“Content is the king of marketing,” and it’s a fact! Creating quality content enhances your brand’s credibility online and multiply invaluable benefits to your company. Framing quality content is time-consuming and needs a lot of creativity. It is not necessary that people will like what you write. But, one needs to keep on experimenting. 

User-generated content is the solution to create an effective online presence. And, it has become one of the most desirable marketing tools. Wondering why it is important to create user-generated content? By using your follower’s content, you can nurture relationships with your customer base and build trust in your brand. Research shows that more than 85% of consumers find user-generated content more influential than content from brands. Using UGC, you can easily track the conversions and track mentions about your brand. This gives you an insight into what the consumers think about your services or products. Not just that, the user-generated content helps your brand save time and money and allow you to focus on other areas of work.

Today, we will discuss a few ways that can help in encouraging more user-generated content from your followers/fans.

Select a Powerful Platform

If you want your UGC campaign to be effective, brands must have a strong online presence. For those who haven’t gained a huge number of followers, need to look for ways to understand their audience. To do this, you need to understand which content is working best on each social media platform.

Here is a brief suggestion on what works on which social media platform.

• Instagram: Quotes, High-resolution photos, stories.
• Facebook: Curated content and videos.
• LinkedIn: Company News, job openings, and professional content.
• Twitter: Blog posts, News, and GIFs.

When it comes to content, one needs to be concise and clear with what you need.

Keep the Hashtags Game Strong

Well, hashtags are extremely valuable to your brand. They categorize your content and reach much wider audiences. When doing a hashtag campaign, don’t go overboard. It has been seen that tweets with hashtags go viral and make twice the engagements. For example - Coco-Cola! Remember when they make a #ShareaCoke campaign? Millions of users across the globe used the hashtag and more than 500,000 photos were shared. The best part about this campaign is its simplicity. This allows the users to share their story which sparked organic conversions.

The hashtag you create should be easy to remember, catchy, and must include a powerful call-to-action. A strong hashtag is sure to engage more users and give your brand a better recognition.

Take Customer Reviews

Customer reviews are the best way to know how your strategy is content strategy is working. Studies show that more than 60% of people trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. And the negative reviews adversely affect your business.

Customer reviews are a powerful way to know the authenticity of the site. This is why it is important to get reviews from third-party review websites. This lets your customers know that you are not manipulating the data. People are smart these days, and they can easily spot fake reviews.

Reviews, whether good or bad, help the customers to make better buying decisions. People love to see genuine views. This not only helps your business as a whole but help the other buyer in making a better decision.

Offer Rewards

Rewards always excited the users. And, the best thing about rewards is they don’t require much work to be earned. It only takes a few minutes to create a photo, video, or short review. You can encourage your followers by participating.

It is not important to make rewards expensive. Let’s say you have a reputed blogging site, you can even feature the tweet or article on your site as a reward gift. No wonder, if people are dying to post their blogs on your site. These simple gestures will engage your users and give your brand a better recognition.

Support a Cause

One of the best ways to connect with your audiences is by supporting a cause. This shows the brand doesn’t solely rely on making sales but also focuses on better things. For example - Dove-Real Beauty. Women handle a big amount of pressure and to deal with this pressure, Dove came up with a campaign focuses on real beauty. The campaign targets women regardless of their color, skin-tone, and any other discrimination. Ample women have come up with different stories and shared their sides of stories.

Apart from this, there are ample of campaigns about cancer, aids, women empowerment, and more. This allows people to come up and speak their views. This surely helps in keeping the brand in limelight.

The audience is smart and this techy-savvy generation knows better to take the brand word over others. And, we have to admit that user-generated content is more robust than any other brand-driven content. This can help you build a brand that is authentic, personable, and trustworthy.

We would love to hear your thoughts about this. Share your views in the comments.