In the current era, where customers are willing to gush about your goods or services online, user-generated content (UGC) has emerged as a crucial component of the content marketing strategy. UGC is a term used to describe content produced by a brand’s customers. It could be anything, including posts on social media, reviews, comments, and images.

According to the Nielsen Consumer Trust Index, 92 per cent of consumers place more trust in user-generated content than they do in traditional advertising. This is so because user-generated content (UGC) is unpaid, unbiased, and generated by customers who like a company’s products. UGC is viewed as being more real and sincere as a result. User-generated content serves as social proof to advance the message of your brand, assisting you in gaining more social media followers, enhancing client relationships, fostering trust among the target market, increasing SEO value, and increasing sales.

Here are 5 efficient ways to use UGC to boost the effectiveness of your marketing initiatives:

1. Reviews: In order to decide which products to buy, more than 70% of consumers say they read product reviews. Reviews convince prospective customers that your products are trustworthy. You can increase website traffic, establish trust, and improve conversion rates with the aid of ratings and reviews.

Every chance you get, you should encourage your customers to review your business. They can post reviews on your website, Facebook page, or on independent review websites like Yelp, Google, G2Crowd, TripAdvisor, etc. When it comes to conversions, both on- and off-site user-generated reviews are significant.

You can incentivize your customers to motivate them to write reviews by providing them with coupons, reward points, gift cards, etc. Try sending them emails with incentive keywords in your subject line in order to get more reviews, as email subject lines have the biggest impact on buyers.

When you get negative reviews, consider them as opportunities to earn the trust of your customers. Be courteous and respond to each customer personally to show you care about their views and experience. Remember that both positive and negative reviews play key roles in terms of helping a brand look authentic.

Take a look at the reviews received by a dress on the Modcloth website. It has over 1,600 reviews, most of which are positive. Showing buyers this many user-generated reviews can prove to be very effective in enhancing sales for your business.

2. Contests for Hashtags: Hosting contests on social media, coming up with original hashtags, and soliciting participation from your followers are all ways to obtain user-generated content. You can nudge fans to share content on social media and use a specific hashtag by holding a UGC hashtag competition. In order to enter a contest and win prizes, users can share media such as pictures and videos with a particular hashtag.

Your followers can make your hashtag trend by using it frequently and spreading the word about it. This could improve the way your target audience engages with you, increase brand recognition, and ultimately increase sales. To ensure success, make sure your hashtags are simple to remember and spell. Additionally, it’s crucial to use hashtags that distinguish your brand from those of your rivals and to use your custom hashtag in each and every one of your posts.

For instance, well-known fashion designer Marc Jobs announced that Twitter and Instagram would be used by his business to cast the model for their upcoming advertising campaign. Users who wanted to take part had to upload an image to Instagram or Twitter along with the hashtag CastMeMarc. Within a day, 15,000 hashtags were entered in the contest, which was very well-liked.

3. Video Content: Regardless of the nature of your content, video is an incredibly effective way to generate UGC. In a way that other forms of media can’t, it can facilitate audience engagement. According to Octoly, brand-related user-generated videos on YouTube receive ten times as much attention as official brand videos. User-generated content has a huge shareability potential and a greater chance of going viral, which can greatly increase your audience.

Videos from user-generated content (UGC) provide unique viewpoints on your goods and services, enhancing the legitimacy of your brand. They enhance the reputation of your brand by giving the public insights into the sincerity and reliability of your company. Since UGC videos can engage your audience and demonstrate customer support, they are preferable to traditional marketing methods.

A UGC video was part of Pampers’ “Love, Sleep, and Play” campaign. Using carefully selected content from its audience, the brand produced a successful video. Customers were asked to submit videos of babies through Facebook, which were then edited together to make one video. Because the video’s depiction of the babies playing, sleeping, and having fun together was appealing to the target market for the brand, it received favourable reviews.

4. Gamification: Gamification is a further strategy for encouraging user-generated content (UGC) and user engagement. Users who participate in gamification are given incentives and recognition after completing a small number of tasks.

Brands make use of ideas such as levels, leaderboards, badges, high scores, and points. to force users to finish tasks and post their successes. You can also award prizes to game winners by giving them exclusive discounts, unlocking badges, adding them to your VIP club, etc. to boost involvement.

Users are motivated by small rewards to work harder than they otherwise would to complete tasks. Therefore, gamification enables you to establish a long-lasting relationship with your customers and assists in converting followers into devoted clients who are motivated to make additional purchases from you.

Nike used gamification to maintain relationships with its customers. Gamification was incorporated into the Nike fuelband app for the campaign. The runners could monitor various aspects of their exercise, such as distance, time, pace, calories burned, etc. within the app. The app was also connected to social media so that users could compete with one another and post their results, which helped the brand become more well-known and visible.

Badges and trophies were awarded to users after they completed various levels, which increased engagement and prompted customers to purchase Nike goods. Additionally, the company may gather user information for gamified product segmentation and marketing.

5. Holiday-related Material: There are lots of opportunities for businesses to interact with their customers during the holiday season. By establishing an emotional connection with their customers, brands can become more relatable.

To include UGC in your marketing plan for peak seasons or significant events, you must think of inventive and compelling ways. In order to select the platforms that are most appropriate for your needs, you must first decide who your target audience is and what your UGC holiday goals are. You might ask your followers to post photos or videos or use your hashtags or leave reviews or take part in competitions. and then tell your friends about it.

Starbucks begins the RedCupContest for its followers in December, just in time for the holidays. Fans are encouraged to share their personalized coffee cups on social media so they can enter to win a Starbucks gift card.

In order to post photos, followers must first purchase a red Starbucks cup, making this a clever campaign using seasonal UGC. The world’s largest coffee company rewards its supporters for increasing engagement and brand awareness. You can encourage customers to create UGC and increase your sales by getting them excited about the holidays.