When you’re a marketer or small enterprise proprietor eager to get your viewers’s consideration, you have to be in all places. Maintaining with content material manufacturing may be daunting, from electronic mail and social media to paid campaigns and product pages.
Right here’s the place user-generated content material may help.
However what’s user-generated content material? How are you going to gather it? And how are you going to repackage UGC to get extra mileage out of it? Hold studying to search out out.
Contents
What’s user-generated content material (UGC)?
Person-generated content material (UGC) is any type of authentic content material created by clients and printed on social media or different channels.
In a world of sharp and polished visuals, UGC may help you stand out from the gang. Furthermore, utilizing UGC as a part of your content material technique offers you a robust aggressive benefit, as that content material is exclusive to your corporation, and nobody else can replicate it.
The very best half: Right this moment’s clients crave authenticity and authentic content material.
As reported by eMarketer, over 1 / 4 (28%) of ecommerce entrepreneurs in North America consider that photographs/movies from actual clients can have the largest influence on buying selections. Furthermore, almost as many (26%) suppose UGC generates essentially the most buyer belief.
Around 40% of UK and US adults consider UGC is necessary when deciding to make a purchase order, and 77% of customers usually tend to purchase a product they discovered by means of UGC.
An example of a model utilizing UGC in its promotional YouTube movies.
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Varieties of user-generated content material
User-generated content is way more than clients’ pictures shared on Instagram. It contains every little thing from photographs and movies to social media posts, evaluations, testimonials, and even feedback. Let’s take a look at a few of the hottest sorts of UGC:
- Pictures. Person-generated content material cuts by means of the noise of flawless filters, staged pictures, and AI-generated photographs, giving clients one thing actual and relatable.
- Movies. Movies are nonetheless probably the most well-liked sort of content material, and the identical is true for UGC. Whether or not Instagram and TikTok quick movies or unboxing movies, the sort of UGC content material could be very highly effective. In keeping with an eMarketer survey, watching movies is the #1 means Gen Z sometimes discovers new manufacturers and merchandise throughout all classes.
- Social media posts. Maintaining the tempo with social media content material creation is difficult. Right here’s the place UGC may help. Use the content material your viewers creates to boost your social media strategy.
- Critiques and testimonials. An actual buyer’s story hits otherwise. Nowadays, everybody checks evaluations and testimonials earlier than shopping for something—good or unhealthy, they’re the very first thing folks take a look at to get reassured they’re making the correct determination.
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The best way to gather user-generated content material
So, you’re offered on the facility of UGC—nice. However how do you get your clients to really create it? Let’s break down the actual methods to begin gathering UGC with out the heavy lifting.
Create a hashtag and ask clients to share pictures
Do you ever marvel if hashtags nonetheless work? Nicely, simply take a look at the #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt—with over 12 million posts, this hashtag has single-handedly sparked tens of millions of impulse buys for merchandise that went viral on TikTok.
To begin gathering UGC, create a hashtag and encourage clients to make use of it. For an additional increase, you can even manage a social media problem and reward the individuals with essentially the most likes. NYX Skilled Make-up has achieved this with its #ButterGlossPop, which generated over 1.7 million posts on TikTok.
Associate with native creators and influencers
Influencer advertising and marketing shouldn’t be solely reserved for large companies. If you wish to make an influence, give attention to partnering with native creators and micro-influencers who can attain your target market. Whether or not you’re serving a particular space or promoting area of interest merchandise, partnering with native creators may be the correct selection for you.
The Lavendaire Store is a journaling and self-growth model that has an open name for everybody who needs to be a model ambassador, providing them completely different advantages equivalent to a 15% fee on every order, product giveaways, early entry to launches, and a reduction code for his or her followers.
Create a loyalty program
Generally, you simply want to present clients an additional nudge to encourage them to share pictures or go away a evaluation which you can later use as user-generated content material. Right here’s the place loyalty applications may help. Constructing a loyalty program can gamify the expertise and encourage clients to take particular actions to earn factors.
That is precisely what the boys’s attire model Chubbies does with its loyalty applications. Along with making a purchase order and creating an account, clients also can earn further factors for leaving a evaluation. It’s a win-win scenario—clients earn factors, and also you collect UGC content material.
