5 Ways to Encourage User Generated Content on Social Media

5 Ways to Encourage User Generated Content on Social Media

When surveyed, 85% of users find visual user generated content (UGC) more persuasive than brand photos or videos. That’s why user generated content is considered content marketing gold.

Yet, despite the fact that most customers trust user generated content more than the brand content, many businesses don’t know how to encourage their fans to create UGC.

More than 50% of consumers think that brands should provide some guidelines for creating reviews or other content, while only 16% brands actually do so.

The point here is this - brands have immense scope for leveraging the power of user generated content on social media.

But do you know how to encourage your fans to create such content?

In this post, I’m going to share five ways you can facilitate more UGC for your business. 

1. CREATE BUZZ FOR YOUR BRAND

If you want your fans to talk about your brand on social media, you need to give them a reason to do so.

I’m a great admirer of Coca-Cola and the way it's been able to unique strategies to generate social buzz - like their 'Share a Coke' campaign. 

     Image source: http://www.coca-colacompany.com

First launched in Australia, ‘Share a Coke’ ended up being hugely successful in more than 50 countries. For the campaign, Coke swapped out its logo with random names, enabling fans to find their names, the names of family members, friends, and coworkers.

This was a highly shareable, engaging promotion, which generated a heap of UGC - for example, here's how some fans tweet about the campaign. 

Image source: Twitter

They not only shared their own bottles, but also prompted friends. 

Image source: Twitter

People shared these images across all the popular social media channels. 

The promotion underlines the value of creating shareable content - it's not necessarily simple, not everyone's going to be able to come up with a 'Share a Coke' style masterstroke, and not everyone has the brand equity of Coke to being with. But if you're able to build in engaging elements, which prompt fans to share your message on social media channels, the resulting UGC boost can do wonders for brand building.

Here are the three tactics to consider to help build excitement around your brand on social media:

• Use a creative marketing hook
• Make use of teasers, sneak peeks and hints
• Offer Freebees

2. RUN CONTEST/QUIZZES ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Running contests/quizzes on social media is a great way to encourage your fans to create UGC.

A good example comes from Dove -  to help promote their 'Real Beauty' message, Dove called on their Facebook fans to share why their friend ‘represents real beauty’. Fans were asked to fill in the names of their friends, and to list two things that make them beautiful.

The campaign generated an overwhelming response from their fans. 

Here are some tips on running a successful contest on social media:

• Define objective, type, and timing of a contest
• Write rules in clear, plain language to avoid any confusion
• Use an eye catchy image in your contest
• Make your contest mobile-friendly
• Incentivize the sharing of your contest
• Add an urgency factor to your contest
• Always ensure you're adhering to platform rules around such promotions

3. LEVERAGE THE POWER OF HASHTAGS

Hashtags, when used strategically, can be a great tool to help spread the word about your promotion, and are especially effective on Twitter and Instagram.

Red Bull’s Shorty Awards winning campaign #PutACanOnIt is a fine example of how a hashtag can create an overwhelming response on social media.

Image Source: https://www.redbull.com

Inspiring the campaign, Red Bull found a photo on Twitter in which their can was held in front of Mini Cooper by the photographer, making the Mini a look like it was carrying a Red Bull. Sensing opportunity, the brand added a #PutACanOnIt hashtag to it. 

The idea took flight - around 10,000 original #PutACanOnIt images were subsequently uploaded on Twitter and Instagram within a few months.

The campaign underlines the power of the hashtag, in conjunction with a creative, shareable promotion. If you can think outside the box, a clever hashtag can provide you with tons of UGC.  

4. OFFER REWARDS

Rewarding or acknowledging your fans for their contributions is also a good way to encourage them to create UGC more. This doesn’t mean you have to pay them cash rewards or discount coupons all the time - even a small gesture of appreciation, such as sharing their content on social media, can make a big difference.

This is how Yo!Sushi encourages its fans. 

