Social media has been a phenomenal success in terms of adoption and usage levels. This new user generated content has caused a shift on how people connect with each others, on how they express and share ideas, and more importantly how they interact with products.
As the world of social media continues to evolve, the way consumers interact with brands online has also been affected. For instance, let’s take the following example, when the time comes to make a purchasing decision, who are you more likely to follow - a brand, or another consumer who already uses the product?
Naturally, as a consumer we tend to take recommendations more willingly from friends, family members or other users than brands who we always suspected to trick us in their advantage, when making a buying decisions.
What is User Generated Content (UGC) and how does it work?
User-generated content, represents any form of content that is created by users and consumers about a brand or a product. This type of content has total recognition due to its authenticity (not paid) which transforms the user into a brand advocate as well.
UGC is particularly important and used on Instagram, where brands can easily repost from users' accounts. And it's worthwhile for brands to do this -- 76% of individuals surveyed said they trusted content shared by "average" people more than by brands, and nearly 100% of consumers trust recommendations from others.
Source : http://www.den.nl/art/uploads/images/kennisdossiers/user_generated_content.jpg
How User-Generated Content Helps Brand’s expand their reach
While it is a good idea to share one person’s content on your social media to gain his or her trust, you can’t share everyone’s content. Fortunately, there are other good UGC advantages mentioned in the article from “ Sprout social” written by Alex York ( cf sources) that you can leverage as well to help your brand :
- It pushes more engagement: ComScore found brand engagement increases 28% when user-generated content is used in product videos. Consumers also tend to twice as likely to share user-generated content with friends or family.
- Builds Trust With Consumers and humanizes the brand. And with 51% of consumers trusting user-generated content over information on your brand’s website, you can build better relationships with this content stream.
- Helps the brand's visibility thanks to SEO Valuation: Kiss Metrics found of the world’s top 20 largest brands, 25% of their search results are linked to user-generated content. This means more backlinks, higher organic traffic and higher ranking.
- Push and re engage people’s purchase decisions: According to an L2 Inc report, when consumers witness user-generated content while shopping, the conversion rate increases by 4.6%.
- Increases your follower count by giving your customers a better channel for conversation: Nearly 35% of people use social media for customer care. With user-generated content, you’re going to get more people following you to discuss with you or other followers.
To conclude we can say that social media is having a huge impact for brands to help them acquire knowledge on their customers through new channels but it is also a better way for companies to connect with their customers and create a new type of loyalty bond differentiating themselves from the competition.
Thalia Lafond & Sarah Lundqvist
