creativity. Lowe's launched a social media campaign called “Fix in Six,” in which users filmed and posted vines—six-second videos.
Among marketers, Lowe's employees have found the best use for short-format video, according to news site AdWeek.
The Vines proved to be truly popular and helped Lowe's refresh the brand and attract the attention of a younger generation of shoppers. In the “Fix in Six” campaign, users made six-second stop-motion videos showing how they could quickly and easily improve their home decor.
The videos produced were equal parts informative and creative, useful and a little silly, giving users a fresh look at the old brand.
When it comes to a user-generated content campaign, it's incredibly important that it's executed on a specific social platform: Lowe's did a great job with this.
- Experiment with new social networks to reach new new audiences.
- Use creative thinking to show your brand to users in a new way. This will keep them interested in it longer.
- If you want to gather new fans, look on the resources they use.
- Useful - not necessarily boring. Be sure to think through how to create a campaign with engaging and valuable content.
Increase your fan base with real-time advertising campaigns (like Old Spice)
Old Spice launched a user-generated content campaign that evolved in real time. This happened after Isaiah Mustafa, now known as “The Man Who Smells Like a Real Man,” became the face of the brand.
Users' attention was captured by provocative descriptions and eccentric commercials. The campaign then developed based on user-generated materials, the hero of which was exclusively Mustafa.
Members of the Old Spice team managed to respond to user requests as quickly as possible, which triggered the rapid growth of the brand’s popularity on social networks in a short period of time.
- Don't be afraid to step away from ready plan. If something in your customer acquisition strategy is noteworthy and piques their interest, use it.
- Find ways to get customers to dive deeper into the world of your brand and constantly maintain that connection by answering their questions quickly and with a personalized approach.
- Respond to users on social media in real time to show that you are actually discussing the campaign and are not just waiting for user reactions to it to continue promoting the product.
Personalize like Coca-Cola
As a result, thousands of people printed personal messages on the bottles (birthday wishes, marriage proposals). This campaign filled the lives of thousands of people with positivity and reminded them of their love for the Coca-Cola brand.
Users participated virtually in the campaign and had plenty of opportunities to share the content, but they also had a real product as a reward for their efforts on social media.
- Simple campaigns with a positive message are incredibly powerful.
- Campaigns that involve many people naturally spread around the world.
- Create a platform for your product where users can see it in action and smile or connect with brand fans.
- You should not thank the user exclusively with coupons or posting their photos on your website. Think about why and how you can give them your product.
Release fun, seasonal content (T-Mobile as an example)
One of the most unusual campaigns is the breakup letter from T-Mobile. “What's special about it?” - you ask.
T-Mobile has made it easy for its competitors' customers to “cut ties” with their cell phone carriers. The organizers of the action invited everyone who wanted to switch to their service to pay a fee for unilaterally breaking the contract with the old operator, and at the same time describe the reasons for their dissatisfaction.
What is the result of the campaign? It's truly amazing: 80,000 people have published a breakup letter! Not only did T-Mobile find an ingenious way to attract new customers, but they also gained valuable insight into what their customers really wanted.
- Consider how you can link your user-generated content campaign and storytelling to your brand principles. Such campaigns are The best way learn everything about customer needs directly from first-hand knowledge.
Cavendish Hotel and #ValentineVine
The Cavendish Hotels chain launched a competition in which it invited participants to shoot a romantic vine. As a result of the competition, the winner was promised a free stay in one of the hotels.
Campaign from Cavendish Hotels - another one great example how well visualization of products and services works on social networks. In addition, the proposed prize was relevant to the needs of the audience filming movies. This feature made the entire campaign such a great success.
The Cavendish Hotels chain was one of the first to use vines in its activities to promote the brand. They managed to combine holding a competition and popularizing their brand using simple short videos.
- Don't be afraid to experiment. The hotel chain clearly demonstrated the success of those who are not afraid of experiments. They hoped for the success of the new social platform, launched an original campaign and were right.
Pizza Hut's contribution to greatness
Another cool hashtag campaign #CommitToGreatness(literally “Contribution to Greatness”) was held by Pizza Hut in honor of Valentine’s Day.
They created a special OKCupid profile on Instagram and Vine and asked their clients to propose marriage to them online.