Here are some creative ways to reward your fans for creating content for you on social media:

• Include their content in your email newsletters and share it on social media
• Respond to comments left on your posts
• Feature fans’ content on your website’s blog (where relevant) and share it on social media afterward
• Start an award like ‘Top Comment of the week or month’ for super active fans, and offer a reward to the winners
• Invite super influential fans to write for your website’s blog

Remember, your fans are taking the time to create content for you. You should never forget to appreciate it. Reward their efforts and they'll become even more vocal in their support of your brand.

5. ASK QUESTIONS

Asking questions can also encourage your fans to create content - however, you have to be smart in doing this, as not all questions get answers on social media.

What kind of questions should you ask?

You can ask questions about how your products have made customers’ lives easy, or about personal experiences involving your brand.

It's important to consider the potential negatives to any question too - McDonald's, for example, landed themselves in trouble back in 2012 when their #McDStories campaign took a turn for the worst, with people sharing less than positive experiences.

Used well, questions can help facilitate better engagement. People always appreciate when they're genuinely requested to share their opinions.

CONCLUSION

These days, people are spending more and more of their time on social media, which means lots of opportunities for engagement, and to generate UGC. If you're able to create buzz around your brand, run successful social media contest/quizzes and/or leverage the power of hashtags, your fans will certainly help spread the word about your products for you.

As noted above, it's not necessarily easy, and there's no magic formula for success, but hopefully these notes get you thinking on how you can work to create more shareable, engaging social content that encourages natural discussion, building brand affinity.

Article posted on 23rd June 2017 by Lalit Sharma  - article source

Life of Digital Marketers in 2 Minutes

5 Tips to Make Lead Magnets Perform Better [Infographic]

Lead magnets are content offers that entice your visitors to share their contact info in order to download them.

We recently wrote an article on how to create lead magnets that win clicks and influence customers - in that piece, we covered how to make lead magnets which provide value to your target audience. But we got so many good questions about the supporting structure that lead magnets require - and they do require a lot of supporting structure.

You need calls to action that compel visitors to click your offer, you need landing pages that have nice images, but are clean, crisp, and get to the point. 

You need forms that capture the right information without being pushy, 'thank you' pages which entice downloaders to continue to engage.

With these details in mind, we created this infographic of five key tips to make your lead magnets perform better. 

Article by Bob Carver on June 23rd 2017 - article source

New Business Model? What IS Content & Commerce?

YouTube Reports Updated User Count, 'VR 180' and Vertical Video Support

YouTube Reports Updated User Count, 'VR 180' and Vertical Video Support

Originally published on socialmediatoday.com, June 24th 2017 by Andrew Hutchinson

YouTube has made a range of announcements as part of the platform’s presentation at VidCon, the online video creator conference held this week in California.

First off, YouTube has provided an official number of monthly active users, something the platform has long avoided providing specifics on. As per YouTube’s CEO Susan Wojcicki, who delivered the opening keynote at Vidcon, YouTube currently has 1.5 billion monthly logged in viewers, a huge amount, underlining why YouTube is still the key destination for online video – despite rising competition from Facebook.

To put that in perspective:

• Facebook - 1.94b MAU
• YouTube – 1.5b MAU
• Messenger – 1.2b MAU
• Instagram – 700m MAU
• LinkedIn - 500m MAU
• Twitter – 328m MAU
• Pinterest – 175m MAU

(Note: Snapchat doesn’t provide MAU figures, though they have 166 million daily active users)

Of course, people use each of those platforms in different ways, and there are other factors to consider, such as engagement.

On this, Wojcicki also notes that:

“On average, our viewers spend over an hour a day watching YouTube on mobile devices alone.”

Taken in combination, the stats are impressive – the only other key insight to round out the overview would be video views per day. Last year, Snapchat reported that it was serving 10 billion video views every 24 hours, while Facebook claimed 8 billion. By estimates, at that time YouTube was thought to be facilitating around 4.95 billion videos every day - though the nature of each platform’s content would have obviously played a significant factor in such a count.

