Today, many business owners and marketers are looking for new ways to promote sales of their goods and services and increase consumer trust in their products.
One way to do this is to use user-generated content (UGC). This is any content, such as text, images, videos, and reviews, created by users themselves.
In this article, we will discuss how UGC can help your brand and how you can use it to increase the success of your business.
1. You earn trust
UGC can help increase consumer confidence in your product or service. If your customers leave positive reviews about your product, other consumers will see that your product is trustworthy. This can be very important, especially if you are selling online, where customers may feel insecure about buying from unknown stores.
It is easy for people to connect with others who are similar to them. Also, buyers resonate not with a brand, but with a satisfied customer. This is exactly the goal they want to achieve – to find a product that will make them happy.
As many as 79% of consumers trust UGC when making a decision to purchase a product or service.
2. You reach young audience (millennials)
The young generation no longer believes in classic TV advertising – they make a purchase decision based on realistic reviews. According to research, as many as 86% of the representatives of the millennial generation evaluate the credibility of a brand based on how much UGC content it creates.
Only 1% of millennials see traditional advertising as credible and click-worthy.
3. You save time and money creating content
If your business doesn’t have a large marketing budget or staff, UGC can be a great alternative. Your customers can do much of the work for you by creating their own content that drives them to buy your goods and services. This means that you don’t need to spend a lot of time and money to create your content, which will be more effective if it is authentic and created directly from customers.
The creator of UGC does not have to be an influencer, so even if you pay for UGC content, you are not paying for the audience the creator has, but only for the product created: video, photos or text. The content created by influencers no longer inspires trust in users – in many cases, the user recognizes that it is advertising and this does not encourage him to buy the advertised product.
UGC has as much as 9.8x more influence on consumer purchasing decisions compared to content created by influencers.
4. You create a connection with your customers
You can use UGC as a way to connect with your customers and show them that you value their opinion and want to interact with them. You can share and credit user-generated content on your social media platforms. Not only will this motivate your users to contribute to the development of your products and services, but it will also show them that you value and care about their opinions.
UGC as a marketing tool can turn customers into loyal and active customers, also known as brand “advocates”. Such consumers not only repeat purchases of the same brand, but also encourage others to do the same.
As you can see, user generated content can be very useful for your business.
It helps drive customer engagement with your product or service, increases brand credibility, saves time and money on content creation, increases community member loyalty, and helps you stay connected with your customers.
If you’re not already using UGC in your business, it’s worth considering and incorporating it into your marketing strategy.