92 percent of consumers are more likely to trust content that is user-generated instead of created by the company itself, a study carried out by Nielsen Consumer Trust Index shows. While there may be many different reasons for this happening, one thing is clear for sure: you need to include user-generated content in your marketing plan as soon as possible! If you’re confused about how to do that, then worry no more because we bring you 5 ways to get the job done.
Reviews
Almost 70 percent customers search online to look for product reviews before they make their final purchase. Reviews from other customers who have tried your product out before are essential not only for this reason but also because they are a sort of free publicity in the sense that they show other potential customers that your product is reliable and has good features. In order to encourage users to write reviews, you might initially have to incentivize them by offering coupons, discounts or such offers.
Hashtag Contests
One of the best ways to encourage an influx of a lot of user-generated content is through contents on social media sites. The most common out of all of these is the hashtag contest where you ask and incentivize your users to create unique hashtags that describe your business, product or service or describe their experience with the company. The great part is that in hashtag competitions, they come along with some photos or videos, so that gives you even more content to work with when you only asked for hashtags. Such contests are amazing because you get user-generated content and also new hashtags to use.
Video Content
User-generated videos about brands tend to be viewed 10 times more as compared to normal videos created by the company itself. Such content is also more shareable and brings with it an increased possibility of going viral. Buzzfeed does this very often, by holding competitions about the funniest videos and encourages users to send in videos for them to display on their official social media accounts.
Special Content for Holiday Season
The holiday season is the time when every brand is trying to humanize itself and seem more connected to its users. And what better way to do this than by using user-generated content! There are many different ways you can go about this. Take the example of Starbucks, which launched its #RedCupContest in which it encouraged users near Christmas season to customize their Starbucks coffee cups and upload pictures of them. Some users were even represented on Starbucks official Instagram account, and others were rewarded gift cards.
Don’t Restrict Yourself to One Way Only
The worst mistake you could make is to restrict yourself to only one way of incorporating user-generated content into your marketing plan. There need to be at least 2-3 different ways you are going to go about this, so users can see how much you value their content. Good luck!
