Introduction to User-Generated Content (UGC) Marketing for your website

What is User-generated content?

UGC is content that's been produced by unpaid contributors of a brand. User-generated content can be created in any kind of format text, images, videos, audio, or testimonials and reviews. This is an exceptional tool for optimizing a brand's marketing efforts without the brand being involved, especially since UGC creators are the ones producing the promotional content. It is quite an effective method to provide your audience with the proof necessary to gain their trust and loyalty.

Marketing campaigns created in the form of UGC offer authentic content to your viewers, which often results in increased conversions and user engagement. Implementing this type of content ensures that consumers have a constant array of material to consume in different compelling formats. About 85% of consumers claim to lean more towards visual UGC than brand photos or videos when making their purchasing decisions. If your goal is to connect on a deeper level with your viewers in order to foster an emotional connection and persuade them to take action, then UGC is the perfect choice for your company's marketing strategy.

How to Add UGC to Your Website Marketing Strategy

1. Promote Customer Reviews:

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The reason you want to encourage customers to leave comments on your e-commerce site is because it adds credibility and authenticity. Displaying genuine experiences will build trust and enhance customer engagement on your site. Not only can they leave reviews on your webpage, but they can also leave reviews on third-party sites such as Google Reviews or Yelp. It is beneficial for your e-commerce site to display positive feedback that pertains to your products or services as compelling social proof. Earned media is quite effective at making your brand more trustworthy, in other words, customer reviews are a very useful type of UGC. 93% of viewers have claimed that online reviews impact their buying decisions.

The more transparent your business is, the easier time you will have instilling confidence in your potential consumers and influencing their purchase decisions. Even negative reviews are a useful factor in this case, as they give your brand a clear picture of the areas it needs to improve in. Take it from your own experience! When you shop online or perhaps research hotels for a trip you're planning, you will most likely seek out any available opinions, and your final choices will be influenced by these evaluations. This just goes to show how important it is to display genuine customer experiences, as it will positively impact your site's success rate.

2. Show Recognition to Your Customers:

You will want to offer your customers incentives as it shows you value them. The more you make your customers feel valued, the more you increase brand loyalty and trust. You can reward your consumers for creating authentic consumer-generated content by offering discounts, free products, exclusive access, or other incentives. In doing so, you will most likely stimulate more contributions in the future.

3. Promote UGC on Social Media:

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Curate UGC on various media platforms, as it amplifies your reach and offers more options for engaging content. This form of engagement builds a community for your brand.

Moreover, it is also essential to motivate your followers to post UGC on their social media accounts by incentivising them via hosting contests or competitions and creating branded hashtags. It is key to engage with your potential customers via likes, comments, and shares. This shows that your brand values the opinion of consumers and prioritizes their needs in order to deliver maximum satisfaction. The more you engage your own users across media channels, the more you will improve your brand awareness and user engagement.

4. Implement UGC on your Website:

Incorporate UGC into your website by adding it to your site's blog posts, product pages, landing pages, or home pages. Having content types such as UGC photos or videos and customer reviews or testimonials will boost click-through rates and time spent on site, significantly. Additionally, it will encourage more of your customers to contribute this kind of authentic content to your brand, hence broadening your reach. Placing UGC strategically on your e-commerce site will create an interactive and engaging environment which resonates with your traffic.

Benefits of user-generated Content for Your Website

Build trust and loyalty

In light of the fact that UGC comes from real users, it offers potential viewers a legitimate perspective of a brand's product or service. By seeing the genuine experiences and opinions of other consumers, users will begin to trust the brand more and make confident purchases. Owing to the fact that UGC is often raw and unfiltered content, it resonates with viewers personally and reduces scepticism. The more trustworthy your brand appears to be, the more it will encourage users to engage, convert, and advocate for your business.

A study, done in 2022, shows that 84% of the people surveyed would trust a brand more if it has implemented UGC in its marketing strategy and 77% would be more willing to buy for this reason. Implementing a UGC campaign on your site will cultivate a brand image built upon a solid foundation of trust. In return, this trust will fuel customer loyalty and long-term success for your company.

Authenticity and Transparency

UGC is the holy grail for brands that want to maximize the impact of their marketing efforts. Since user-generated content is more personal, it builds a deeper connection between people and businesses. These genuine reviews, experiences, and perspectives from actual users contribute to creating an authentic online shopping journey.

Showcasing a relatable experience on your site allows for more interaction between users and your brand. Unlike polished marketing content, UGC is more raw and transparent with users. Sharing authentic content will help your users view your brand as genuine. When you see videos or images that are UGC, it will likely evoke a stronger sense of authenticity, hence setting your website apart and creating a memorable experience for your users.

