8 Ideas That Can Boost The Creation Of User-Generated Content(UGC)

In the last decade, there has been an explosion of visual content unlike any other time in history. The power of visuals in storytelling is undeniable. In fact, today’s consumers crave visually engaging experiences so much that brands are constantly battling against providing for this ever-increasing visual appetite of them. 

User generated content is helping brands to sell more as it is the next best thing after word-of-mouth marketing. 85% of the people find UGC more compelling than any brand-generated content, and close to half of the market leaders rely on it. 

But, as promising as this strategy might be, brands are constantly struggling to inspire their audience to create content that speaks of them.

If you, too, have been looking out for ideas that can help in the production of the UGC, then you have stumbled upon the right blog. Keep reading to figure out which UGC creation strategy would work the best for you. 

Why Is UGC Important?

The fact that compelling content prompts an instant response cannot be denied. But, in the process of pondering upon and creating content that captivates the attention of the consumers, marketers are stretched thin. 

Here, leveraging UGC can potentially satisfy the growing content crunch and the appetite of the users for authentic content. Thanks to technology and social media, sharing opinions, experiences and views has become so easy. This is an attributable reason why the behavior of the consumers has made a shift from being passive to active. 

They look forward to experiences more than any brand-led selling tactic. Talking about numbers, 73% of the users consider transparency more important than the product price when it comes to investing in a brand. Showcasing UGC can potentially provide for this requirement of the user. 

The need to leverage your users’ voices to sell better is pressing for the following reasons:

• Social media is influencing users at large. According to a report by Deloitte, the probability of consumers spending on purchases increases by 4 times after checking out a recommendation on social media. 
• 70% of the consumers consider reviews given by the users of the brand before making a buying decision. 
• 92% of the consumers trust UGC over traditional methods of marketing. 
• Users appreciate and like to be a part of the journey of those brands that are humane in their marketing approach. 

Users and the content created by them decide the future of the brand, as fetching trust is getting rather difficult, especially because the number of brands operating in a digital setting is growing at a lightning-fast speed. 

Hence, inspiring the creation of UGC and resourcing it further to various marketing touchpoints of the brand has become more important than ever. But, if you have been stuck at the former step, read ahead to find some interesting ideas that can encourage your users to create content for you!

8 Ideas That Can Inspire The Creation Of Users’ Content

Identify Consumer Trends

When you have an overview of the visual content shared by your audience, the pattern and culture of your core audience become evident, and when you analyze the types of photos that your customers are sharing, you can strategize better. 

But before you begin, here are a few points to consider:

• Who do you think can probably share your content the most?
• What do they share photos of? If there is any particular product or collection that is dominating the conversation? 
• What is the location of your customers when they share content mentioning your brand?
• Consider what situations inspire them to participate in content creation. 
• Lastly, take note of the technicalities too. If they are tagging your brand naturally, or are they using your geotag? On which platform are they most active?

Once you have access to all this data, you can curate your UGC campaign and repurpose this content across your marketing touchpoints. 

For instance, if you showcase your UGC campaign even after having considered all the points, you can better inspire your audience into content creation.

Add Digital CTA’S

To encourage your users in content creation place powerful calls-to-action in places where your customers are most likely to engage.

On Instagram, this can be your bio, location, tag, or in the caption. Other places being, your website, other social media channels, and blogs, etc. 

Additionally, you can also engage them at the most crucial points of the customer journey, your physical store. Showcase your UGC campaign on digital screens and the content generated by users using it to motivate viewers to also create content around it.

They might get motivated to document their shopping experience by looking at other users getting featured on the screens, which will further boost your brand’s reach and awareness. 

Tap Into Influencer Marketing 

Daniel Wellington collaborated with many influencers to promote its product, which further inspired many users to participate in the creation of content too. It helped the brand to successfully generate more than 800K photos and videos on Instagram. 

When trying to push more consumers to create content for you, leveraging influencers’ impact on the minds of the audience can be your best bet. Further, you can provide them with specific instructions about the kind of content that you would like to see. 

When users see influencers posting content in a certain way, they might also do the same. 

Run Hashtag Contests

Giveaways have always been a common strategy to build awareness of the brand, spark the interest of the audience and encourage them to participate in the contest.

Businesses ask their followers to post on social media using their branded or any other specific hashtag, similar to a giveaway. In return for their efforts, brands reward the winners with a giveaway price. 

Hashtag contests are a great way to engage audiences in your brand’s activities while also igniting conversations among them. 

Interestingly, you can also use the user-generated content generated via the hashtag contest for later marketing purposes. Taggbox Widget allows you to collect these posts and embed them onto your marketing touchpoints to further showcase your brand’s authenticity and credibility. 

Incentivize Your Users

The best way to ask for favours from your customers is by offering them something in return. It could be anything from featuring them on the company’s website or social media handle to providing them with products and experiences. 

But a contest, giveaway, or prize can accelerate submissions and spread the word about it. 

Beauty brand Versed, asking its followers on Instagram to share their barefaced looks using #NothingButVerse. The entries were to win a Versed headband and a fully stocked skincare routine. 

Within 7 days of posting this giveaway, Versed received more than 50 in-feed submissions on Instagram. 

