Generating quality content is the first step of marketing any product or services online. It takes a very long time and a lot of brain storming when it comes to content marketing because content is considered as key point of online marketing. Providing quality information and encouraging user to stay on platform or make a purchase by using words is a big task. Every product or services platform talk about USP’s and try to provide unique and quality information but sometimes it’s not enough. Getting user generated content (UGC) is one of the best option to create better engagement on website/portal. It helps brands to create trust between their users and helps in product branding. But how can we increase user generated content? This is the big question. Today I am going to share few tips by which you can create a better user generated content strategy for your business or product.
Before getting into tips for creating user generated content strategy, let’s know what User Generated Content is and why it is important for online content marketing.
User Generated Content
User generated content also known as content created by users in the form of written text, votes, likes, testimonial videos, images and any form of information related to product or services which is posted online or on services, product or social platforms. You might have seen posts on Facebook, twitter, quora, linkedin, tumblr, mix and many more platforms where users are sharing content while talking about product or services. This is the kind of content which contribute towards your business website or business mobile application. Most commonly this is a public content visible for relative or similar users online.
Why User Generated Content is Important?
User Generated Content is always considered as Original or Genuine content because not everyone on internet behave according to your well maintained staff or content creators. Sometimes you receive positive feedback or a great testimonial and sometimes it’s a negative experience which no company would like to publish online. User behavior is different every time. It totally depends on your product or services quality. If the user is happy then you will get a nice positive feedback but if user is not happy then you might hear words which you never want to hear. Because of its credibility, user generated content always gets special privilege from search engine crawlers. It is not true that every time user generated content is true because there are fake reviews, false testimonials and frustrated remarks but search engine crawlers are not humans they are bots and it’s not easy for them to differentiate between the content.
Tips to Increase User Generated Content
You can follow given below tips to incase user generated content for your website or blog.
Step 1: Go with the trend
Following the trends is first and most important factor to create better engagement. Always use the events such as Holidays, Events, Date Histories and trending hashtags. If you are a service provider and running a discount campaign then merge it with holidays or events. It will encourage user to talk more about your offer on different platforms.
Using Events like New Year or Football Match to run a campaign for your product or services would make the user share or talk about your campaign on multiple social platforms. Number of queries on your product page would go high during the event.
However, using date histories is little different. If you are creating interesting content and merging it with date history, then it would create curiosity between users and can lead to more engagement on your website or blog. For example, 11th January is an interesting date for India, Pakistan and Bangladesh because on 11th January 1972, East Pakistan renames itself Bangladesh.
Step 2: Pick the social network wisely
Using social network to represent your product or services is another option to encourage users to talk about it online. But you have to choose it wisely. The social network you choose should be based on your goals and target audience.
Step 3: Decide what to share according to platform
Writing a lengthy post is not possible on twitter and writing anything without photo is impossible on Instagram but it is possible on facebook. So you have to choose what’s the right platform to share content is. Do a research on your audience type and share content accordingly. Sometimes a normal photo could go viral and create way more user engagement than a quality blog post or product description on website.
Step 4: Work on your response time
Keep monitoring the user generated content and engage with users frequently. It can change user behavior into a random visitor to loyal customer. It will also help you to tackle the false content and negative reviews. If you are working on your brand’s online reputation then it will help you to gain a better brand value and increase trust between users.
Step 5: Encourage users to follow your footsteps
Encourage your users to follow your footsteps and ask them to share what you want. For example, if you are running a campaign on twitter for your product or service then ask users to follow particular hashtag. It has two major benefits. First, you can get easy branding for your product or service and second, it’s easy for you to track between content shared by users.
Step 6: Increase your audience
If you are a service provider or product owner which can cater multiple age groups, gender and groups then run campaigns for all of them. Creating product for multiple age groups would lead more engagement and encourage multiple age group users to talk about your product or service on different internet platforms.
Step 7: Use location according to your need
Engaging with local audience can result better engagement online. It’s easy and can give you better results. For example, if you are running a store business in particular location, then it’s important for you to target local audience. It will boost your Local SEO and sales.
Step 8: Encourage users to share feedback, reviews and suggestions
Taking feedback and working on them to provide a better product or service would automatically built trust between your website users and you. Encourage your users to share their public opinion, feedback, reviews for your product and suggestions to build a better product or service and interaction between your brand and your visitors.
Step 9: Ask positive provoking questions
Provoke your customers by asking positive questions. This method works on your creativity or skills in playing with words. If you do a single mistake, then your audience could misunderstand it completely. It may cause a lot of negative impression so be careful while provoking customers.
Step 10: Identify Customer Needs and design a contest for them
Do a small research on your audience type and review your previous user generated content and design content for them. Encourage them to take part in it. Here you can add incentives such as discounts, free merchandises and badges. It will crease better engagement for your brand.
Tips to Manage user Generated Content
Before pushing for more user generated content you should have a content policy. Write and publish a content policy so your users know what’s allowed and what’s not. Follow the public guidelines while creating content policy to avoid future problems.
Step 1: Keep an eye on top pages
Always keep an eye on pages where users are talking about your product and creating engagement. It is important to know what users are sharing and what kind of content you are receiving. It will help you to adjust your content policy accordingly. For example, if you are getting positive reviews for a particular product or service, then you can create or add more similar product or services and encourage users to land on that page. It will help you to tackle two major SEO problems. First is bounce rate and second page session.
Step 2: Put security on pages to handle spam bots
Adding captcha code is the first option to handle bots and spam comments. Or you can create similar programs or put a code in your website backend to verify user credibility before allowing the content post. Asking for verification by email or mobile number is second best option to handle spam on portal.
Step 3: Use Content Filtering
Use content filtering to avoid particular key phrases or words to create a positive space for users. You can create in-house content filtering for better results and can avoid copyrighted content, adult content and offensive words. If in-house option is not available then take help of any software which can do it for you.
Step 4: Use third party plugins or tools for commenting on your portal
Allowing user by using third party plugins i.e. comment by singin up with facebook, twitter or gmail would be another option to increase credibility of content. These apps or plugins automatically do the security check and don’t allow content which is not allowed in their content policy. However, if you find any offensive content then it’s way more easier to get it removed by reporting it to particular third party i.e. facebook, twitter or google.
Step 5: Provide Flag or Violation option for users
Provide “Flag Comment” or “Report Violation” option for users to built trust and provide them a better platform to talk. It allows your website users to report the content to site admin or to you as potentially problematic. Make sure to regularly review and act on those reports.
Conclusion
Designing a customer centric marketing strategy is good for brand marketing. Providing a better platform helps us to built trust and engaging with users by responding to their comments helps to retain old customers and convert new visitors into loyal customers. Hope these tips of user generated content would help you to design your marketing strategy and increase number of users on your platform.