UGC: The Golden Ticket in Social Content Marketing

User generated content (UGC) is quite interesting because it is ironic for an organization to use its customers or fans to sell or promote to themselves—ironic but very smart if you can find a way to harness quality content. It can be much more effective than traditional marketing. According to one marketing content expert, “70% of consumers place peer recommendations and reviews above professionally written content” (Turton, econsultancy.com). Users have the unique ability to convey “social proof” that a particular new jean brand is cool, which really just means that people are drawn to brands that other people like and trust (Francis). Also more is better in this case. The more people like something, the stronger an influence it will have, until it could potentially reach viral status. UGC is predicated on the advent of social media but it is not without precedent. However, before social media, user content could not easily reach the masses.

Although it’s likely not the first branded content to go “viral”, that is certainly what eventually happened with Andy Warhol’s “Tomato Soup Cans” exhibit. Interestingly, Warhol was a little known painter at the time and his exhibit of 32 different paintings sold poorly. Nonetheless, his 1962 exhibit certainly instilled the Campbell Soup Company in the psyches of millions of people. Warhol did not create this exhibit to increase sales for Campbell’s but he drank it himself and wanted to paint an object that many people see everyday but rarely talk about (Andy Warhol). He never would have guessed that in the 21st century, people are constantly talking about the products in their lives, often with strangers around the world.

Much UGC today is not induced by any program that brands’ employ; instead consumers that are happy or upset with a brand decide to create it in order to communicate their feelings with others. This is the inherent difficulty with customers having such a wide reaching platform for sharing their thoughts, photos and videos. Content that is created by consumers without any impetus from the company is much less likely to be in line with the company’s ethos and it may even be damaging. Thus, the best UGC is developed though a carefully executed strategy that includes incentives for consumers who create great content — consumers will only exert an effort if they feel there is a potential reward that is equal to their effort (Siu blog.hubspot.com). According to Jessica Ann, Content Marketing Institute, “…experience has revealed that sincerity isn’t just ideal for successful UGC; it’s crucial.” Authenticity is rare in a world where, “86% of businesses now use content marketing and of those, 70% are creating more content than they did a year ago” (Turton econsultancy.com).

UGC is incredible because it’s powered by people’s love of being social and when people care about a brand, it becomes personal. However, companies need to be transparent about their UGC so people will trust it, and that is what we’re seeing more and more. Users are not being compensated like they were in the early days of UGC, ten years ago, but they are putting real effort into their content. Creating a brand that people genuinely want to associate with in order to show how cool they are for liking it (i.e. Belkin/Lego)(Lego Case) is what drives, “value, relevance and consistency.? These have proven to be the requirements for “customer action” i.e. sales (Turton econsultancy.com). That’s the golden ticket!

References

Ann, J. (2015). Turn user-generated content into undeniable, glorious connections. contentmarketinginstitute.com:

Francis, A. (2015). Six psychology articles that could help your content marketing econsultancy.com.

https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7334/12803035824_0189f27af6_b.jpg

N/A. (2015). Andy warhol Wikipedia.org.

Siu, E. (2015). 10 user generated content campaigns that actually worked blog.hubspot.com.

Turton, S. (2015). How user generated content is changing content marketing Econsultancy.com.