How do you encourage customers to create and share UGC for your e-commerce site?

Encouraging UGC is a great way to get new eyeballs on your brand. Gifting products allows you to grow your brand in an affordable way. The key is finding the right people to represent your brand. You want to find people that fit your brand's values and that have a similar audience who would be interested in your product.

Absolutely, that's a must and incentives have to be quite enticing. Also, it needs to be in direct relation or proportional to the category of purchase - Most common ones being discount/cashback on current purchase. Similarly, many D2C brands rely on small value branded gifts to lure back customers for UGC which is a hit or miss at times. In any case, when a potential customer see a lot UGC being displayed on the site/app - He is going to be impressed at the level of connect between brand and users and in many cases, potential customers end up knowing many more applications as well - #ShotoniPhone is one of the biggest UGC campaign is a testament to this!

UGC can be an excellent way to build brand loyalty and establish a strong connection with your customers. And what better way to get them to participate than by offering them rewards or incentives? It's a smart move to offer something that your customers will find valuable and relevant, like a discount or a freebie. By incentivizing UGC creation, you can inspire your customers to become brand advocates.

Consider creating a sense of urgency to encourage customers to create and share UGC more quickly. Try running a time-limited contest or offer exclusive rewards for the first few participants. This can create a sense of excitement and motivate your customers to take immediate action, leading to an increase in UGC submissions.

Whenever you're providing guidelines I love to send out a brand deck. In the brand deck I include: - Specific words to use/ messaging - Words not aligned with my brand - Brand colors/ styles - Overall rules you obey

Guidelines are important, but don't make them too restrictive. You want to encourage creativity without stifling your fans' creative voice.

Everyone wants their contributions to be acknowledged. By showcasing UGC submissions and thanking the contributors, you strengthen ties with your community and recognize their work.

Sharing UGC is so important. The content creator will appreciate the share and might even help them grow as well! This opens up the opportunity for more people to share your product (more visibility). Remember- people buy from people. Your audience may see all of your UGC and finally get sold to make a purchase.

No better way to encourage engagement than to show off engagement from others. Even better is if the engagement examples you display tell stories that are likely to resonate with other potential users.

When a customer is ready to show some love for the brand, then the best thing any brand can do is to recognise that love with huge appreciation. For any UGC, it's really important for the brand to recognise, highlight and reward those best UGCs. The greatest of the greatest UGCs for many ecommerce sites have been best customer puller than any other marketing campaigns - It holds extremely high sticky value for both current customers and potential customers. Most of the design platforms have grown big in user contributions and platform has gone to extreme lengths to highlight and showcase the most impressive one - Behance/Dribbble have been prime example for this.

I always engage with anyone that is sharing my brand. I want to encourage them to share more and I overall think it's a respectable thing to do. This can become more difficult if you have a large business but for smaller businesses, I think this should be a non-negotiable.

It's not enough to simply post UGC. You need to engage with the content in order to fully participate in the online conversation.

Interacting, responding with, and supporting content generated by users is how you build, maintain, and grow relationships with them. Relationships are the foundation of businesses and businesses that thrive tend to be ones that engender relationships. Additionally, expressions of authentic and personalized gratitude are a powerful way to kick off or to grow a relationship.

When, as a brand, you engage with any particular UGC, you depict that you care for the customer's opinion and love for the brand. Love is a two way street, if not reciprocated (well), it's bound to die. Most customers when they share their bond with the brand and when brand responds to that with genuine appreciation in the form for reply, mail, like or share among its large pool of followers - it's bound to form a strong bond which unofficially, leads to creating brand ambassador(s) who would feel connected to the brand because of the care and respect shown towards them by brand. Mostly, these users take lead in defending the brand when negative outcomes hit the brands unexpectedly in the future.

Analyzing your content is so important. You need to look at your results and see if there are any disconnects between you and your business and the content creator. Ask yourself: - Was this impactful? - What were my overall results? - What can I do in the future to take this to the next level?

Nothing gets done if nothing gets measured. It's important to ensure UGC campaigns are going as per expectations and outcomes/performance is being compared to established benchmarks. Some criteria/benchmarks that has helped us in the past: - Engagement Rate for UGC campaign - CTRs - Velocity (UGC being activated after moderation) - Re engagement rate for UGC enteries - Top UGCs contribution to sales and check outs - Social share on Top UGCs

Measuring and optimizing the performance of your UGC campaign is key to improving your strategy. Use analytics to track reach, engagement, and conversion rates, and gather feedback from customers to refine your incentives and communication.

Regularly review and analyze the success of your UGC campaigns, and be prepared to make adjustments as needed. If you notice a specific type of incentive isn't generating much engagement, consider testing a new approach. By continuously experimenting and optimizing your strategy, you'll ensure you're always getting the most out of this valuable asset.

Social media is a wonderful marketing tool when used correctly. Using content creators to grow your business is a proven method to increase your reach and visibility at a low cost. For small businesses, I encourage gifting collaborations as a starting point.