Turning to your regular customers In a fun, intimate way, the pizzeria managed to spread the holiday spirit to a huge number of people and received a lot of natural responses from those who adore their pizza.
Images and videos are a great way to launch a fast and powerful campaign. Thus, Pizza Hut easily found many participants for its campaign by simply asking them to take and post their photos and videos.
- Visual content is the type of user-generated content that never goes out of style. Campaigns that focus on photos and videos quickly resonate with users and remain in their minds and souls for a long time.
How to best use user-generated content
Now let's discuss how best to use user-generated content to get the biggest response and the best results.
It is important not to constantly create as much content as possible, but to be able to use existing content in different ways.
Now we'll tell you how several brands cleverly reused their old publications. This strategy will help you reduce resource waste and increase your return on investment. The following examples show you how to use user-generated content in marketing and advertising in new ways to get the most out of it.
Distribution of user-generated content on social networks
Social networks are the most obvious place to start distributing user-generated content, because there it automatically comes under the most powerful user protection. User-generated content is the key to a) building and maintaining user trust in your product on social media, b) selling it more effectively, and c) getting more targeted traffic.
Look how retail store Wet Seal uses the hashtag #WSonMe to organize its social media collection in one place:
They show their post on both Instagram and Twitter, doubling traffic from the same photo:
It will also be useful to distribute your user-generated content across social platforms, but you shouldn’t stop there. Create collections of your user-generated content by various topics, products or sales, and then run separate campaigns to promote relevant seasons, discounts or holidays.
Use user-generated content as advertising fuel
Using user-generated content in advertising is not just an example of smart branding, but also has advertising benefits. The return on investment is always higher from user-generated content advertising than from regular branded advertising. This difference is especially noticeable on social networks.
- CTR (click-through rate) is 300% higher
- CPC (cost per click) is 50% lower
- CPA (cost per action/conversion) is 50% lower
To remain in front of users' eyes, advertising must not only be bright, it must fit into the environment. Be sure to combine social experience and reviews from real users in your Facebook ads to make them more compelling and engaging.
Infuse your marketing content with custom content
Everyone wants to become popular on the Internet for at least 15 minutes. By infusing your newsletters, blog posts, and other marketing materials with user-generated content, you become a free social media marketing hero and increase your brand's fan base from those who want to be featured.
People who like your posts will likely share them on their social media pages.
So the Marc by Marc Jacobs studio launched a campaign on Instagram, inviting users to post their photos and get a chance to become their model.
Fans of the brand not only applied for participation, but also shared it on social networks, increasing the campaign’s traffic hundreds of times.
Play on people's desire to become famous by simply including user-generated content in your brand's regular marketing posts.
Use user-generated content to create an interactive product catalog
One of the most effective ways reuse old materials - launch online visual merchandising based on user-generated content. This way you will not only recognize brand advocates, but also learn what from your collection customers actually wear or use your products.
By using user-generated photos or descriptions, you can create a custom catalog that will promote your brand organically and gain the trust of potential buyers.
For example, IKEA launched an Instagram campaign asking users to take photos of their favorite products. After this, the Finnish company was constantly discussed on social networks, since IKEA created a unique Digital catalogue, which showed photos of users and their favorite products:
Modest user-generated content can remain relevant for a very long time. Using old user-generated content in your posts can be more than just effective tool, but also an incentive for fans of the brand.
Conclusion
Give users more freedom. Of course, monitoring whether the campaign is in line with the brand's style and whether it helps achieve its goals is very important, but it is also important to allow the user to express themselves freely and enjoy the process. In addition, be sure to include the user in participation on different stages campaigns, not just on one.
Explore marketing trends and come up with new ideas for using user-generated content. Look for inspiration for new marketing campaigns in the latest advertising trends on social networks. This way you will find new platforms and strategies to differentiate your unique campaign.
We've released a new book, Social Media Content Marketing: How to Get Inside Your Followers' Heads and Make Them Fall in Love with Your Brand.
User-generated content is materials on a website that are created by its visitors.
More videos on our channel - learn internet marketing with SEMANTICA
Let's look at what user-generated content is: simple example. Almost every girl had her own diary. She decorated it beautifully and sent it “for a walk” around the class. Each student left an entry in this diary. In fact, the document belonged to the girl, and all the notes were left by its readers.
