Top 5 Ways To Start Your Marketing Campaign with User-Generated Content

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Want to attract new customers to your brand? What if I tell you that you can easily boost your brands’ conversion rate and attract new customers to your brand by creating User-generated content( UGC) for the Marketing Campaign.

According to a report, Around 90 % of consumers admit that user-generated content (UGC) influences their buying decisions more than promotional emails and even search engine results.

User-generated content is content that consumers create, and brands often share UGC on their social media profiles and website. It can be in the form of a review, video, podcast, social-media post, blog posts, and case studies.

Many business organizations are including UGC in their marketing strategy to boost their conversion rate, expand their social media reach, build long-lasting relationships with clients, build brand credibility and improve their SEO. 

According to some reports, More than 86% of companies today use user-generated content as part of their marketing campaign, but only 27% have a strategy.

It’s essential to have a plan or strategy to make your user-generated content effective and make users your brand’s advocates. Here are a few things you have to consider before launching your UGC campaign.

#1. Choose The Most Effective Social Media Channel

To make your UGC campaign successful, It’s essential to identify the social media channel your audience is most active. 

You can use various social media platforms to showcase your brand, but you will not get the desired results if your audience is not active on those platforms. 

Therefore to make UGC effective, target only that platform which your audience uses the most.

You should choose the social media platform according to your goals and audience. Before choosing the right social media platform, figure out which social media platform can help promote your brand through user-generated content. 

To help you decide what social channels to target for your UGC, go through the below information.

  1. Facebook: This social media platform is suitable for videos and curated content.
  1. Instagram: Instagram is an ideal space for sharing high-resolution photos, quotes, and stories.
  1. Twitter: Twitter is a platform for sharing images, blog posts, news, and GIFs.
  1. Linkedin: It is a social network for professionals, so use it for company news and professional content.

#2. Set Goals For Your UGC Campaign

Every campaign needs specific goals and targets to become successful. Here are some goals you might consider for your User-generated content campaign:

  1. Spreading Brand Awareness: Brand awareness means letting people know about your brand’s existence. Raising awareness of your brands is necessary to generate leads and attract potential consumers.
  1. Higher Conversion Rate: If your primary objective is to make people buy your product and services, you should go with this goal. To achieve this goal, you can ask your audience to post reviews, testimonials, and unboxing videos on their social media channels.
  1. Establishing Brand Trust: If your business is new, then this is the goal you should start with. Building trust is an essential part of making users believe that they can buy your product or services without a second thought. 

To achieve this goal, you can ask your users to provide reviews or share their experience with your product or services.

  1. Educating Your Audience: Providing education to your users can be the goal of your UGC campaign. By observing and listening to your audience’s common questions, you can list some topics that need to be discussed with a UGC campaign.

#3. Tell Your Audience What Type Of Content You Need

Business organizations don’t want to push or force their audience to create user-generated content for them, but More than half of consumers (50%) wish that brands would tell them what type of content they want them to create and share.

It’s clear that your audience wants you to guide them for UGC, or How else will they get to know what you want?

Simply telling them what type of content you want from them and what kind of content aligns best with your brand will clear all the doubt from your audience’s minds, and you will get the desired result.

Ensure you specify all the rules and regulations of your brands so that your users have a proper understanding of guidelines and will not share any inappropriate content.

Here are some ways to encourage your audience for UGC

  • Offer Rewards

Rewarding your consumers for buying your services is an excellent way to encourage them to create user-generated content for you. 

Rewarding your customers doesn’t mean that you will give them monetary rewards; you can promote them by sending them handwritten notes, emails, or sharing their post on your social media channel.

Daniel wellington simply asked their fans to tag them in their photos to get featured in their #DWPickoftheDay campaign.

  • Ask Questions

Asking questions to your consumers can also encourage them to create UGC for your brand. You can ask questions about their experience so far with your products or how your products are making their life comfortable.

Once you get a fair amount of responses, you can use these answers in social media quotes or testimonials on your site.

Chobani, a Greek yogurt company, asked its customers to submit videos and images advocating its yogurt. 

The company then shared content on its website and other platforms. Chobani was able to increase their revenue by 225.9% between 2009 and 2010 through that campaign.

  • Run Contests On Social Media

Running contests on social media is another effective way to encourage your consumers to create UGC for your brand. If you give enticing prizes, people are more likely to participate and create compelling content for you. 

Here is the checklist on running a thriving contest on social media:

  • Have a clear goal to avoid any confusion.
  • Use the enticing image in your contest
  • Use hashtags to create awareness
  • Offer exciting prize or rewards
  • Announce the winner

Sukihairdressing asked consumers to enter their contest of winning a free haircut by taking a “selfie” with their product and upload it on their social media channel with the hashtag #sukieselfie.

#4. Back A Community Cause

As the world is becoming more socially conscious, many companies have started focusing on social and environmental issues. By supporting a community cause, brands can raise consumer awareness and engagement in a social or environmental issue.

Around 67% of consumers think that the brand should raise awareness of social and political issues on their social media platforms.

While choosing a cause to support, make sure it is related to your brand’s values to build a closer relationship with your audience. 

Aerie, a women’s lifestyle retailer, started an Instagram campaign to advise against models’ retouching photos.

 They asked their fans to post unedited pictures of themselves in a swimming suit with the hashtag #AerieReal, and for every post shared, Aerie donated $1 to the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA)

#5. Evaluate Your User-Generated Content Efforts

Evaluating your user-generated content campaign is necessary to check the progress and quality of shared UGC. 

Once users start creating UGC for your brand, keeping a check on the content’s quality is mandatory to filter out undesired content and spam posts. 

You can use social media analytics tools to track your campaign success. 

Hootsuite Analytics and Sprout Social are some popular tools that you can use to see critical metrics for each of your social posts, including Clicks, Comments, Reach, and Shares on your post.

Hootsuite Analytics

Sprout Social Social Media Analytics Tool

 These tools can help you get detailed audience reports and measure your campaign performance smoothly. 

Over To You

User-generated content can boost your company’s growth and ROI  by spreading awareness and giving social proof to your audience.

 Getting valuable user-generated content from your audience requires effort, and more importantly, it requires the proper use of strategy. 

In this blog, I’ve shared a comprehensive list of essential things to be considered for a successful UGC campaign.

So, make sure you don’t miss out on any points.

What’s your favorite strategy to build an effective marketing campaign with UGC?