The Complete Guide to UGC

The Complete Guide to User-Generated Content (UGC)

User-Generated content is any content (images, video, text, audio, etc.) about a brand created by an unofficial representative. If it's content about your brand that wasn't commissioned by your business, it's user-generated content.

Why you should care about UGC?

Trends indicate that user-generated content is becoming more trusted, memorable and influential to customers every year. 

Did you know: 

• Consumers are 2.4x more likely to say UGC is more authentic than brand-created content.
• 79% of people say UGC highly impacts their purchasing decisions.
• 51% of consumers say they'd likely continue engaging with or purchasing from a brand if it shared their social post.

As technology such as smartphones, cameras, and laptops becomes cheaper and more powerful, so too has the quality and availability of UGC for bands to utilise.

Each day 350 million images were posted on Facebook and 95 million photos and videos on Instagram (2021). Of TikTok's 1 billion monthly active users, over 80% have posted at least one video. On YouTube, 500 videos are uploaded every minute!

Everyday consumers have become some of the leading content creators on these platforms.

What makes UGC effective?

Unfortunately for us marketers, it's known we're trying to position our products and services in the best light. Even, dare we say, omitting some details? 

Even with fully transparent advertising, most consumers believe advertisements to be "exaggerated" to some degree. Others surveyed went further to say they'd "refuse to make a decision" based only on a company's advertising.

With this consumer sentiment, User-Generated Content is an excellent solution for marketers for an authentic buying experience.

Where does UGC fit into your marketing?

User-generated content can be used across all customer journey stages to influence engagement and increase conversion rates. 

Most customers agree that user-generated content is an excellent way to discover new products. Marketers are finding innovative ways to make their consumers discuss their brands on social media, bringing new eyeballs to their products and services. 

Did you know: Websites gain a 29% increase in conversions when using UGC?

UGC is great for brand publicity and sales, so the more a brand encourages it from its customers, the better. It's less time and money spent on advertising campaigns.

When customers create content about a brand (and give permission to use it), marketers gain free content they would have otherwise paid to photographers, videographers, podcasters etc. Efforts to create content can go towards promoting the brand UGC.

How to encourage user-generated content

We all want UGC, but how exactly do we get it? Here are several ways to encourage user-generated content from your fans: 

#1 Create Buzz

If you want people to talk about your brand, you need to give them a reason to do so.

One of the most outstanding ongoing UGC campaigns was by Coca-Cola's 'Share a Coke'. They swapped out their logo with one of the 150 most popular names and asked people to share a coke with a person whose name was on it. 

The result was a highly sharable and engaging promotion.

#2 The Power of Hashtags

Hashtags are a great tool to encourage UGC. A savvy hashtag will be unique, self-explanatory (even to those unfamiliar with the brand) and be a call to action.

Here are 3 examples of hashtags leveraged by brands that generated a ton of UGC: 

#IceBucketChallenge by ALS Association

The only way to have missed the #IceBucketChallenge in 2014 was to live under a rock. The challenge was simple, pour ice and water on yourself, nominate three others to do the same and donate to the ALS Association.

#PutACanOnIt by Red Bull

One day the marketers of Red Bull found a photo on Twitter of a guy making a Mini Cooper look like it was carrying a giant Red Bull. Amused, they shared it and asked others to use the art of perspective to create funny photos of other objects and #PutACanOnIt.

The result: 10,000 original #PutACanOnIt images were uploaded to Twitter and Instagram within a few months.

#MyCalvins by Calvin Klein

The #MyCalvins campaign was a call out to people to showcase themselves wearing Calvin Klein underwear.

While you might think a campaign asking people to take photos of themselves in underwear would struggle to take off. The #MyCalvins hashtag is coming up to 1 million posts on Instagram!

#3 Social Competitions Via MyTime

If you want to give your UGC an artificial boost, consider a giveaway via a social competition via MyTime! 

MyTime allows brands to launch competitions for their customers. As followers compete for rewards, they'll share their UGC to get votes inside the competition. The image or video with the most likes wins. 

MyTime competition dashboards are simple to navigate and easy for fans to upvote their favourite creators.

With each competition entry, brands gain: 

• Forced virality as users share content.
• The legal right to use UGC for promotional purposes.
• Customer insights, with a powerful dashboard of analytics.

Key Takeaways

1. Marketers are turning to user-generated content to combat declining trust in advertising. 
2. UGC can be used in all customer journey stages, from product discovery to the checkout page. 
3. There are many ways to encourage UGC from your followers, but the best way to encourage UGC, capture content and data is to launch a MyTime campaign.

Try it today. IT'S FREE!