A product that gets UGC and reviews is always favored in the market. That is, if people get UGC and at the same time don't stop creating it. How to use reviews and other materials in a way that is most beneficial to you and your product? There are a number of ways to do with UGC, where to share these materials, how to get them, and how to leverage their positive impact on potential consumers. We'll look at a summary of these in today's article.
What are UGC materials?
All the ways customers capture your product are UGC. Photos, videos, but also reviews, comments and mentions. They're more authentic than regular advertising and people will know it - while they're used to not seeing regular advertising, UGC grabs them at first glance. This is mainly due to the natural product capture, organic composition and humanly written text capturing the real experience of the product. They can both lift conversions and motivate customers to click on your link. But if they're not used well, their marketing potential can be wasted. And if you don't have enough UGC, you can't even tap their potential.
Build a relationship with your customers and UGC will rush in
If a brand wants to improve its reach and motivate customers to share UGC content, it should be proactive itself. Both on its website and on social media. It is important that people form a coherent idea of the brand identity and establish a relationship with it. Then there will be a better chance that they will start interacting with the brand and often create UGC naturally and authentically. A clear and unified brand voice and humanity factor will help this . People who see a human being behind the brand and company profile interacting with them are more likely to write what they think. After all, why would they communicate with a company that doesn't really care about them and is only interested in sales?
But when they see how active the brand and the person representing it is and how they respond to other people's UGC, they are much more likely to write or post something themselves. Then, when someone representing the brand responds to that content, they realize that the interactions are meaningful. The more often they interact with them, and the more it feels like they remember them and see them as a person, the more likely they are to be more active and interact more with the brand, and therefore generate more UGC. This will also deepen brandtrust and increase the chances of them and new customers buying the brand's products.
Motivate your customers to create UGC
Once your brand has a clear voice and an established relationship with your customers, getting UGC is relatively easy. Often all you need to do is encourage your followers and customers to share their experiences, photos and videos. You can do this through social media, mailings, and prompts on your website. UGC content is authentic, genuine, and includes shaky videos and actual product usage. If you want to get more UGC, show your followers and customers that you care about real and authentic UGC, even if it's taken with a lesser quality camera on a cell phone.
Remember that the content people create doesn't just stay on your profile or under a hashtag. It will be seen by friends and acquaintances of that particular customer, and they will associate a positive relationship with the person with your brand. If UGC is authentic and natural, it can be successful because of its content and the story it captures. The fact that your content is in the photo or video is a great bonus that will naturally stick in the minds of others.
The most common methods that motivate customers and others to create UGC are:
- Reward
- contests
- be part of a community
Reward works in any form
On the reward of the people he hears. Up to 73% of people are motivated to share their material by the prospect of a discount, a free sample, free postage or access to a pre-sale of a new product. These rewards may not be the only ones. For many, visibility can also be a reward. So simply resharing UGC can become the most lucrative reward possible. People like to be seen and appreciated, and they like even more to be appreciated for all to see. Seeing that their UGC can be shared on your social media, appreciated by you, tagged, commented on, or even "displayed" on your website can be the most important reason for many to create UGC with your product.
Organise a competition
People like to participate in competitions. Motivate them to share an imaginative capture of your product or creative use. Use hashtags, judge based on originality or success with your audience, and reward the winner with a product giveaway or a big discount. Don't be afraid to use these materials in your gallery and show everyone what a creative and tight-knit community you have.
You can also compete for "photo of the week", "video of the month", "funniest comment" or "best review". Share these winners, share UGC with your followers, and allow members of your community to experience a sense of accomplishment and appreciation. When others see it, it motivates them to try something similar. That way, when they finally do buy your product, they may have already thought about how they're going to photograph it and plan to post their photo or video with the designated hashtag. Maybe they'll get a discount code or get featured in your post of the week and everyone will congratulate them!
Whether it's shooting videos, the best photo or the funniest story, the basis for success is always:
- The right balance between pay and conditions.
- The customer must feel that participation is worthwhile.
- Clear rules.
- Fully transparent and fair evaluation system.
- Strict time limitations.
Create a close-knit community
Even those who don't win, you can reward and motivate them to try again next time, because it's worth it anyway. It doesn't even have to be about competitions. Plan carefully when you're going to share what, and use that plan to give your followers and customers something to look forward to. A weekly post with interesting stories from others, quality reviews, contest submissions, or collages of UGC photos and videos can be what helps your brand increase reach and build a tight-knit community. It's important that followers, potential customers, users and random passersby look at your social media and tell you that creating UGC content with your product makes sense. Whether they are valued tangibly or just within the community, the feeling of being seen and valued by the brand as a person and consumer is what creates a loyal customer.
Give people a chance to see your materials in your store and don't be afraid to use them in your marketing campaigns. The ideal overview of UGC created are collages of photos or short videos that can be fun, trendy and in line with your brand identity. Save these collages in collections, galleries and pin them so that newcomers can easily find them and get the right idea about you and your brand.
Make content creation easier with branded hashtags
Most people take between 150 and 250 photos and videos a month, which they then immediately share online. If these include images of your products, you need a way to effectively but non-violently connect your brand with them. Hashtags are literally made for this. Create ones that your customers can easily use and that are easy to remember.
You can encourage UGC creation, remind your customers on your website, profile and email to use hashtags and tag your profile, but UGC that is not tagged and that doesn't reach you is also valuable because it acts as natural advertising for others. Whether your customer's friends then ask where they got that nice jacket and if it's properly waterproof, or even if they're just quietly envious, they'd also like speakers that sound as nice as the ones in the party video.
But there are tools that allow you to search for mentions of your brand and products, even if they are not properly tagged. This allows you to get to the most authentic UGC because that person didn't even think you'd see their UGC and just wanted to share the product or their experience with their loved ones. It is then up to you how you approach such UGC. Do you give the person a like? Do you text them that you're glad the jacket is serving them and that you hope they enjoyed the trip, or do you repost the UGC to your profile and tag them? You have plenty of options and it's up to you how you deepen the relationship with your customers.
Connect with micro and nano influencers
You may have thought about using influencers, and while this can be a profitable marketing move, it's important to remember that UGC and influencer content are not the same thing. But the closest thing to it are nano and micro influencers, which are generally people who have 100 to 10,000 followers on their networks. These are often organic community creators who still manage to maintain full engagement with their audience. As a result, their material is received as more credible and honest than it is with bigger, more well-known names. You can take full advantage of this when promoting your products, often on more favorable financial terms.
You get UGC with every testing at Brand Testing Club
There are many methods to promote UGC formation and obtain UGC. Getting started is always the hardest, which is why our customized testing campaigns at Brand Testing Club include the creation of UGC by our testers. If a client wishes to use our services, we carefully select those testers and reviewers who are ideal candidates for a particular testing. This way, they not only get quality reviews and UGC usable in marketing campaigns, but also greater reach to the right audience and a wave of algorithm-boosting content on both social media and SEO.
