User-Generated Content as a Digital Marketing Strategy

User-Generated Content as a Digital Marketing Strategy

 What is it, and how can you use it in your Digital Marketing Strategy.

User-generated content (UGC) is content created by the end-user for a product service or brand, or as defined on webopedia.com

“UGC is the term used to describe any form of content such as video, blogs, discussion form posts, digital images, audio files, and other forms of media that was created by consumers or end-users of an online system or service and is publically available to others consumers and end-users.”

UGC is very trendy in digital marketing these days, primarily because it fosters brand loyalty. Now more than ever, consumers and content creators are producing UGC for brands they love and support, resulting in electronic word of mouth (eWOM) brands and organizations can leverage in their digital marketing strategy and social media marketing. People trust other people just like them talking about products and services because it seems more authentic and relatable.

A company can capitalize on UGC for use in digital and social media marketing in several ways.

One way is by passively monitoring brand mentions online and on social media. Social media marketers can then engage with that user-generated content by liking, commenting on, or sharing the original content.

Your social media manager can take this method one step further by re-sharing the content to brand social media channels. However, make sure to follow best practices for sharing UGC if you are doing this.

A more involved way of sharing and igniting user-generated content is by including a UGC strategy in your digital marketing plan. This is done in several ways, and I am sure you have seen some large and small ways of rolling out UGC marketing strategy. Two famous examples are the Doritos “Crash the Super Bowl” and Lay’s “Flavor of You” contests.

AdWeek -2015

Not all UGC strategy needs to be this robust to still get strong results. Here are a few simpler ways of implementing UGC into your social media strategy:

• Hold a social media contest
• Ask users to share their experience online
• Send bloggers and influencers free products
• Host and event and ask attendees to tag your company
• Use a event specific hashtags

There are several more ways to generate UGC and like all strategies and tactics, there are best practices your team should be following. As we mentioned in our post on eWOM, encouraging UGC can be a powerful way of recruiting consumers into becoming your advocates and cheerleaders online.  

Read more at LHMstrategic.com