Reciprocating your fans with something that they would much rather fancy, in return for their effort, is also a great strategy to build better brand-user connect and enhance brand awareness.

Give Them Guidelines Around Content Creation

According to statistics, More than 50% of the consumers wish that brands would tell them what kind of content to create and share.

Therefore, brands can have set guidelines to encourage users to create content for them. This will also help you curate content as per your aesthetic and appeal requirements, which is what Daniel Wellington did and achieved great success on Instagram for their hashtag campaign. 

Being specific will help you in receiving better content. Additionally, users create content based on their understanding of the brand and what they think the brand will repost or repurpose. If they know exactly what they need to do, they will be better inspired to create content. 

Host An Event

Although user-generated content is an effective way to create awareness around your products, it requires quite a lot of effort from the brands to be able to finally get users to create content from them. Here, hosting an event can ease out your efforts. 

Create an exclusive hashtag for your event and promote it to reach out to a wider audience. This will help in increasing the awareness of your event and gather more attendance. 

The event attendees create and share pictures, which can be aggregated and displayed on event screens using Taggbox Display. When others see people getting featured on screens, they will be motivated to further produce content. Hence, letting you have more UGC. 

Must Read: How Can UGC Be The Best Events Marketing Strategy?

Create Hashtag Campaigns

Hashtag campaigns are the ideal way to generate traffic on social media, fetch the attention of the audience and inspire them to create content following the hashtag campaign. 

Brands can keep up with the dynamism of the audience with exclusively created hashtag campaigns and initiate brand-user interactions.

But while you brainstorm over your hashtag campaign or bring it into practice, take note of the following things:

• Be authentic and unbranded

Simply tweaking a hashtag isn’t going to help you much. Be authentic, relevant, and unbranded to connect to your audience better. 

Another important point to note here is to not include your brand’s name in the hashtag but still maintain relevance. 

• Keep it simple

Do you remember any successful hashtag campaign that was difficult to pronounce? Assuming that was a clear ‘no’, keeping the name of your hashtag campaign easy to use and pronounce is indeed necessary to encourage more participation. 

Get Inspired By These UGC campaigns.

Global brands are increasingly running UGC campaigns to secure the potency of their campaign to market their products better. Find your inspiration from them to ponder and create a UGC campaign that can help your brand fetch attention, amplify the growth of the brand, and enhance sales. 

#ShotOniPhone By Apple

Nothing is more authentic and captivating than your users advocating for the product they have a fancy for. 

Apple realized this after they found out that their users were disappointed over the average camera performance for pictures shot in low lights. Without any further ado, it launched the #ShotOnIphone campaign to win back the lost trust of its users in the phone’s camera. 

Apple was losing a significant amount of Apple fanatics because of this issue. So, in efforts to resolve the issue, it gave a lot of prominence to the campaign, which inspired its new and existing users to take pictures in dim light with their iPhones and sharing them online. 

The most beautiful moments of life are often unexpected. Today we celebrate photographers around the world who capture the magic in every day. #WorldPhotographyDay #ShotOniPhone by Celia Luna (IG: celiadluna) pic.twitter.com/4dnuVmLtcw

— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) August 19, 2020

These shots, which were taken by its everyday users, were then resourced on YouTube using #ShotOniPhone. Using this content created by the brand’s users was not only able to reinforce the faith of its skeptical users but also curtailed its development, production, and marketing costs. Additionally, it also made its users feel special by featuring them in Apple’s global ads campaign. 

This further boosted user engagement and made the users feel that they were a part of the community while most definitely reviving back the trust of the users. 

#WhiteCupContent By Starbucks

Starbucks in 2014 launched the #WhiteCupContest on its Twitter handle, encouraging its customers to draw doodles on their white cups. The winning design was to be used as a limited edition template for the cup design of Starbucks.

This contest spared the users’ interest, and within the span of about 3 weeks, it received an overwhelming response, with almost more than 4000 cups being sent to Starbucks by the users. 

Looking at the success that this content was able to generate, the coffee giant then came up with another contest under the name #RedCupArt, which again captured massive attention on Instagram and Twitter. 

Both of these UGC campaigns were able to promote the brand without having to spend a lot of money. Additionally, all this content also showcased that Starbucks appreciates its customers and their efforts taken for the brand. 

Taggbox – The Best Platform To Gather UGC 

Taggbox is a result-driven user-generated content platform to gather and leverage user’s content generated on more than 15+ social media platforms. It is helping global brands to grow brand trust, engagement, and conversions. 

The premium suite of products offered is designed to provide enterprise-level UGC solutions for all marketing touchpoints. With Taggbox, brands can aggregate content generated by the users across different social media platforms, customize it as required and embed it on the website on the website of the brand, display it on digital signages or make it shoppable using different products offered. 

Over To You 

Incorporating UGC is becoming the holy grail of marketing. The users’ need for authenticity and relatability is growing, and brands can well provide for it with UGC. 

But, the constant struggle of inspiring users to create it is seemingly unending. Use these strategies to get more users to create content that speaks of your brand. 

Furthermore, if you are looking out to boost the content’s performance, reach out to us!