One thing many brands might not realize is they can make their most loyal customers even better.
Your brand can achieve this by motivating your customers to become advocates by incentivizing them to create and post original content. One of the main reasons your best customers don’t post more content on your social channels is because they aren’t motivated by any promotion.
If you want to turn your best customers into brand advocates, offer them more incentives to engage with you and create their own content, whether that’s through in-store events, email, experiential benefits, or social media sharing.
When you give your customers a reason to create and share their own original content, you can identify brand advocates and strategically engage social media conversations on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook by targeting hashtags or post comments.
User-generated Content is Fun and Helps Transform Your Best Customers Into Advocates
So, how impactful is user-generated content?
Consider this statistic: Ninety-three percent of consumers trust content created by customers more than content created by brands.
You can see why UGC (User-generated Content) is so valuable to brands and their customers.
Given the explosion of social media platforms, UGC marketing campaigns have flourished as well. UGC is any form of content, including texts, photos, audio, images, or video that is voluntarily created by individuals and shared in blog posts, on social media, brand pages, podcasts, and review sites.
Since most consumers carry smartphones 24/7, they’re quite adept at capturing moments, videos, and creating content in the palms of their hands. And this content is easily and quickly distributed across various social media platforms.
Why not tap into this steady stream of UGC by offering your customers promotions that include chances to earn prizes, sweepstakes, and instant wins? They’d be more than happy to enter any of these brand-related contests by submitting original content in exchange for potential rewards.
Give Your Customers a Reason to Share Original Content About Your Brand
One of the valuable assets UGC can give you is it helps instill trust among your customers. When consumers see others using your products in their homes, it paints a clear picture of quality.
UGC also doesn’t have to be specifically product-related. It can be images, videos, or text that support your products and overall brand messaging.
Customers who love your brand will engage in creating UGC for your brand if you ask them to – they just want you to explain what you’re looking for. If you specify what kind of UGC you’re looking for, your customers will gladly abide.
Be specific in asking your customers for UGC and transparent with any brand rules related to it.
So many consumers are on social media often and, if you can get them to engage with your brand through UGC and offer social kickbacks, they become highly valuable brand ambassadors.
Building trust among brands and their customers is the goal so always ask permission and approval from them before sharing their UGC.
Read 5 Ways to Leverage Promotions to Educate, Engage, and Drive Purchases From Your Customers.
How UGC Promotions Can Help Brands Increase Customer Engagement
We helped Hannaford run a promotion for 2020 graduates for their resilience during the pandemic while creating a halo effect for the Hannaford brand.
Hannaford asked 2020 graduates to upload a 30-second video message of encouragement to their future selves for a chance to win the $10,000 grand prize or one of five $500 first prizes. Video submissions were featured on the website in a public gallery so everyone could share in the positivity.
Subaru ran a UGC contest titled, “Pet Hall of Fame.”
The goal was to reinforce the brand’s connection with pet lovers by inviting them to nominate their companions to a ‘Pet Hall of Fame.’
Pet owners shared photos and videos of their furry friends on the promotional site or Instagram, along with why their nominee deserves consideration. Pet owners could then invite friends to vote for their pet in the Hall of Fame gallery.
In the “Charlotte Russe: Are You a CR It Girl?” promotion, we helped the brand identify advocates.
Charlotte Russe gave its social followers a chance to be brand ambassadors by asking a simple question: Are You a CR IT Girl?
Followers were invited to share their “It Girl” looks on Instagram for a chance to be chosen as one of 50 brand ambassadors. The 50 brand ambassadors were selected based on the quality of content and social influence. They received several perks like surprise gifts, insider access, and CR discount cards.
We also helped Alaska Airlines, which invited consumers to share their travel stories on Twitter and Instagram with #IFlyAlaska. The brand selected top content each month and surprised those fans with round-trip vouchers, and Shutterfly gift codes, among other rewards.
Connect With Your Customers Often and Make Them Brand Advocates
Since third-party cookie data will fade away by the end of 2023, brands need to use other ways to engage directly with customers to collect valuable insights.
Make UGC campaigns fun for your customers and explain to them clearly what you’re looking for and how it might be used.
When your customers create and distribute original content on your social media platforms, they spark conversations and become brand advocates for you.
They attract new business, increase traffic to your website, generate buzz about your brand, and spark interest among your social media users.
If you want to chat about how UGC, promotions, or an end-to-end loyalty program can help your brand, please reach out to us here at any time.
ebbo
ebbo helps brands achieve their customer loyalty goals with full-service, end-to-end solutions and also creates original educational content straight from the experts to help loyalty marketers stay on the cutting edge of customer engagement.