What is User-Generated Content and Why it Matters For Brands
Marketing has never been more competitive, and the blame could lie with the rise of digital platforms. The size of social media allows for more competitors to be present in the same space, challenging the ability to grab consumer attention. It’s difficult to deliver targeted and personalized marketing campaigns to the limited pool of consumers that are reached, resulting in limited engagement. It’s onerous to take on these marketing efforts within social media platforms alone. So why not have some help from the consumers themselves? This is where user-generated content comes in handy.
What is User-Generated Content?
User-generated content (UGC) is original content created by social media users, and is specific to a brand. The content created can include photos, videos, podcasts, and product reviews, all of which is uploaded to social media platforms.
These social media users are equipped with a following that shares in/relates to their personal likes, interests, and lifestyle. If there’s a brand or a product that they enjoy, chances are that their followers will enjoy it too.
Having these users endorse brands that fit into their niche will automatically provide personalized and targeted marketing to large amounts of interested consumers – and this is only one of the benefits of UGC.
What are the Benefits of User-Generated Content?
1. Cost Effective
Executing extensive marketing for your brand to reach as many consumers as possible on digital platforms can be expensive. Smaller brands might even find themselves without the budget to promote their products to the level they need.
Using organic UGC is a way to combat any budget-related issues, as it can be completely free. There is no cost to consumers sharing content of them enjoying a brand’s products – which will ultimately reach their followers and provide free marketing.
2. Authenticity Builds Rapport
Consumers are smart and can sniff out disingenuous marketing strategies that lack authenticity. UGC, unlike these strategies, is as authentic as marketing can get. It involves real people talking about their real interests and real experiences, reaching an audience of like-minded people who will resonate with what is being shared.
A rapport is built between a social media user and the people who follow them. When these users demonstrate a rapport they have built with a brand, it will extend to their audience too.
3. Consistency is Time Consuming
Consistency equates to further engagement – the more you post, the more consumers you are likely to reach. However, if a brand were to rely on their own posting for content, it would be next to impossible to keep up with the constant, rapidly-changing trends of social media.
UGC provides a solution to this problem, having numerous social media users posting a variety of content that covers different trends, time zones, and demographics. This will mean as many consumers are reached as possible, which can only maximise engagement whilst taking up no time from the brand itself.
Why Does User-Generated Content Matter?
1. Trust
People don’t tend to trust advertisers from brands anywhere near as much as they trust the word of a fellow consumer. UGC is the best marketing method to spread the more reliable (and thus more accepted) word of consumers around social media platforms.
This process will establish brands as trustworthy in the eyes of their consumers. There are no marketing strategies coming directly from them that audiences could consider deceitful.
2. Community
It’s not just trust that brands need to build with their audience, but also a community. It matters deeply to social media users to feel as though they are a part of something bigger – that they are a part of the brand’s community.
Brands can give back to the creators amongst their consumers that provide UGC by recognising their content and endorsement. This can help motivate creators to continue to post, and to help their followers see the positive community being created.
3. Growth
Building trust and a community via UGC involves direct interactions from brands with their consumers. Another added bonus of this is to allow the brands to grow.
Listening to popular feedback can help the brand understand how to provide better consumer experiences and create products that will be better received. Doing so can only further enhance the trust and community between the brand and the consumers.
Influencer Gifting
Influencer gifting is an excellent way to acquire organic UGC and all the benefits it comes with. Brands can send free products to the social media users that make endorsing content.
Ensuring the products you send are excellent quality and fall into a higher price range will help influencers feel more appreciated and willing to create content for their audience.
Shopfluence is an influencer gifting platform that can help achieve this. It includes connecting with creators that align with your brand, hands-off campaign management, and sending free products effortlessly to chosen influencers. Using Shopfluence can grant brands high-quality UGC for limitless use across marketing platforms.
