One of the keys to a successful digital marketing campaign is user-generated content, which is content produced from consumers of your product or service. It keeps your campaign’s momentum going by showing people genuine testimonies of your product without a marketing-driven slant. Finding and sharing user generated content, whether it’s mentions or tags of your business, can build credibility that other ad types cannot.
How To Find User Generated Content:
The best way to find UGC depends on the social platforms that your customers spend the most time on. A third-party social media dashboard can often help you find these valuable snippets. Many of these excellent tools will automatically file mentions and tags in a single viewable tab for easy management. There are also a few native tools that assist with spotting UGC on any targeted social media platform. Meta Business Suite will helpfully consolidate UGC from your linked Instagram and Facebook pages that appear on the mentions and tags tab.
Best Methods For Organizing and Preparing UGC:
To assure that you are saving social media content natively, it’s best to create a UGC swipe file for each platform. Twitter bookmarks and Instagram saves will clue you into what others are saying, and you can create your own organizational system that works for you and allocate it in its dedicated folder. Google Sheets and air table work well for building basic UGC lists. They can easily track the link to the original post, and provide a useful screenshot.
Obtaining Permission to Share UGC For Benefit
Unless you use in-app sharing tools, getting permission to publish UGC is extremely important. The content is quite valuable to you as a marketer, but it belongs to the original creator. Depending on the methods you used to source UGC, it can be beneficial to obtain permission before the creator even puts the content out to the public. It’s a little bit of an extra step, but you can link out to a landing page that details how the images and videos will be used.
Varieties of UGC That Get Traction:
There are a few different forms of UGC. It is important to discern which has the greatest appeal to your target audience.
Lifestyle Content is valuable because it portrays your product or service in action. It carries a lot of weight for consumers, and portrays your brand in a manner that customers in everyday situations will usually be able to relate to. The best practices are to tag the creator while also coming up with an effective call to action.
How-To Content is especially useful for products that can be a bit difficult to install or use. Outdoor elements or action sports are amazing examples of where this type of content works best because it allows for a great amount of creativity and individuality that will generate positive clicks. Simple hacks that allow for effective completion will appeal to customers.
Unboxing Videos capture the excitement customers have when first obtaining your product. As these reels continue to pop up in story highlights, a storefront can benefit from repeat views that depict how thrilling it is to receive the goods on the first day.
Branded Hashtags make it simple for customers to tag your brand, and provide a unique means of making your business easy to find. The hashtag then is a part of its own dedicated feed, which regularly relies on campaign content and confirms permission before the social boost of a share occurs. Huge brands in the sporting and outerwear categories have enjoyed a great amount of success by using hashtags. This can be a means of funneling already-loyal browsers into your organized space, leading to impulse buys and wildly positive word of mouth.
Reviews and Testimonials resonate quite well with followers, along with customer mentions. These arise from situations where a satisfied individual lets others know that the product or service made their life easier. Debt relief, grooming products, counseling, contracting work, real estate agents, and airlines are some common examples where a testimonial would help with retention, but any business type out there in the digital realm thrives on this type of well-backed assurance.
How to Positively Distribute the UGC For Excellence
Once you locate great examples of UGC and get permission to share, it’s a great addition to your content calendar. One great idea is to share the brand’s personal character with a sticker or different spin and give props to the original creator by tagging them. There are also excellent remix tools that can take a short clip and then add your footage to provide a good balance. It’s now possible to respond to Instagram and YouTube videos and shorts with a simple tap of the Remix button, and film your reaction. It’s always best to add details like where they can easily purchase the item.
Spring is the season of infinite new beginnings, and a great time to show others the new product or service that you are so passionate about! The team at FarFetched Studios is on top of finding any user generated content for your business. We’ll help you get the word out about your business!
