UGC in Content Marketing: 5 Benefits and How to Encourage It

User-generated content (UGC) is a unique part of content marketing strategies, inviting your audience to share their experiences of you to further your brand and offering.

UGC may be reviews, testimonials, social media posts, videos, and blog contributions, all created by customers, followers, or brand advocates rather than your company itself. This blog will explore how UGC can benefit your business, and give you tips for engaging in this special aspect of marketing. Let’s dive in:

5 benefits of UGC: how does it help?

Since UGC comes from customers instead of the company in question, it is received by audiences in a different way. While regular marketing messaging can be super engaging and effective, UGC is undeniably more believable.

1. Trustworthiness

First and foremost, consumers are more likely to trust content created by their peers than by brands.

UGC is more genuine and unbiased, making it a significant player in the game of influencing purchasing decisions. A unique testimonial from a real customer will carry much more weight than a highly polished ad from a brand. Whatever claims are made, UGC is more trustworthy as customers creating this content wouldn’t rave about something they disliked – plus, influencers must use #ad for transparency, so audiences know when they’re seeing less authentic reviews.

These reviews, known as ‘social proof ’, are extremely crucial to purchasing decisions. Audiences will feel more confident about the quality of your offering when they see others using and enjoying it. By utilising reviews and content like unboxing videos, you can expect to see greater conversion rates, driven by trust in your brand.

2. Participation

Another benefit of encouraging UGC from your audience is the sense of community that it fosters. Firstly, being invited into discussions feels great, and customers will feel valued if they’re asked to share their experiences. Secondly, those creators will get an even greater sense of appreciation and involvement once they see their content posted on your website or social media account.

And finally, this back-and-forth leads to higher engagement rates on your various platforms. This level of excited activity signals to social media sites and search engines that your content is hot, which leads to the next benefit…

3. Search engine optimisation

Since we’re all a little bit exhausted from our constant SEO efforts, it’s a great relief when we can contribute to it when working on other projects.

Encouraging UGC will help your business’s SEO in the background for two reasons. Firstly, reviews and discussions from users often contain natural language keywords that potential customers search for. And secondly, when users share UGC on their own platforms, it generates backlinks for your own profiles and website.

4. Stimulating creativity

One unexpected outcome of encouraging UGC is the creative feedback it provides for branding and marketing teams. Customers provide diverse viewpoints and experiences that a small team might not consider, so UGC can work similarly to focus groups. There will be an unexpected diversity in audiences which can enlighten your business to unique use cases or individual experiences that you hadn’t previously considered.

Ultimately this can do wonders for future marketing or product development since you’ll be working with a greater understanding of your customer base, and you’ll be able to create more relatable messaging or products.

5. Preservation of resources

Our final incentive is that UGC is much cheaper than alternative content marketing strategies. When done right, a UGC strategy can consistently bring in new content without needing a huge investment. Making high-quality content in-house can be expensive; plus, it doesn’t have that same trustworthiness that makes UGC so valuable.

How to encourage UGC

If you’re not already sending an automatic follow-up email asking for feedback, this is the first and easiest way to encourage UGC. Then, you can turn any review into a graphic that you can post on your social media pages or website testimonials page.

Customers will be more likely to contribute if they feel they are a part of something bigger. Therefore, you should be clear in your requests for feedback that you would love to share their experience on your pages. Don’t forget to reinforce the idea that their voices matter by engaging with their feedback – whether that’s responding to or resharing their posts.

More creative options include running contests, challenges, giveaways, ambassador schemes, and interactive campaigns. These approaches will give your audience a bit more encouragement, whilst making it more enjoyable for them. Make it easy by creating a hashtag that all users can use in their contributions to whatever creative campaign you come up with.

UGC best practices

To start your new UGC strategy on the right foot, consider the following do’s and don’ts:

Do provide creative prompts

Customers might need a little bit of direction. To help with this, you could offer specific themes, questions, or challenges to inspire their contribution. For example, you could suggest a ‘before and after’ theme if you sell a fitness product. Or join the ‘caption this’ trend with a funny shot from behind the scenes at the office.

Do showcase user stories beyond social media

While your social media pages are great places for sharing UGC, there are other valuable locations you could be making use of. Featuring UGC in emails, product pages, and marketing materials showcases these authentic stories across multiple customer touchpoints and reinforces that sense of trustworthiness through the entire sales funnel.

Do create a clear brand hashtag

A unique and memorable hashtag will make it easier for users to contribute. Plus, it’s a simple way for your marketing team to track down UGC and share it.

Do interact with contributors

Crucially, you must acknowledge and engage with UGC. This will not only encourage further content in the future but also show your brand to be respectful and appreciative of customers.

Don’t assume every piece of UGC aligns with your brand values

However, that doesn’t mean you need to share every piece of UGC out of kindness. It’s important to remember that not every piece of user content will be on-brand or appropriate for the campaigns or persona you’re trying to create. To make sure the UGC you share is optimal for your branding, you might choose to create a guideline as a team that you can refer back to in future. Make sure you filter out the content that’s low-quality and anything that will misrepresent your brand’s professional image.

Don’t ignore negative or critical UGC

While negative feedback is always difficult to receive, it’s very important that you don’t disregard it. Brands that engage constructively with critical feedback demonstrate their commitment to providing an excellent service and that they value their customers.

Don’t overuse incentives at the expense of authenticity

You might be tempted to provide incentives for users creating content about your brand. While rewards do encourage participation, you’ll want to be careful about how much you offer in exchange. If you rely too heavily on incentivising customers, it can make the content feel forced and inauthentic. Your UGC should be organic and genuine, not poorly disguised adverts.

Don’t make participation complicated

If participating in this strategy is too complex for customers, they’re likely to lose interest and not create the content you desire. Therefore, you should avoid requiring users to sign up or adhere to specific formats.

Final thoughts

User-generated content is a powerful marketing asset that fosters trust, boosts engagement, and provides cost-effective, high-quality content for your business. By integrating it into your strategy, you can build strong relationships with your customers and improve conversion rate.

Don’t forget to tell your customers that their voices matter. They’ll be much more inclined to share their experiences if they feel valued.

For further assistance with your content marketing needs, reach out to us here at purpleplanet. We offer a whole suite of digital solutions:

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