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Introduction
With the emergence of social media, the consumers’ involvement in the online ecosystem has grown vastly with users contributing heavily to online communication, content exploration, eCommerce, and content sharing especially visuals.
This has given rise to user-generated content (UGC) and social media has become a hub for it. UGC has become so influential that brands have started acknowledging it for their marketing & brand build activities.
So, let’s delve into it and explore the depths of UGC that brands can explore.
What is User-generated Content?
User-generated content is any form of content that has been shared by the users mainly on digital platforms. It is the users’ ideas, opinions, reviews, feedback, issues, and experiences and is shared voluntarily.
UGC in most scenarios is relevant to the brands or commercial aspects. It could be both negative or positive for a brand and is free of cost content created by the users for the brands.
But how does the user generated content related to having a role in branding?
UGC and Its Role In Branding
Branding, by definition, stands for marketing efforts that help a brand in creating its own distinct identity in the marketplace that helps in making a memorable impression on the consumers through its brand name, logo, design, and activities.
What customers say about a brand is also an aspect of branding as it affects a brand’s image and identity. That is where the role of user-generated content comes in for branding.
We have some key points to explain how UGC plays an important role in branding.
1. Build Authenticity & Trust
For a brand, the first thing to consider is what is the credibility and reliability users have on them. The higher the trust, the more chances you will have to build a unique successful brand.
Trust and authenticity are key drivers of successful marketing campaigns these days. And user-generated content is the most trustworthy, authentic, and reliable form content for consumers.
Therefore, having an enthusiastic hub of users that consistently post positive content about your brand on social media can help you build a social proof empowered brand. With happy customers.
2. Consumer Involvement
The intensity of consumers’ involvement with a brand is also a defining factor for how influential a brand is among the users. This is not just restricted to the customers but also extends to the wider audience.
As nowadays, having one-way communication is ineffective and pointless from which consumers tend to withdraw instantly. Therefore, You must create enough opportunities for users to involve in your brand activities.
Positive user-generated content can only be created if you don’t interact with your customers. Therefore, having two-way communication opportunities will help in enhanced consumer involvement leading to a valuable brand.
3. Meaningful Content Creation
Content creation is an important process for brands as it affects their reputation and the impact & influence of voice that a brand has on the users. Content is the voice of the brand & its outlook.
So, as a process of improving your brand, users’ content is the perfect choice as it contains value and is driven by a user experience that gives meaning to the content.
So, Users’ content will become the voice of your brand with will reflect well with your brand as you would be a brand that encourages users to share their voices through your brand platform, ultimately building a user-powered brand.
4. Maximum Returns – Minimal Investments
The bigger your brand and its customer base the more efforts and investments you will have to make for creating, designing, and sharing content for your promotional campaigns.
But what UGC does for your brand is that you get free of cost content that talks positive about your brand and can be repurposed for your branding activities.
So, you do not have to make huge investments into time, money, and labor for content creation as the users will do that for you voluntarily. As a brand, you can encourage users to share more content through contests, giveaways, offers, gamification, etc.
5. Reach, Engagement, & Conversions
Finally, even with successful marketing campaigns if you are not able to attract, engage, and convert users into customers then you won’t be recognized as a successful brand.
User-generated content helps you achieve your objective on all three of these touchpoints. A massive UGC hub will create a wider reach, awareness, and exposure for your brand into untapped markets.
UGC will also enhance the users’ engagement with your brand as UGC is extremely engaging, entertaining, and interesting due to the diversity of users & their perspectives.
Finally, UGC is known to be the key influencer in the purchase decisions of users and will help you get maximum conversions through this valuable user-generated content.
Conclusion
These were some of the benefits that can be leveraged by a brand for its branding efforts through user-generated content in this age. The best part about UGC is that it is available in abundance, and you just need to curate & repurpose it effectively.
UGC for brands can be utilized through various channels, given that you make use of the best tools for creating UGC campaigns for your branding. UGC can greatly help to build a strong brand with happy & loyal customers that is unique from others.
Social media aggregation tools offer a unified solution to curating, customizing, and displaying UGC for your brand marketing campaigns. Some even offer you the feature of UGC rights management to even further repurpose the UGC for extended promotional objectives.