10 ways to attract UGC for your brand

Business marketing is abuzz now with user-generated content (UGC) and over 50 million people identify as UGC creators. Demand for UGC is at an all-time high and it’s become a significant way for companies to boost their product and brand reputation.?

The Math: UGC = Social Proof = Engages more customers + Increase revenue.?

Why? Because studies show people trust your brand and decide to purchase your product by as much as a whopping 10 times when your website and social media accounts have UGC.

Think of UGC as the interface between brands and consumers. Whether it’s an email newsletter, a TikTok video, IG reel, or a photo on social media, UGC can drive a customer to click on “Buy” or at least help them recall your brand. Like reviews and social media posts, a UGC creator is created by your existing customers based on their experience and opinions about your products and/or service.

Collecting user-generated content or UGC is now a key part of marketing campaigns with companies worldwide. You need to build a bank of trustworthy, credible and attractive content from your users for your website, social media channels and business collaterals.

Here are 10 ways to get your users to create this content for you:

1. Show appreciation

Reward your existing UGC contributors!?

• Repost photos, quotes, or text that you didn’t create and credit them back to the original owner.?
• Tag the owner in your caption or over an image on Instagram and thank them. Tagging increases exposure and image tagging means the tagged post appears on both your account and the account you tagged. The tagged section on Instagram is in itself a great UGC bank.

2. Ask Your Community?

Invite loyal customers to become VIPs who create content for your brand.?

• Connect with repeat purchase customers, followers and partners. Followers are fans and are probably already creating content around your products and services. Ask if you can share their content for free or for products or perks.?
• Make them part of an exclusive circle that are given benefits - recognition, monetary compensation, exclusive perks, or free products.?
• Give clear ground rules about the type of content you want, what they aren’t allowed to mention or talk about the perks and benefits of being a brand ambassador.?
• Post a question sticker on your Instagram story so that followers can make recommendations.?
• Do a feed post and ask followers to tag their favorite creators in the comments.?

3. Build a UGC-friendly platform

Your platform can ask users to submit and share their content.?

• Run UGC campaigns or contests and state what content type you want for example using a unique hashtag so you can collect the content.?
• Consider platforms like Taggbox Widget to embed these user posts into your website, which in turn creates other engagement opportunities for visitors to the website and asking them to join in the fun as well.?
• Embed user reviews into your website. This shows you value customer feedback and encourages others to provide more review content.
• Share and promote UGC on your website, social media, and other marketing channels to increase its visibility.

4. Listen to & Ask for Feedback

Engage with your customers, and respond to their feedback and suggestions to improve their experience.?

• Direct contact: ask customers to review your product is by sending them an email after a purchase has been delivered. Or you could add a form right below your content for customers to fill up. You can also provide a “Leave A Review” CTA at the bottom of a product page on your website by providing a “Leave a review” CTA. This could be placed just under other customer reviews.
• Contact tools: some social media automation platforms help you monitor user conversations, so you can reach out and thank users for their shout outs or invite them to collaborate by creating more UGCs. These platforms also offer social media analytics?to track and evaluate your UGC performance which you can use to then use to tap on these users again to potentially continue with more UGC.

5. Create a unique hashtag

Creating your brand’s very own hashtag helps push your brand on channels like Twitter and Instagram. You can also use?social media management tools?for the best results in social media marketing. They can help you find posts your customers published about you on their own accounts. Remember to?ask for permission to repost their content?on your website or social media.?

6. Launch Instagram Contests

Hosting contests on Instagram is a great way to get UGC fast. Starbuck has a red cup contest #RedCupContest on Instagram every Christmas. It helped Starbucks get 35,000 UGC assets for the Christmas season and drove up sales too! Remember to state the contest rules including how users can participate and what you want them to say or show for their posts, how to tag your page or what hashtag to use.

7. Engage Employee Ambassadors

Your employees are your brand’s most valuable assets – they run your business and they are your best brand ambassadors! An Edelman Trust Barometer study reports that your customers are more willing to trust what your employees say over your C-suite heads or stakeholders! Your employees’ engagement levels can directly impact?your brand reputation. Start with a social media account for them where they can publish content they’ve created. For instance, HubSpot’s HubSpot Life Instagram features a HubSpot employee appointed to manage the account and curate and create posts for it each week.

8. Monitor Your UGC

There are analytic tools that monitor and curate UGC. They help spot fresh content on your brand and offer analytics for the performance of your UGC posts. Do they?get better engagement? What type of UGC performed best? This helps you curate the most effective posts, and refine the conversion-boosting posts.

9. Collaborate with Creators

Develop a content creator strategy then reach out?to your users. You can do this directly through your social media accounts, via a creator marketplace?(like TikTok’s), a platform partner like Insense, or digital asset platforms that connect with creators like KittyKat.?Remember to incentivize your creators: for example how Starbucks motivated its followers to post a photo using its holiday cup and adding the hashtag?#redcupcontest, in exchange for a contest entry.?

10. Use Creator Platforms

Yes, there are platforms that connect UGC creators with brands. These include:

• Minisocial
• Paid
• Taggbox
• TRIBE
• Insense?

and visual content platforms like KittyKat or Yotpo which?also offer ecommerce customer engagement and UGC collaboration programs. This saves you time searching for users. Simply set up a creative brief, state to your user demographic, and the platforms do the outreach for you (for a fee).?