You may have heard about the term, “user-generated content”, especially if you are conversant with social media marketing.
But the million-dollar question is, what exactly is user-generated content? How can you use it in your marketing strategy? Find a comprehension explanation of user-generated content in the following sections:
User-Generated Content Explained
Also abbreviated as UGC, user-generated content or consumer-generated content is a term that describes that particular content that references a given brand. Typically, this type of content is not created by your team, business, or company, instead, it is created by a third party. Keep in mind that this content can be any content text, blogs, images, testimonials, and many others. The content is usually created by the people and for the people.
Types of User-Generated Content
Different types of user-generated content exist today. From podcast mentions to social media posts and customer reviews to online videos, this content is quite informative. Simply put, user-generated content provides a great way to showcase the authenticity and trustworthiness of your brand to the target audience. Whether pushing roofing marketing or a SaaS start-up, user-generated content is becoming a key trust and success factor for businesses.
You may take advantage of user-generated content’s effectiveness to encourage purchases, foster brand relationships, create a strong desire or interest or create a robust content library for your future needs.
User-generated content is a powerful tool that makes things done in your company, business, or organization. According to researchers, over 75% of consumers believe that user-generated content has a huge impact on their individual buying decision.
Importance of User-Generated Content
About 90% of customers/clients take authenticity seriously when supporting or buying a given type of brand. In this case scenario, user-generated content is preferred more than traditional marketing strategies. But the question is, how can user-generated content help your business grow?
User-generated content provides you with a great opportunity to come up with authentic and long-lasting connections with your customers or target audience. It helps you build brand awareness in addition to turning online “window shoppers” into loyal customers. As if that is not enough, UGC can also make your business thrive in the following ways:
Builds Trust
Building trust between you and your customers is a no-brainer when it comes to UGC. In other words, UGC builds trust because someone else other than you is vouching for what you are offering.
Often, this someone is from outside of your business or company. For that reason, their input and effort to market your offer are considered to be more authentic, more trustworthy, and more real than when you do it on your own.
Besides, their input can help you foster the community around you easily. This is due to the fact that some audience members may perceive these third parties as trustworthy individuals. So, anything they say about your brand will be taken seriously.
Provides More Creative Freedom
UGC gives you easy and quick ways to cultivate and create valuable resources that you can tap into at every stage of your marketing plan. As a result, this creative freedom can help you and your team achieve many goals along the way.
Aside from that, your perspective on your product’s best parts and that of your customers are equally important. So, UGC enables you to become a little more creative in making your customers appreciate your products or services.
Inspires Interest
A great UGC campaign can inspire and even help many people develop more interest in your brand. This is because user-generated content invokes emotions you may not have focused on while using traditional marketing strategies.
For instance, if someone enjoys your brand of beer or drink while relaxing by the ocean, they are likely to pique some interest. Likewise, if other people use your boots to hike along the trail with breathtaking views, they can instantly develop a natural interest in themselves and your audience. This natural interest is reinforced, especially when the content delivers emotions to customers that are associated with your products.
Drives Sells
Once your customers trust your brand, you stand a great chance to make more sales and profits than when they don’t value your products. That is why you need to take user-generated content seriously because it may compel people to recognize, appreciate and buy into your brand.
In other words, the UGC you use can potentially make your audience feel excited to use your products and services. In return, your sales will go higher and your profit margins will shift to the next levels.
Answers Crucial Questions
Just like reviews, user-generated content can persuade someone to make a purchase. As such, you can seize this opportunity to answer your customers’ questions through UGC in order to help them make their buying decision easily.
Apart from that, you can use UGC which answers crucial questions to manage common objections that your potential customers might have. Alternatively, you may use UGC as a platform with which your customers can share what they like most about your brand. This move will undoubtedly persuade more consumers to pay attention to your brand.
Helps You Stand Out
Through consumer-generated content, you can stand out from your close competitors or other people within your industry. This positive change can come about if someone who trusts your brand shares their reasons why they switched their allegiance to your products or services.
By so doing, these loyal customers will be giving you an advantage over other competitors through UGC. Their shared reviews will definitely make you look different from anyone selling the same products or services as yours.
Fosters Community
You may use UGC to foster community as well as build brand loyalty. You can achieve this feat by bringing different people together or by simply inviting them to join your brand. In the end, you will have created lasting connections with anyone within the community besides increasing your customer base.
Better still, having user-generated content in place can potentially give your audience a chance to share information about being part of your community or express their feelings about choosing your product over and over again.
Final Thoughts
There you have it! User-generated content helps create authentic and lasting connections between you and your audience. It also provides you with fresh perspectives regarding your offers while allowing you to create an everlasting content library that can easily inspire brand loyalty and increase your sales. Learn more about UGC by visiting www.socialpilot.co.
