For those of you who aren’t aware, user-generated content (also known as UGC) is content related to your brand that’s created by someone else – e.g a customer or a client. It is content from the user, for the user!
It could be anything from an online review to a tagged post or story on Instagram (photo or video). USG is more popular on social media, and is something that most of us are guilty of doing – sharing information about a business online.
We’re going to look at three of the best types of user-generated content that you should be using in your marketing strategy. USG have proved to be an asset for marketers and provide us with extra content to use.
1. Content from social media
On social media, the reality is, UGC sells. When people see any content that is posted by a user or someone they know, they tend to get influenced by that content. It feels more personal.
This content can be used strategically by brands to gain a large volume of customers.
For example, take this post from Airbnb.com: https://www.instagram.com/p/CQI34_ttmmy/
They are promoting a cottage using a UGC image from https://www.instagram.com/blackheathartistcottage/ . From this post, you can feel the connection to the cottage, and the personal touch behind Airbnb because they have chosen to use someone’s photo. Someone who has actually visited the cottage.
Within the hospitality and F&B industries especially, UGC is key.
2. Reviews & Testimonials
Online reviews are essentially the internet’s version of ‘word-of-mouth’. It is the other popular type of UGC.
Online reviews help other customers know about the brand before visiting.
Spots on Booking.com rely heavily on reviews, for example. Most people, once visiting a place they have booked on booking.com, are very likely to write a review about their experience. Likewise for restaurants, and even stores.
For the good reviews, a great idea to use this content in your marketing strategy, is by screenshotting them and sharing them with your audience. Show them the great things that people have been saying about your business. It is a win-win.
3. # Hashtag campaigns
Hashtag campaigns are promotional events carried out primarily on Instagram (can be done on Facebook too).
Simply put, audiences use a specific hashtag used by the brands to display their products and reliability. This is used to prompt engagement between the brand and the user, and it’s also a perfect way to get UGC. They can be seen as online word-of-mouth campaigns.
To wrap it up, User-generated content can be seen as one of the best forms of content marketing.