Arrange a buzz-worthy dwell occasion
Getting folks to speak about your model isn’t as laborious because it sounds. You simply have to create a second that makes them go, “Whoa!”—after which whip out their telephones to share it. Dwell occasions or pop-up activations are the proper strategy to spark that buzz and get folks posting about you. Plus, it is a nice strategy to increase foot traffic.
BÉIS is a classy baggage model that created an interactive baggage ‘automotive wash’ expertise that acquired folks ready in traces and sharing movies, which helped them rack up hundreds of views on TikTok.
Flip feedback into social media posts
Feedback are underrated user-generated content material, and companies typically neglect to make use of them to create content material. Platforms like TikTok now help you interact with a remark by responding with a put up. It’s a good way to indicate clients you admire them and a straightforward strategy to create content material that your rivals can’t copy.
So subsequent time you’re questioning gather UGC, examine your social media and see what’s already there. Mala is a candle model that makes use of this tactic to have interaction with clients and create an genuine social media presence.
Use QR codes to generate UGC
If you wish to create a shortcut for purchasers to share evaluations, you should utilize QR codes. So, as a substitute of asking them to go to your web site, you possibly can create a QR code that makes leaving a review quick and easy. This may be particularly useful for skilled service companies. Type Pest Resolution makes use of its enterprise playing cards, asking clients to depart a Google evaluation, and in flip, they tip the technicians $10.
7 methods to repackage UGC content material: Greatest practices and examples
Now it’s time to examine all of the inventive methods to repackage UGC and boost your content strategy with recent concepts that’ll make your model pop and hold your viewers engaged.
1. Reshare on social media
UGC shouldn’t be solely about sharing buyer pictures or movies. Critiques and testimonials may be the proper sort of UGC to share throughout your social media channels. That is very true for residence {and professional} service companies, the place buyer evaluations are essential to getting extra purchasers.
Mr. Electrical is an area electrical and electrician companies enterprise that frequently shares buyer testimonials on social media.
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2. Use UGC in your product pages
Including product evaluations and user-generated pictures in your product pages can increase your clients’ confidence and encourage them so as to add the product to their cart.
Lovely Earth is a jewellery model that makes use of genuine product pictures on its product pages, giving clients the additional increase they should make a purchase order determination.
3. Promote by means of paid adverts
Person-generated content material shouldn’t be reserved to your natural channels solely. It may be a good way to share genuine, relatable content material in your paid ads, giving your model that “actual” vibe whereas boosting your credibility with out sounding too salesy.
The outside furnishings model Outer makes use of buyer evaluations in its paid adverts, highlighting the high-quality supplies.
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4. Create shoppable content material in your web site
Making a buyer gallery in your web site is nice. You realize what’s higher? Turning it into shoppable content material. As a substitute of placing clients by means of the hustle of discovering the product in your web site, flip your UGC into shoppable content material that clients should purchase with a click on.
The waterproof jewellery model Hey Harper makes use of this tactic to boost the shopper expertise.
5. Use product evaluations above the fold
If you wish to seize clients’ consideration immediately, ensure that so as to add buyer pictures and movies above the fold. In any case, why make them scroll when you possibly can hit them with social proof proper from the beginning?
Dezi is an eyewear model that focuses closely on UGC. Moreover sharing it on social media and the house web page, the model additionally makes use of UGC proper under the add-to-cart button on its product pages.
6. Use UGC for electronic mail campaigns
Email marketing remains to be among the best methods to succeed in your clients. The trick is to share content material that resonates with clients and creates worth. And since clients admire listening to about first-hand experiences, utilizing UGC in your electronic mail campaigns can hit a house run.
Cole {Hardware} is an area, family-owned ironmongery store that makes use of UGC in its emails with a spin — sharing product evaluations and proposals from their crew.
7. Use UGC in your homepage
Your web site is without doubt one of the first touchpoints to your clients, and your homepage is your digital “doormat,” welcoming clients. So if you wish to spotlight UGC, whether or not that’s buyer pictures and movies or evaluations and testimonials, your web site homepage may be the proper stage to indicate off all that actual, genuine content material that makes your model really feel human.
Brookfield Residential is an actual property developer that showcases buyer evaluations on its homepage utilizing a third-party, unbiased evaluations platform to spice up credibility.
Embed UGC in your content material technique at this time
Now that you know the way to gather and repackage user-generated content material, it’s time to get your inventive gears turning. The very best factor about all these examples and finest practices is which you can begin making use of them at this time. Curious to learn how we may help? Let’s talk.