Boost conversion rates and sales

Providing shoppers with real examples of how products are perceived, appear, and can be used or styled, can greatly influence a brand's revenue and conversion rates. UGC serves as a catalyst for an increased conversion rate and revenue. The social proof provided by this authentic content, which displays the derived value users get from your product, results in customers taking more desired actions. These actions include making purchases, filling out forms, subscribing, signing up, engaging with content, downloading, following, and so on.

By instilling trust and credibility, UGC ultimately leads to a smoother decision-making process. The fewer obstacles there are to make a user reconsider making the purchase, the better. Since having UGC simplifies decision-making for users and grows their confidence, it translates into enhanced conversion rates and sales.

Improves SEO ranking

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When customers consistently generate content for your brand, it will result in the advancement of your site's SEO ranking. Webpages are ranked based on the relevancy of their content. People prefer to initiate their shopping via a search engine rather than directly going on a webpage. UGC content helps your target audience reach you more easily because it optimizes long keywords and phrases that you may not otherwise use on your site. This in return enhances your website's visibility across a variety of search topics.

Furthermore, user-generated content increases the time users spend on your webpage, as well as reducing bounce rates. Both factors prompt search engines to regard your brand's site as being high quality and providing relevant content, hence enhancing its SEO ranking. What's more is, that viewers can be more inclined to share backlinks to your site due to the UGC marketing content, which will improve its credibility in the eyes of search engines. Lastly, having UGC will significantly increase click-through rates as it provides the means to encourage user interaction. This is a great way to elevate your site's SEO ranking and gain more reach.

Where to Market UGC on Your Webpage

Effects of marketing UGC on your Product Page

Marketing UGC on your product page is a highly impactful tactic to boost your sales. How so? Well, when online shopping, people cannot necessarily know for sure how a product will look. By providing UGC content on the product page, brands are able to successfully reassure users of their products by offering a more genuine perspective. As a matter of fact, 40% of shoppers have claimed that they will not make a purchase on a brand or retailer's site if there isn't any type of UGC on the product page.

User-generated content such as reviews, ratings, videos, photos, and testimonials all serve as social proof of the quality of the products. This is a perfect method to help users visualise how a product can fit into their lives. Having this on your product page will give your users extra information such as the tangible benefits of your products by emotionally resonating with them through dynamic content. This becomes useful for the success of your business by leading it to enhanced engagement, conversions, and revenue.

Effects of marketing UGC on your Landing Page

On a landing page, brands often display very captivating marketing campaigns or promotions. Having genuine user feedback shown from the get-go may just be the perfect way to convince viewers to participate further. This persuasive force of a method is highly influential in a customer's decision-making process. You can display all types of UGC material in the format of testimonials, reviews, Q&A forums, or photos and videos.

The first-hand encounter a customer has with your website is one of the most important aspects to consider when designing your landing page, as it must enticing to the viewer(s). UGC gives valuable insights which create a compelling narrative that your audience can relate to. This sort of content piques a customer's interest and taps into their curiosity, which encourages them to keep exploring. Ultimately, this results in more trust, higher SEO ranking, increased conversions and creates an authentic brand image.

How can Vidjet help you with your UGC Marketing Strategy?

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Seeing as e-commerce brands are constantly on the quest to discover new ways to upload content that creates a memorable and captivating customer journey, having a seamless integration of UGC content on your site is key. Our shoppable video platform offers your brand a simple, no coding required, upload process of videos to your site. All you need to do is subscribe to our platform, and we will then offer your brand a variety of creative options you can choose from, to display your content however you want on your site. With this tool, you can integrate your UGC campaign on any page and offer your customers an interesting visual format of relatable insights.

Turning your UGC into a shoppable video is a perfect way to encourage customer participation and feedback. These videos attract users with a call to action (CTAs) feature that often directs your users to another page. Combining shoppable videos with UGC is a highly effective method for improving SEO rankings and enhancing your brand's authenticity. With the use of Vidjet you can optimize your landing page, product page, or homepage by adding shoppable UGC videos that will lead to improved conversions.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. What is an example of user-generated content?

Examples of user-generated content include social media posts, blog posts, forums, photos, videos, testimonials & reviews, and comments. All of these are a type of content that offers authentic information on a brand's products, and they're all are created by consumers of said brand.

2. What is UGC, and how does it work?

UGC is brand-related content curated by customers of the brand as opposed to paid individuals like employees, brand ambassadors, or any other official representative of that brand. It can come in the form of reviews, images, videos, testimonials, and more. User-generated content eliminates the need to produce your own professional marketing campaigns and instead helps you foster a more authentic and engaging shopping experience by involving customers in content creation.

3. What does UGC do?

UGC creates a sense of community and increases your brand’s visibility, conversion, and engagement. This is the perfect content to create an authentic experience for your consumers and gain their trust by offering a more relatable experience through the involvement of real-time consumers.

4. How do I get user-generated content

You can get user-generated content by running contests or giveaways, using branded hashtags, and offering other incentives like free products or discounts. These are useful tactics to encourage users to create and share content on your platform. 

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