We’ve all seen it: people sharing pictures of their favorite products on social media seemingly unprovoked or unpaid. But why is this happening?
User generated content (or UGC) is defined as any content that is created and posted by unpaid contributors. While UGC has to be organic content, your brand can still help to make it happen.
In fact, campaigns that encourage UGC can generate 6.9 times higher social media engagement than campaigns without. In fact, 76% of individuals say that they trust content shared by “average” people rather than brands. Therefore, UGC is better received than content pushed by a brand. Brands can use a specific, branded hashtag to incorporate UGC into their campaigns.
Take a look at Coca-Cola, the masters of UGC. Coke’s “Share a Coke” campaign gained popularity all over the world, and UGC is to blame. Coke asked customers to share pictures of themselves enjoying the coke with their personalized bottles. The social media campaign reached more than 70 countries, and the hashtag #ShareACoke has over 650K mentions on Instagram. That summer, Coke sold more than 250 million named bottles.
Just some of the benefits of user-generated content include:
- Increased engagement
- More content for brands to use on their social media platforms (“regrams” and shares)
- Better SEO
- More authentic relationships with consumers
If you’d like to learn more about how to grow authentic engagement on social media, click here.
