Are you tired of spending lots
of time and money writing blog posts day in and day out to ensure you have
fresh, quality content on your website? If so, it may be time to consider a
user-generated content strategy.
What Is User-Generated
Content?
First off, let’s define
user-generated content (UGC) and why it’s useful:
UCG is content that is
generated by people who visit your site. Pretty straightforward. Examples include
product reviews, blog post comments, and forum entries.
What Are the Benefits of
User-Generated Content?
Some benefits of UCG include:
Increased User Engagement: When people have
the chance to write their mind on your website, they tend to stick around
longer. Also, they also want to read what others are saying and make
connections. It has the potential of creating a great community for your
audience.
More Effective Marketing: We trust reviews
more than we trust traditional marketing pitches. If you can get customers to
write reviews about your products or services (good and bad!) it is a lot more
effective than you telling your visitors what a great offering you have.
Improved SEO: Of course, fresh content is
good for SEO. With UCG you get new content daily without lifting a finger
(sweet!). The search engines like that.
Now that we know what UCG is,
and why it’s awesome, let’s talk about some fun ways to get it.
User-Generated Blogs with a
Twist
Who says your audience can’t
blog for you? Getting users to create blog posts for you is a great way to
increase engagement and build a community around your brand.
GoodBlogs is a UGC blogging
platform that allows visitors to submit blog posts. What’s cool about it is
that readers can vote for their favorite posts. And bloggers whose post reaches
the “Top Posts” page get paid (for example, $10)!
This incentive drives quantity
and quality content and creates an improved experience for visitors who are
just there to read content, thus increasing return traffic, social sharing, and
consequently more exposure for your brand.
According to the GoodBlogs
website, The Flaming Vegan is an example of a GoodBlog. In the first three
months, it “published over 500 original user-submitted blog posts.” And a month
later, they had over 500 new registrations opting in to receive information
from them. That’s the power of UGC.
A Picture Is Worth a Thousand
Words
People love to take pictures.
Just take a look at this content omniverse infographic and note that 3,000
images are uploaded to Facebook every second.
Encourage your audience to
take pictures using your products, doing wacky things (just not too wacky)
related to your business/services/products, or posing in front of (or inside)
your place of business.
To see this concept in action,
check out Bear Naked’s “How do you live Bear Naked?” page. (The lasting impact
of this strategy is illustrated by the fact that 2+ years after last visiting
their site, I still remember this page…)
The Age of Video
Not only does your audience
love taking pictures, they also love shooting videos. With the advances in
video-editing technology and its relative accessibility, anybody can be a movie
star, director, or producer. And people love watching videos, too! Going back to
the content omniverse infographic, we find that YouTube had 1 trillion views in
2011. That’s a lot of video watching.
Learn more about
user-generated content videos.
How Are We Doing?
Remember those suggestion
boxes at the gym, doctor’s office, and grocery stores? They may still exist in
various locations, but more and more, the suggestion boxes are moving online.
People like to give
feedback—good and bad. It makes them feel like they have input into their
future happiness with your product or service. So why not create a virtual
suggestion box on your website and allow users to post their thoughts, ideas,
and complaints?
Of course, this requires a
certain amount of moderation, but it’s a great way to get content. You can even
take it a step further and give away prizes for the “best suggestion of the
month” to encourage participation.
IdeaScale is an example of a
virtual suggestion box platform. According to the website, they help you “bring
out the best ideas from your customers and stakeholders by giving them a
platform to share, vote, and discuss feedback.”