User-generated content (UGC) is any form of content created by your customers, fans, or followers that showcases your brand, products, or services. UGC can be a powerful way to boost your influencer marketing campaigns, as it can increase your credibility, engagement, and reach. But how do you find great UGC that aligns with your goals and values? Here are some tips to help you out.
Before you start looking for UGC, you need to have a clear idea of what kind of content you want to feature in your influencer marketing campaigns. What are your objectives, target audience, and key messages? What tone, style, and format do you prefer? What are your brand guidelines and values? Having a set of criteria will help you filter and evaluate the UGC that you find, and ensure that it matches your brand identity and vision.
One of the easiest ways to find UGC is to monitor social media platforms where your customers and potential influencers are active. You can use hashtags, keywords, mentions, tags, and geolocation to search for relevant content. For example, if you are a travel brand, you can look for UGC that features your destinations, products, or services, or that relates to your niche, such as adventure, luxury, or eco-friendly travel. You can also use tools like Hootsuite, Sprout Social, or BuzzSumo to automate and streamline your social media monitoring.
You can find UGC a few ways. 1. Always monitor who is tagging your brand account. Engage and build a relationship. 2. Social listening. Find people talking about your brand who may not have tagged you properly or could be using hashtags vs tagging you. 3. If you have a brick and mortar check the location tag to see who is using it.
Another way to find UGC is to encourage your customers and followers to submit their content to you. You can do this by creating contests, giveaways, challenges, or campaigns that invite them to share their stories, experiences, or opinions about your brand, products, or services. You can also offer incentives, such as discounts, coupons, freebies, or shoutouts, to motivate them to participate. For example, if you are a beauty brand, you can ask your customers to post a selfie with your product and a hashtag, and reward the best ones with a feature on your website or social media.
As the founder of a UGC engagement tech company, Contribly, that helps brands (ie. media brands) get their audience to submitt their own UGC to editorial and content teams, we have a list of best practices, but here are 3 ways that you can start getting better submissions now: 1.Modelling: People don't submit worse submissions than their peers. Want better quality content? Show examples of what you hope to receive. 2.The why: People only act if they care, that's the value exchange. It can be prizes, shoutouts, but also the impact they can make and that bigger picture. Tell them why they should share! 3.Barrier to entry/quantity: How difficult is what you are asking for, and what do they get in return? Film in the desert vs take a selfie.
A third way to find UGC is to reach out to influencers who have already created content that showcases your brand, products, or services, or that fits your criteria. You can contact them via email, direct message, or comment, and ask them for permission to use their content in your influencer marketing campaigns. You can also offer them compensation, recognition, or collaboration opportunities, depending on their level of influence and engagement. For example, if you are a fitness brand, you can reach out to influencers who have posted videos or photos of them using your equipment or wearing your apparel, and ask them to join your affiliate program or create sponsored content.
Once you have found great UGC, you need to curate and repurpose it for your influencer marketing campaigns. You need to make sure that you have the proper rights and permissions to use the content, and that you give credit and attribution to the original creators. You also need to adapt and optimize the content for different platforms, channels, and formats, such as blogs, newsletters, podcasts, or webinars. For example, if you are a food brand, you can curate and repurpose UGC that features your recipes, products, or tips, and create a blog post, an email newsletter, a podcast episode, or a webinar with the influencers who created the content.