On Snapchat, for example, with a limit of 10 seconds per video, it would take six videos viewed for a minute of content – thus making the total viewing time a more reflective indicator of engagement than total view count (and likely why this stat hasn’t been updated by the major platforms in some time).

But still, total views are often used as a success metric for video content – the only official stat YouTube’s provided on this front is on their press page, which states:

“YouTube has over a billion users - almost a third of all people on the Internet - and every day, people watch hundreds of millions of hours of YouTube videos and generate billions of views.”

How relevant the actual views count is comes down to your own purposes and reporting, but that seems to be the only key stat not clarified – at least to some degree – by Wojcicki.

In addition to this, Wojcicki also announced a new virtual reality format, called VR180.

By halving the field of vision, YouTube is seeking to lower the barrier for entry to VR content - as explained by Wojcicki:

“This format delivers 3-D video while capturing 180-degrees around you. Creators only have to worry about recording what’s in front of them while viewers get an awesome, immersive experience with a VR headset, or a video that looks just as great on a phone as any other video.”

If creators only need to focus on half the scope, that makes it more affordable, and logistically easier, as they don’t need to cater for the whole field of view.

Of course, this does limit the experience for viewers, but often – at least at this stage of VR’s evolution – turning your whole head or body is not convenient when viewing. If you’re sitting on the couch, for example, you need to twist right around to see the full field of view, flopping your legs up onto the seats and fumbling over the back. Really, our current viewing habits are not designed to facilitate such behavior (note: the market for revolving lounge room chairs could be set for a boost in the years ahead).

The other key advantage is that by limiting the video to 180 degrees, you lessen the data load, which could also provide viewer benefit.

YouTube’s also looking to move with consumption trends by enabling vertical viewing of YouTube videos.

Many video creators hate vertical video and the fact that it compromises content quality, but the data shows that more users are viewing video in this way.

Snapchat has lead the way with the vertical format, which has seen other platforms follow suit – Instagram Stories, as a clone of Snapchat, also makes vertical video a priority, while Facebook recently improved their vertical video presentation options, in line with usage trends.

Whether creators like it or not, the data suggests that consumers don’t turn their phones to view video - a MOVR Mobile Overview Report from December 2014 found that smartphone users hold their phones vertically about 94% of the time, and consume all types of content in this way.

It may not be ideal for content creation, in quality terms, but with the format being facilitated by more platforms, it’s clear that there’s significant demand. Worth considering in your creation process.

YouTube’s also looking to expand its in-app messaging and sharing option, which it unveiled back in January, while they’re also making YouTube TV available to more US regions, and creating more exclusive content for YouTube Red.

As per Wojcicki:

“To date, we've launched 37 original series and movies on YouTube Red, and they've generated nearly a quarter billion views.” 

The moves help YouTube advance their goal of becoming a genuine TV alternative, which could yield significant benefits, given TV advertising is still a $70 billion sector (in the US alone). Facebook and Twitter are among those looking to do the same, though YouTube, given their status as the online video platform, and the development of their YouTube TV packages, is currently blazing the path.

On this, Facebook is working to develop its own, YouTube like eco-system to catch up, announcing (also at VidCon) the development of a new video creator app.

As per Marketing Land, the app will focus on three areas - video creation, fan engagement and video analytics – making it easier for creators to establish themselves on the platform. Facebook will be looking to use its reach advantage to lure creators from YouTube, but given YouTube’s audience figures, that advantage may not be as significant as many might have assumed. Facebook won’t simply be able to steamroll YouTube by sheer weight of numbers, which likely means the battle for online video supremacy will rage on for some time yet.

And that will also likely see further algorithm updates from Facebook to prioritize video content – if you’ve not considered video as part of your Facebook strategy as yet, it may be worth doing so.

It looks set to be a key focus as they platforms continue to fight for expansion into the market.

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