Brands are constantly finding innovative ways to connect with their target market and up the engagement scale within this fast-paced digital stream. A few use paid ads, partner with influencers, and many more; yet, there is one campaign that has truly found its maturation within the past couple of years: user-generated content (UGC).
UGC is that content – photographs, videos, reviews, blog posts- created by any consumer, not a brand. It’s organic and, above all, authentic. It is content that your target audience wants to interact with, and not at least because people trust their peers much more than they trust brands-and this makes UGC in marketing one of the most effective strategies for building credibility, fostering community, and driving meaningful engagement.
So, how can brands leverage user-generated content to foster more meaningful connections with their audience? Let’s take a look at the broad ways in which UGC can be used for engagement.
1. Building trust and authenticity through UGC
Trust between a brand and the audience is the basic core of any successful relationship. People, of course, are more likely to trust the recommendation of another consumer or his experiences than those of branded content. This is where UGC stands out.
This is where customers can share their experiences about the products and services that you are offering, whether it is a social media post or just reviews, even testimonials, real-life stories that add credibility to your brand and show potential customers that real people use and love your products.
For example, Aerie and Glossier are just two of them. They post different types of customer photos regularly on their Instagram pages. Such companies depict how people dress using those products every day, thus instilling trust and authenticity into the marketing effort: their advertising really does look less like a sales pitch and more like an informal, word-of-mouth recommendation.
The only way to use UGC is trust-building purposes and showing the real experiences of your customers. Ask people to put up honest opinions and experiences, and feature that on all your digital platforms. This gives credibility but also a community surrounding your brand.
2. Engage Your Audience Through UGC Campaigns
One of the best ways to encourage this is through UGC campaigns. You are basically inviting your audience to create and share content around your brand. It could be a photo contest, a hashtag challenge, or a request for reviews. It keeps your audience engaged and creates that sense of participation and contribution.
Brands like Coca-Cola and Starbucks have used the UGC campaigns to give great rides and engage their customers on a huge scale. Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke” campaign encouraged people to look for bottles bearing their names and share photos of themselves on social media using the hashtag #ShareaCoke, thus creating excitement and community sense among the customers.
The effectiveness of UGC campaigns is that they literally tap into people’s desire to be part of something way bigger than themselves. They provide your audience with an outlet in which to express themselves with the aid of creativity and meaningful engagement with your brand in a fun way.
Make it easy for people to participate and clearly inform people how to do so. Offer incentives such as discounts or rewards as prizes to the public for participating as a way of rewarding them. This way, there is bound to be more participation in the UGC.
3. Post the UGC on All the Digital Channels
Once you’ll get the UGC, you’ll distribute it to all the digital channels you use. But that’s just what UGC can bring to your brand’s online presence-makes your website, profiles on social networks, and even email campaigns even more interesting and human.
For instance, most e-commerce brands use customer reviews, photos, and videos on the product page. This type of UGC goes somewhat like social proof so that people can make better decisions about purchases by seeing what others have experienced with a product. Similarly, placing testimonial or stories of customers on your home page will bring about that high level of trust because people will continue purchasing from your firm.
But what the above proves wrong is actually proved right by other powerful means for the display of UGC: social media. That’s where GoPro and Apple, among others, haven’t even started building their social media strategy without being UGC-heavy, sharing breathtaking photos and videos captured by its users. For instance, on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or TikTok, brands would increase the engagement of the community by allowing customers to express themselves in creative ways.
To generate more UGC on your digital media outlets, create a special section or post featuring the works of your customers. Using branded hashtags will make it effortless for users to contribute and for your brand to scour through and curate their contributions.
4. Encourage a Sense of Community
At its heart, UGC is delivering a conversation between your brand and your audience. Where the community finds that they are being featured, they come closer to the brand and more as part of the community. Community can be a really great engagement driver.
It gives the opportunity to your customers to share stories, experiences, and creations in return, which also increases the chances of achieving a perfectly inclusive atmosphere for the valued audience. Every human being wants to be part of a community that lets them know their voice matters. UGC affords people an opportunity to be part of the brand’s story.
Even though building a community through UGC created engagement amongst customers who seem more responsible for the brand’s success, no better example of engaging community-building brands than Lululemon exists. Encouraging customers to share their workouts, mindfulness practices, or just personal growth, Lululemon was able to create an active community around fitness and wellness by encouraging customers to share their stories via the hashtag #thesweatlife.
Build a community through UGC by making it easy for the audience to connect with each other. Encourage conversations, share their stories and celebrate their contributions. The more people feel a part of your brand’s journey, the more likely they are to remain engaged.
5. Leverage UGC to Power Your Content Strategy
The biggest fight that brands are engaged in today is making good content regularly. And that’s where UGC can change the game: instead of counting on your internal team to be able to produce, you can leverage UGC to fuel your content strategy and keep your audience engaged.
UGC feeds your target group with regular, authentic, and diverse content. Uploading customer photos and videos, as well as stories, on your content calendar will save you a lot of time and resources, but more importantly, it can make your brand more relatable to your audience.
For example, beauty companies like Sephora share customers’ daily makeup looks. In this way of UGC, it portrays that people use the products on a daily basis, not only telling about flexibility in the offerings but also inspiring other customers to create a look with the help of the product.
This mix variety can be achieved by infusing UGC into your content strategy. While it’s fantastic to share customer testimonials in your newsletter, you would also want to make sure you’re using UGC in those ads on social media or maybe even in those blog posts around customers who have seen success – UGC brings authenticity and diversity to your content mix.
6. Content Mix with Conversion: Leverage UGC
But more than that, UGC possesses the potential to drive conversions. As you read above, UGC is social proof- people see that other people have indeed had good experiences with your brand. And that can be a pretty big game-changer.
In fact, studies have shown that people are more likely to make a purchase after seeing UGC due to the authenticity and trust levels it has which can’t be matched up with traditional marketing. Customers also see themselves using the product as UGC allows them to visualise the product in use, a component that can increase their confidence level when making their purchase decision.
Engage UGC in the sales funnel to motivate conversions: Use customer reviews and testimonials, plus photos, in your email campaigns. Showcase exactly how the customers actually used the product by incorporating some UGC into your email campaigns or you can set up retargeting ads with user-generated content that gets them to trust the people, the products, and the brand.
Another way to use UGC towards conversion is through a product gallery on your website where the photos have actually been taken by customers. This encourages more engagement but helps potential customers see how your products work in use, increasing the chances of conversion.
7. Measure the Impact of UGC on Engagement
To harness the strength of UGC, it is even more important to know how it drives engagements for your brand. That’s why it’s implemented and then measured with regard to the basic metrics in the form of submissions, social media shares, likes, comments, and lastly the reach of the UGC campaign.
Using this information, you can then determine which types of UGC resonate with your audience and which kind of platform is creating the most traction. These data will help you hone in on your UGC strategy over time while maximising its effectiveness.
You can use this as a measuring tool to quantify the power of UGC in terms of just how much it may be impacting your larger marketing goals, resulting in awareness, growing the community, or even driving sales. The more insight you can gain, the better prepared you will be to frame your strategy around UGC and start driving more meaningful engagement.
Conclusion
The ultimate happening of today’s marketing paradigm is user-generated content. It’s an opportunity in which trust can be established, engagements sought with audiences, and perhaps even a feeling of belonging in a community around the brand. Still, this UGC is not just about engaging; it takes into account how authentic and relatable the brand experience is to the customer.
