In today’s competitive digital world, brands compete with each other for audience’s attention. They try to use new ways to attract an audience. Traditional methods or sticking to only one method is not sufficient in today’s time. One of the most recent and significant ways to attract the audience’s attention is to use User Generated Content. By doing so they not only attract the attention of potential users but also establish trust and credibility with the audience. 

Using user-generated content creates emotional connection, realness, and authenticity in the audience.  User Generated Content is created by honest users who share their experiences with your brand and offer a new perspective of your brand on social media. According to a study, 79% of people believe that UGC impacts their buying decisions. In this blog, we’ll learn about the emerging trend or rise of user-generated content, its importance, and power! 

Emerging trend of  User Generated content for brand advocacy

User Generated Content is any content such as image, video, reviews, blog comments, Google My Business reviews, discussions forums etc, which are created by users who share their authentic and honest experience of your brand with the world. Social media platforms have given rise to this phenomenon of user generated content. Wherein more and more users share their experiences and opinions with the world. It can be a positive or negative experience. According to a study, 74% of customers inform their buying decisions on social media. 

Customers nowadays want to use a brand that is genuine, trustworthy and produces high quality products and services. UGC helps in building trust and authority amongst the audience. According to a study, 92% of customers listen to people they know for referral other than any other source. 

Also 89% of customers say that they listen to their friends’ recommendations more than any other source. 

Many brands have taken advantage of this and now they even promote such user generated content on their websites and social media accounts. It helps in establishing trust and authority. Also improves your brand reputation and helps in attracting potential customers. Brand’s engagement rate also increases by doing so. Now even brands encourage user generated content and encourage their customers to produce such content, they even offer incentives to some customers for doing so. 

Power of User Generated content

Here are some of the tips to enhance the use of user-generated content in your digital marketing strategy.

• Objective: Define your objective, metrics, and your target audience. Make sure your objective and target audience are aligned with your marketing strategy. 
• Promote: Promote the User Generated Content that you like and meet your marketing objectives. Share photos, videos, reviews, Google My Business reviews, social media posts, and comments made on your website. This also conveys a message that you value your customer’s opinions and it motivates them to further generate more UGC. 
• Contest: Try to gather more UGC by using various tricks such as holding a contest and creating campaigns. Such contests generate awareness about your brand and encourage people to create more user-generated content. 
• Incentive: Give or offer incentives to your customers and encourage them to create more user-generated content. Use incentives such as giving free products, free trials, discounts, providing exclusive information, or recognizing them on social media, etc. This encourages customers to create more UGC. 
• Engage: Don’t just share your user-generated content but also engage with it. Give a reply to your customers, try to personalize your communication and thank them for sharing their experience. 
• Integrate UGC: Try to integrate your user-generated content into every phrase of the marketing funnel from the awareness stage to the purchase stage. Try to add user reviews or testimonials to your website and landing page, use video reviews, and repost or share their UGC on social media stories or on your website. 
• Collaborate: Try to collaborate with influencers to share and promote your UGC. It also helps in reaching a wider customer base. 
• Respond: Respond to your customers’ reviews and social media posts. Appreciate them for sharing their experiences and opinions. 
• Highlight UGC: Promote or highlight user-generated content on your website and social media posts. You can add them to your landing page and ad campaigns as well. This builds trust and encourages more UGC. 
• Valuable Insights: You gain many valuable insights from these UGC. You can make smart and wise decisions based on such data and make necessary changes. 
• Test: Test your content and make necessary adjustments. Be adaptable and choose the UGC that best suits your brand identity and objective. 

Importance of UGC

User-generated content is very important for the following reasons

• Budget Friendly: Using user-generated content is a budget-friendly way to attract new users and increase engagement rate and visibility. You use the content created by your customers rather than hiring a professional to create content or advertisements for your brand. 
• Community building & visibility: User-generated content helps in building a community wherein everyone feels a certain way about the brand and its products. Whenever a customer shares their experiences with the brand, it helps in building positive connections between the brand and the customers. Also, it increases the positive word of mouth of your brand and leads to friend-to-friend recommendations as well. All this helps in increasing the visibility of your brand. 
• Trust: User-generated content helps in building trust in the audience. When they see that other users had a positive experience with you and appreciate your brand and its products, they trust other users’ experience and form a positive opinion about the brand. It helps in building trust and authority. This trust eventually leads to building loyalty in the customers. 
• Adaptability: User-generated content is flexible and changes easily. Brands can acknowledge the latest trends quickly and make necessary changes. They use user-generated memes to stay relevant in time and to engage users. 
• Storytelling: Every user-generated content is a story in itself. All brands need to do is to set a narrative to these stories that evoke emotions in potential customers. This makes your branding more engaging and likable. 
• Engagement: UGC gives a boost to your engagement. UGC encourages users to participate rather than being mere spectators. They contribute heavily. This increases positive emotion and engagement. 
• Social proof: UGC is used strongly for social proof. Positive reviews, videos, images, texts, messages, etc shared by genuine users have a positive impact on the audience. Whenever customers see other users using a product and being happy with it, they indirectly influence potential customers into buying your products. 
• Conversion & SEO: It helps in increasing conversion rate. Seeing other customers happily using your product influences potential customers into buying your products. They trust other people’s recommendations more than advertisements. According to a report, Millennials trust User Generated Content 50% more than the original content of the brand. Also, UGC helps in enhancing your SEO. 
• Humanize: UGC adds a human element to your brand. It highlights the honest experience of the users. This sharing of experience creates an emotional connection in the audience and builds trust and confidence in the brand. 

Example of user generated content

Here are some of the examples of how some big brands have used User Generated Content in their digital marketing strategy to increase their visibility and engagement rate

• Airbnb: Airbnb started a “Live There” video series where they used video reviews or testimonies of their customers describing their experiences of staying in the Airbnb rental properties. These exclusive videos connected viewers with the local communities and host. It led to an increase in the number of bookings they reviewed and formed an emotional connection with the users. 
• Nike: Nike launched a “Just Do It” campaign, where they used user-generated content on their social media account. The posts highlighted how their customers are achieving their everyday fitness goals and overcoming their fears and challenges. This tagline and UGC generated an emotional connection in the audience. It also highlighted the brand’s core values of empowerment, hard work, and perseverance. 
• Sephora: Sephora did something unique and creative. They created a beauty insider community. Where they created an online community of its beauty insider loyalty program members. On this platform, there was a discussion forum, Q&A, user-generated reviews, and tutorials. This boosted their engagement and built trust. It also generated loyal customers and provided valuable insights to make their product even better. 

Conclusion

Given the changing nature of technology and customer behavior, we can assume that the use of user-generated content in digital marketing strategy will continue to evolve. Technological innovations like augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and interactive content will open new opportunities for experimentation. Also parallelly there is an increase in social commerce and influencer marketing, wherein new collaboration will be taking place to boost engagement and sales of the brand. By being aware of the latest trends and adapting to the new technologies, brands can embrace this new change and will continue to be relevant. 

However one thing is certain UGC will always remain relevant as it builds trust, community of loyal customers and increases sales. By using an appropriate digital marketing strategy integrated with UGC, brands can use the power of advocacy and creativity to build long-lasting relationships with customers and improve ROI. Lumia 360 designs a digital marketing strategy that caters to the needs of the brand and is aimed at increasing their sales, engagement, and search engine ranking. We understand the evolving nature of technology and customer behavior, and at the same time, we understand the different needs of different businesses. Our strategies are designed after analyzing valuable insights. To know more about our services, email us at info@lumia360.com or call us at 514-668-5599. 

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