Humanize your brand with user generated content

The quest for new content is never ending.  What is user generated content?     It’s  allowing your fans, customers, clients, users to tell their story of your brand, or to contribute in other ways to your social media presence.   It’s marketing generated by them for you.

User Generated Content (UGC) is becoming a big go to for brands big and small.   It’s not a new concept, but it is developing in the ways it can be incorporated into  a business strategy.

Becoming creative with your clients, letting them tell the story of your brand, letting them take the lead?   Perhaps it’s time too consider.

According to research by Stackla in the “Bridging the Gap” 2019 Data report

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Consumers find UGC 9.8x more impactful than influencer content when making purchasing decisions…” quote=”Consumers find UGC 9.8x more impactful than influencer content when making purchasing decision, yet 49% of marketers are planning to increase their investment in influencer marketing in 2019″ theme=”style3″]

So consumers seem to prefer to connect with Peers and “regular” people over influencers.   That’s pretty big.

It also is a call to influencers to choose to promote products that match their brand and that they actually like and use.   Nothing is worse for a brand than an endorsement made purely because of the monetary transaction that took place.   Seek out micro and macro influencers, people in your own community and local area who can become brand ambassadors for you and share content with you.  Best of all engage your customers in your marketing.

Use contests and promotions 

Another fabulous way to bring engagement and fun to your social media pages is to run a contest or promotion which requires entrants to post their entries.  Whether a creative image, or a paragraph, all of the above not only creates engagement, but it’s done for you.    Nothing beats the excitment of interaction with a little competition.     Be sure to follow the appropriate rules when running promotions however.

Celebrate their wins

Asking your audience to share their wins and achievements, whether business or personally is another way to generate content for your brand.

It’s such a feel good thing, just writing this makes us smile!      Every business is only as good as its customers, so celebrate them, respect them and get to know them

Make Sure you have permission

Having permission is everything.   Whether you are talking to a client, an influencer or strangers with a competition, it is vital to ensure they have given permission for content to be used.   For a competition this would be written in the terms and conditions.   For a client or influencer, make sure you have a signed agreement in place which outlines how you may use any content provided.

Of course if they are posting it directly themselves, then permission has been granted by the very act.  We would still recommend having terms and conditions somewhere on your blog or on Facebook as a note or in the about of your page that content posted may be used.     One thing to be wary of, is that you need to be sure the person sharing the content, owns the content.

There have been issues where folk have entered a photographic competition for example, with an image that was not theirs to share.  Make sure you have a line in terms and conditions that  says entrants are agreeing that they have copyright and are giving you rights to their intellectual property.

Would you be game to ask a stranger to judge your product?

It might sound risky, but if you are confident in your product, getting the reaction of someone seeing/using that product for the first time is worth a million words.    That first look of surprise and delight is pretty hard to fake!    You can ask people at events, tradeshows, marketplaces and on the street  and video their reactions, or ask them to film an “unboxing” of a product. (see above, make sure you have permission to use the content, have them sign a disclaimer before you give them the product).

Whatever you do, be authentic – mean it!

Please don’t ask questions or run competitions just for the attention.    You will build much greater trust and rapport if what. you do genuinely comes from an interest in your clients/customers and prospects.