User-Generated Content commonly abbreviated as UGC is widely used in social media marketing for many reasons. If you are not certain about its usefulness, then this article will answer all your questions and change your doubts into determination. Here are ten reasons to add UGC in your social media marketing.
1. Trust
First and foremost is the trust that you create by sharing user-generated content on your company's social media account. According to research by
Nielsen, 92% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know, while 70% trust online customer recommendations.
By sharing posts that feature your customers giving feedback to your products or services, you provide your potential clients with recommendations that they will take into account when deciding on whether they should purchase from you. It is very easy to be persuaded when you see others being happy with the thing you are considering.
2. Authenticity
Simply by posting user-generated content, you will be promoting the authenticity of your brand. According to a study by
Business Wire, consumers are 2.4 times more likely to view UGC as authentic compared to content created by brands. Moreover, a huge part of consumers agrees that the majority of brands do not create authentic content.
A factor that largely contributes to this is that companies have to stage any kinds of 'cute' or 'heart-warming' content while user-generated content is created by consumers themselves and feels more real to them. Consequently, customers tend to associate themselves with UGC more than with content produced by brands.
3. Brand Desire
Humans are susceptible to being envious. In fact, a lot of people purchase things they might not need just because their uncle's wife's friend's mother has that same thing. We also often buy expensive products for the same reason.
To put this in other words, by posting UGC you make other users envious of what your customers have and create a desire for your brand. This works both for services and for goods. Your entire social media marketing campaign may be based on user-generated content and can be incredibly successful if done right.
As an example, you can look what
The Horse did on Instagram. They regularly post photos of their customers with The Horse watches onto their Stories and then add them as a highlight for potential customers to check out.
4. Purchasing Decisions
User-generated content can immensely influence the purchasing decisions of your customers. According to the same study by
Business Wire, almost 80% of consumers say that UGC has a high impact on their purchasing decisions. And this is very important because increasing sales is, in fact, the reason that everything leads up to.
By adding UGC into the mix of your content you can also influence not just purchasing decisions, but also purchasing habits. With time, your one-time buyer will become a loyal customer.
5. Loyalty
While brand desire is crucial to converting your prospect into a customer, inspiring loyalty is even more important for multiple purchases over time made by one single user.
Those who share their experience with your brand online are either long-time customers or first-time customers who made a meaningful purchase from you. By displaying the fact that there are people who enjoy your products or services and come back for more, you make others want to make a purchase again.
For example,
Everlane based their social media marketing campaign almost entirely on posting UGC. The results were pretty good with the brand's message - "Prepare for rainy season by buying our products!" - clearly heard and understood.
6. Content Library
With time, even the most resourceful ones can run out of ideas. Maybe it's because you've created as much content about your every product as it was humanly possible. This is when your followers come in.
Users can help you create a kind of a content library by posting their experiences that display your products in a different way from what you've done. This way, you will not only replenish your stock of product images, but you will also have anything at hand whenever you need it.
7. Social Media Growth
Every company wants a bigger online presence and this is achievable through social media. User-generated content is very much responsible for your social media growth.
By curating UGC you can increase your traffic which will, in turn, increase your social media reach, follower count and brand awareness. Consequently, this will also increase the number of likes, comments, shares, reposts, and retweets.
8. SEO
UGC can also greatly help with SEO. For example, positive customer reviews raise your SEO ranking. Backlinks from your customer reviews on their own websites or blogs also raise your SEO ranking. According to
research, one-fourth of all search results for the World's Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content.
In terms of SEO optimization, by analyzing the most frequently used words and phrases that your audience search you can improve your keyword search settings.
9. User Insights
Honestly, you won't believe how much valuable customer feedback can be found in user-generated content. Your customers are willingly sharing their experiences with your brand and it would be a sin not to analyze them.
Both complaints and praise should be taken into account in order to improve the aspects of your company that the users are most dissatisfied with. You can easily gather tons of data that will help you understand the mindset of your customers.
10. Unique Content
As mentioned before, your customers can provide you with a new look at your products or services. They have a different point of view on your products than what you have. You are an insider while they are an outsider.
In addition to that, UGC is unique in and of itself which means you won't have to spend time, money or effort to create such content for your followers. You will be able to drastically reduce costs for social media management.
UGC: Best Practices
When talking about UGC curation it is crucial to understand what is good and what is not so much. You must always ask for permission to use your users' content. After all, it is their intellectual property. Some of them won't want to be on the public display or want extra exposure, so it's important to take this into account too.
For easier navigation, you can create a specific hashtag for posts created by your followers and ask them to include it in their posts. This will let you find UGC easier. For example,
Whole Foods has implemented this technique on Instagram.
And finally, it is always good to repost user-generated content, but it is perhaps even better to interact with it. Like and comment under your users' posts to create a feeling of importance for them. Even big companies employ such practices.
Conclusion
To sum up, if you thought UGC will scare away your followers, you are now probably pleasantly surprised. There is no way that user-generated content is not useful for your social media marketing. From increasing your reach to gaining the trust of your users, UGC has many advantages and you should definitely use it.
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