How to Effectively Use Social Media User Generated Content

User generated content, also known as UGC content on social media, is content in the form of posts that has been created by people about a brand without any financial reward.

In other words, UGC in marketing involves publishing posts talking about a business or brand from people who simply enjoy the products or services but are not in any marketing partnership with the business.

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Having people create user generated content is very beneficial in many ways.

First, it’s free. People don’t get paid to write posts about your brand.

The second benefit of using UGC in marketing is that it acts as social proof, because it displays people enjoying your products or services, and social proof can help attract more customers, as people tend to follow other people’s actions.

The third benefit is that UGC content is more trusted than any other type of post about a brand, because the person publishing the content is not financially incentivized to do so.

This means that a UGC campaign is even more powerful than an ad or an endorsement by a social media influencer because it’s more authentic and believable and people tend to trust their friends’ recommendations more than ads.

The fourth benefit is that UGC content can really trigger word-of-mouth marketing for your business, as you are leveraging the audience of the people posting content about your brand on their social media profiles. This means that your brand is reaching the newsfeed of people you might not ever be able to reach yourself.

The fifth benefit of UGC user generated content is the fact that you can share this content on social media, and therefore be able to update your social media accounts with fresh unique content without having to create the posts yourself. All you need to do is look for user generated content about your brand and share it.

There are many ways to discover UGC user generated content about your brand.

First, to start a UGC campaign, check any mentions of your username in the search box of your social media account because usually if people are talking about a brand in their posts, they will include the username of the brand in it.

For example, if I type in Twitter’s search box, our Twitter username, I will see all the posts written about us by other people. Simply go through the list and share the ones you like the most.

The second way to find UGC content about your brand is by creating your own branded hashtag. Starbucks for example have created the hashtag #Starbucks and Nike has created the hashtag #justdoit, so anyone publishing posts referring to these brands will usually add their branded hashtag.

So simply type in the search box of your social media account your branded hashtag and you will be able to see everyone who has written anything about your brand. Go through the list and pick the ones you want to share.

There are many ways you can encourage people to create user generated content about your brand.

The first way to use UGC in marketing is by acting quickly when someone does publish something about your brand, by thanking them and acknowledging them publically while also sharing their post to your audience. This positive interaction can entice them to do it more often and entice others to do the same.

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You can find user generated content examples on Starbucks’ social media accounts as they often share other people’s posts about their products.

This person recently published on Instagram a picture of their Starbucks coffee, with the caption “this helps for little to no sleep.” Starbucks then shared the post, and added the comment “Don’t forget to stop and thank your coffee for getting you through the week” and included the username of the person who published the post.

You can also find user generated content examples on Diamond Candles’ social media accounts as they encourage user generated content really well. Diamond Candles is a candle company that includes a different ring of different value in each of their candles.

Every time a customer burns their candle until the end, they get to discover which kind of ring they got and they encourage their customers to share a picture of the ring on social media. When people share the ring on social media by taking a picture of the ring itself or taking a picture of them wearing the ring, Diamond Candles shares it on their social media profiles and congratulates their customer.

This helps them not only to publish unique, fresh and engaging content but also experience social proof and word-of-mouth for free.

Another way to encourage user generated content is by asking your audience questions about your brand. For example, you could ask your audience what are the 3 reasons they love your brand.

Or you could ask your audience to describe how your product has made their life easier, or to name a person they would gift your product to, or share your product with. When you go through all the answers, create posts out of the best answers.

Another way to encourage user generated content is through contests. Your contest could invite people to share a picture of them using your product and the best picture or the most creative picture wins a free product of yours.

If you sold sunscreen, you could ask people to supply a picture of the most original or exotic location they’ve taken your sunscreen along as user generated content examples.

If you sell homeware, other user generated content examples could be your customers sharing a picture of your product display in their home, and the best picture gets featured in your next advertising campaign.

Make sure to really celebrate publicly the winner of your contests as this will really encourage others to participate in your contest too, and make sure to make the prizes worth pursuing.

Another way to encourage UGC user generated content is to enable people to leave reviews about your product. There are many tools that facilitate the process of a UGC campaign, and you can easily add a review tab on your website and on Facebook.

Make sure you monitor the reviews and create posts turning the best reviews into images you can publish across all your social media accounts.

Tools such as canva.com or quozio.com allow you to easily copy and paste a customer review onto a background image.

Make sure you add the name of the person who added the review, and when publishing their review on social media, add a comment thanking them for their kind words about your product or service and remember to add their social media username so they get notified you have mentioned them.

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