Every person sometimes wants not only to find something on the Internet, but to express their thoughts. They maintain their own blogs, opinion columns, etc.
For example, there is informational portal. Its users form an online community around the site. Some may maintain their personal blogs on the same site. This is an example of UGC.
How to use user-generated content
Positive Impact of UGC
- Helps you touch and see products and services in reality.
- Increases trust: “if someone has already bought it, then I can buy it too.”
As for UGC for online stores, there are only advantages to its use.
Website visitors can sell your products and services. Instead of paid editors, website content can be created by passionate users: quickly, voluntarily, in large quantities and for free. And the task of the project administrator is to create all the conditions to find active editors and encourage them to do so.
We've released a new book, Social Media Content Marketing: How to Get Inside Your Followers' Heads and Make Them Fall in Love with Your Brand.
I'm willing to bet that before you look for a good dentist on the Internet, you will ask where your friend went to get his teeth treated last month. And if he starts praising a clinic on the other side of town, you will go there because you trust your friend. Today we’ll figure out how it works on the Internet and talk about user-generated content (or User Generated Content). First, let's figure out what it is and how to use it.
What is user generated content?
These are all posts, comments, reviews, testimonials, photos and reviews that are left by visitors to your website or group subscribers on social networks.
Custom is good because it involves the audience in interaction with the brand, and this increases customer loyalty and makes them buy more often and more. But this is not its only advantage. UGC also affects those who are not yet personally acquainted with your business. 8 out of 10 users study reviews about a product or company before purchasing. People trust people, so one real review real person maybe worth five advertising texts. If you have positive feedback from real clients, and posts on social networks are regularly commented on by subscribers, this is a plus - each such post is a signal that everything is OK with your business.
Let's look at examples.
We have an online store. And each product card from the catalog has a review block, where you can rate it and write a short review of the product. This will be user content. Ideally, behind every review there should be a living person with his own story.
Example number two: we have a group from the same online store “VKontakte”. Every comment or photo review is also UGC. At the same time, it is not so important whether it is useful for other users; the engagement and trust of subscribers increases in any case.
An example of reviews on the website of a photographic equipment store:
Let's summarize. User Generated Content is:
- direct interaction between customers and brand;
- a tool that increases user loyalty and trust;
- a couple of extra points in the SEO box - the more comments and reviews on a site, the more search engines like it.
How to get the most out of user-generated content
Try to use it wherever possible. The main thing is to give users an incentive to create new content. The percentage of people who write reviews simply out of boredom or out of pure altruism is vanishingly small.
Now let's take a closer look.
SMM
Let's start with the holy of holies - reviews. You can work with them in different ways:
- Encourage users to take photos with the product. There are also several approaches here: you can ask them to take photos with hashtags (most suitable for Instagram), you can create a separate album and post photos from there to the main page. In any case, you get real photos of real people, and they are valued higher than staged and photoshopped images on product cards. The main disadvantage is that photo reviews are not suitable for all topics, because some things cannot even be touched. What should you photograph if you sell, say, software? But in other cases this is a great option.
- Text reviews. It’s the same here – you can highlight a special discussion, or you can simply publish all the reviews on the main page of the group. Moreover, it is not necessary to work exclusively with reviews from social networks. If you receive a flurry of thanks via email or website, post reviews from there. The main thing is that there is no ordering - fake posts are immediately visible.
Other types of user generated content are also best revealed in social networks. The easiest way there is to ask a question, write a comment on a post, or take part in a survey. Take advantage of this - hold competitions and promotions, encourage the activity of subscribers and do not limit yourself to one social network. It pays off.
UGC on the site: what content do you need?
There are fewer opportunities here, but they exist. Mandatory program - reviews. They are needed to potential clients could evaluate the experience of other people and simply make sure that they are buying from you. If possible, attach an expanded rating system to the site, rather than just standard stars. If, for example, you sell equipment, invite people to evaluate the design, functionality, reliability and price/quality ratio. This will give people hints on what to write about if they feel like it.
Well, a standard scheme with mini-discounts for reviews won’t hurt either - this will give people an additional incentive to create content.
