Leverage the Power of User-Generated Content to Boost Your Brand
17 Jan 2025, By Deya Bhattacharya
17 Jan 2025, By Deya Bhattacharya
By now, we’re all accustomed to seeing branded ads on our social media feeds. We may engage with a few, but by and large, we know instinctively to scroll past them.
But let’s say you see a new post from a friend promoting a new flavour from a prominent chocolate brand, with an exclusive hashtag. Chances are, if you like chocolate as well, you’ll feel intrigued and want to try out the chocolate. And if you enjoyed it, you’ll probably want to join the trend by creating your own post with the brand hashtag.
That’s the power of user-generated content.
User-generated content (UGC), as the term suggests, involves brand content that has been created in full or part by the end user. It can be as simple as a Google review or a Facebook post in which the user mentions the brand, or as detailed as a reel prepared exclusively for an Instagram contest being run by the brand.
While the term might have gained popularity in recent years, the concept of user-generated content has actually been around for many decades. In the 1970s and 1980s, many print ads in the newspapers featured real customers sharing their stories of how a certain product improved their lives. Over time, this evolved into brand contests where users could mail in submissions for the chance to win a grand prize. With the birth of social media, it became even easier to launch UGC campaigns — customers simply have to create a post or video on their personal pages and tag the brand.
Today, user-generated content plays a prominent role in PR and marketing campaigns worldwide. Brands value the authenticity that comes from an ordinary user praising their product rather than a paid celebrity, and are actively investing in encouraging more UGC throughout the year.
Both user generated content and word-of-mouth marketing share the underlying premise of promoting a brand through its enthusiastic customers rather than a paid marketing team. However, while word-of-mouth marketing is about simply spreading the word about the brand, user-generated content involves the active creation of social media posts and other pieces of content to promote the brand across platforms.
User-generated content can instantly boost a brand’s credibility, for the simple fact that it is a real customer sharing a real story. One is more likely to believe an ordinary middle-class buyer talking about how the right medical insurance saved their life, than a celebrity saying the same thing.
Inviting customers to create content with the same branded hashtags helps them feel like part of one big family. This not only encourages new users to join in but also solidifies the sense of loyalty your old customers feel. 2011’s iconic #ShareACoke campaign, for instance, encouraged customers to find Coke bottles with their names or nicknames and share posts online with their personalised Cokes. The campaign was a big success and helped to amplify one’s sense of personal connection with the fan-favourite beverage.
With user-generated content, essentially, you’re getting your loyal fans to promote you on your behalf. This significantly reduces the money and effort you need to expend on creating content in-house.
User-generated content will be visible not only to your brand page’s followers but also to the user’s own circles. Their family and friends will be likelier to trust an enthusiastic post from someone they know than a company-branded post. And as a consequence, you’re likely to win over customers who might not otherwise have considered you.
The new updates to Google have made it clear that the same generic blog posts are no longer enough for a brand’s page to rank. User-generated content is as diverse as the people creating it — and these diverse mentions of your brand will help to build authority with search engines and get you seen by more people.
Make it easy for your users to create content about you. If it’s to speak about a product, invite them to tag your brand’s handle and use the product hashtag. If it’s for a contest, keep the rules simple and fun. Pulse did this to perfection with its #PulsePePulseChallenge, where users had to share videos of themselves stacking three Pulse candies on top of each other within 15 seconds.
Your customers are working hard to create content for you — reward that by offering prizes that are truly valuable to your target audience. It’s always a good idea to have a few grand prizes for the top entries, plus multiple chances to win product hampers or other goodies along the way.
In the weeks leading up to the campaign, make sure you are posting regularly about the contest rules, what hashtags to mention, and what prizes your followers stand to win. You can even consider reaching out to a few loyal customers or micro-influencers and collaborating with them to promote the campaign. The more hype you generate, the more participation you’ll see.
Make your customers feel special by commenting on their UGC or reposting it on your own page. Everyone loves to be noticed and appreciated, and it will encourage them to keep going.
Chances are, you’ll generate a lot more content than your human team can reasonably handle. Invest in social media tools that can filter the incoming UGC and automatically curate the most relevant content according to prize guidelines. These tools can also give you alerts for specific scenarios, such as if your brand is mentioned by an influencer/celebrity or if someone has posted a question or complaint.
Be sure to regularly give shoutouts to your customers for the content they are posting. You can go a step further and create a special post tagging the users who may not have won the contest but whose efforts you loved.
Based on the mentions of your brand handle or hashtag, periodically assess what the outcomes are looking like. Are your target customers actually participating? What are the demographics of the participating customers? What types of content are being produced most and least often? What is the engagement rate on the content? How many site visits and conversions can be attributed to each user-generated post? This will help you modify your campaign as necessary, such as by creating outreach content to target sections of your audience who are participating less.
Like any marketing strategy, user-generated content has its cons. It’s important to be aware of those and to have suitable safeguards in place when you plan your UGC campaign.
User-generated content is a powerful tool to build loyal audiences and establish credibility in a cost-effective fashion. By having clear guidelines, continued engagement, and efficient moderation processes to keep things organised, you can build on your customers’ love for your brand to win over even bigger audiences. As an award-winning Indian PR agency, we at Star Squared PR are ideally positioned to help you navigate the world of UGC. Our experts can help you craft campaigns that strike a chord with your audience and generate enthusiastic participation every time. Reach out to us for a consultation today.
