User-generated content (UGC) refers to any content about your brand created by your customers.
It could be images, videos, reviews, social media posts they tag you, or online discussions that they initiate. And it’s pretty much everywhere these days.
Leveraging user-generated content (UGC) across the customer experience can be beneficial, but the particular benefits are not always evident. So have a look at the most important ways UGC can help your brand succeed.
User-generated content (UGC) may significantly benefit content marketers if used correctly. For this reason, smart marketers have identified UGC as a hot topic. The Nielsen Consumer Trust Index found that 92% of consumers trust organic, user-generated content more than traditional advertising.
According to Curata research, the most difficult content marketing obstacle for content marketers is a lack of resources. However, delegating content creation to users may save your company time and money while increasing your credibility.
But hold on, there’s more. Here are a few more advantages of user-generated content, as well as why you need them.
Advantages to user-generated content
1. Make Use of Content Curation
The good news is that UGC is a subset of content curation. Content curation is the process of sourcing, annotating, and distributing the best and most relevant third-party content to your audience.
If you’re not aware of some of the advantages of content curation, here are a few to get you started:
- Increase brand awareness
- Establish your authority as a thinking leader.
- Streamline the lead nurturing process
- Improve social media metrics
- Helps with lead generating
2. Increase your social media reach and growth.
Social media platforms and user-generated content (UGC) campaigns go together like peanut butter and jelly. When the strengths of each are combined, they produce something magical. Implementing a UGC campaign on social media is a great way to strengthen your brand and establish customer interactions.
Among the social media strategies that encourage user-generated content are:
- On Instagram, create a custom hashtag or a picture contest.
- On Twitter or Facebook, post a question or make a challenge.
- Start a video contest.
Aerie’s #AerieReal campaign on Instagram and Starbucks’ #RedCupArt contest are two instances of outstanding user-generated material on social media.
It is critical to reply to user-generated material. After you’ve solicited feedback from others, you must acknowledge their efforts. This motivates other users to submit content and allows for more meaningful interaction.
These encounters are advantageous to both brands and customers. According to Sprout Social, “75% of people are likely to post a positive experience on their profile.”
Furthermore, creating a social media-based UGC campaign enhances social traffic, which leads to:
- A larger number of followers
- Extensive reach
- Brand recognition has grown.
- Increased social metrics like likes, shares, comments, and retweets
- Increased online traffic and page views
3. UGC-enabled sites have higher levels of engagement and retention.
Engagement and retention are two areas where there is no such thing as too much. Fortunately, user-generated content can help to improve both of them. For example, websites that use UGC might experience a 20% boost in repeat visits and a 90% increase in time spent on the site. In addition, UGC posts have a 28% higher engagement rate than brand ones if you’re seeking social engagement.
More brand involvement means more potential for sessions to convert into purchases.
4. User-generated content (UGC) and improved conversion rates go hand in hand.
And, while we’re on the subject of conversions, conversion rates are one of the most crucial aspects that influence your bottom line. Even a tiny increase can result in a significant rise in revenue. This is one of the most compelling reasons to embed user-generated content (UGC) throughout your site and customer journey — it increases conversions and helps you make more sales.
The more you can demonstrate your customers discussing your brand, the better. For example, Ann Summers included product reviews into their site — to provide UGC that was particular to each product – and experienced a 230% increase in conversions. They even discovered that adding product reviews to a product with only one star – where there had previously been none – improved conversions by 76%.
This is because even user-generated content with negative feedback is preferable to none. When customers understand what the issue was – perhaps the shipment wasn’t fast enough for the reviewers, but some purchasers don’t mind waiting for the product to arrive – they can decide for themselves if it’s a problem, rather than buying without any previous customer feedback at all.
5. Obtain SEO Advantages
UGC can improve your SEO efforts in a variety of ways.
25% of the search results for the World’s Top 20 largest businesses include links to user-generated content, according to Kissmetrics. Positive customer feedback might also help your SEO ranking.
Backlinks to your website can increase its SEO rating if your visitors submit material on their blogs. In addition, evaluating the most commonly used words and phrases by your target audience will help you better your keyword research.
6. Gather Audience Insights
User-generated content is a data gold mine, which is often overlooked. However, analyzing the content shared by your audience can yield important insights. This allows you to understand better your audience and what they find interesting. And, when combined with the principles of a data-driven content marketing strategy, these insights aid in the generation of leads and the rise of sales.
The first step is to conduct an audit of the content generated by your audience. For example, if they’re writing reviews, take note of what customers complain about and work to fix it.
Is there a recurring pattern in the photos that Twitter users upload? Do they reflect how you want your company or brand to be perceived?
When creating a UGC campaign, keep your demographic, channel, and format in mind to ensure your users are inspired to contribute.
B2B organizations, for example, will likely discover that a Twitter chat or online suggestion box works better than an Instagram photo contest.
7. Discover Unique Content
Your marketing team’s material will differ from that of your target audience. Use this “outsider” perspective to your advantage. These photographs, videos, reviews, blog articles, and other media provide a unique perspective. UGC maintains the content fresh.
It also invites new audiences to join in on the fun and loyal users to stay involved.
8. Boost Personalization
Another significant advantage of UGC is Personalization. According to Michael Brenner of Marketing Insider Group, understanding what resonates with your target audience is the only way to encourage them to notice and engage with your content. According to research, 71% of customers prefer tailored ads.
Discover what motivates your audience to create content and interact with your organization, and utilize this information to include customization into your marketing campaigns. It will assist you in creating an online community that will deepen the customer/brand relationship.
When used correctly, user-generated content fosters interaction and aids in the growth of your audience. In addition, it helps your lead generating efforts, and, most importantly, it is highly cost-effective.
Leveraging UGC
The first step in applying these lessons to your own business is to develop enough user-generated content to employ throughout the client journey. The easiest way to complete this is to automate review collection following each purchase. Once you have a sufficient number of reviews, it’s simply a matter of incorporating them into your customer journey to begin reaping the benefits we discussed today.
Reputedfirms can handle both of these tasks for you. This means less work for you and more benefits for your company. To get started, sign up for a free Reputedfirms account today.