While old-fashioned retailers with offline stores are struggling to keep their businesses running, the online sales market is growing rapidly. Recently, producers and retailers are focussing more and more on technological development, marketing research and using data for targeting marketing activities and when making strategic choices.
One of the newest phenomena is called ‘User Generated Content’ (UGC): UGC is the term used to describe any form of information such as Photo, video, discussion form posts, blogs and other forms of media that was created by consumers and en-users of a product or services and is publicly available to other consumers and end-users (Vangie Beal, 2016). Recently many large brands are trying to engage their consumers the share there experiences with on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram. The usage of UCG among companies has increased considerately, with the aim of improving their brand awareness, as firm generated content doesn’t seem to reach the same level of success. Also UGC boosts credibility, increase trusts and raise social proof.
The digital intelligence today tells us that 92% of the consumers trust peer recommendation over advertising when it comes to purchasing decisions. It means that is crucial for brands to set up an active social media campaign to interact with its consumer on social media platforms.
Take for example Adidas, they use UGC created and posted by its consumers on Instagram and blogs. They are using this content to engage their community with their brand by using the hashtag #3stripesstyle. Secondly, they put these pictures on their product pages on Facebook and Instagram to enrich these products with users’ pictures.
Another example of excellent use of UGC is Shinola, a luxury watch seller from Detroit. They started with the #myshinola campaign. In this campaign, they asked their customers to share a picture with the watch on their wrist immediately after purchase. Also, they asked them for permission to use these pictures. By starting this champagne, Shinola significantly increased the customers’ engagement with their watches.
But there is also a down side to UGC. For Brands, It is impossible to keep everyone happy at all time. Once a brand becomes known as a UGC generator, haters and spammers who just want to destroy the brand will generate content that might be harmful for the brand and its community. Also due to lack of control UGC campaign might go towards an unwanted direction.
References:
Little, J. (2015) accessed on 27-09-2016. Available: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/who-do-you-trust-92-consumers-peer-recommendations-over-joey-little
Spary, S. (2015) accessed on 27-09-2016. Available: http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/1350476/adidas-amazon-jaguar-ghd-building-advocacy-user-generated-content#
Terwindt, I. (2016) accessed on 27-09-2016. Available: onhttp://www.marketingfacts.nl/berichten/3-voorbeelden-van-succesvolle-user-generated-content-campagnes
Weinberg, T (2016), accessed on 27-09-2016 available:http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/06/17/user-generated-content-goes-bad
Hi Mahdi Hazara!
You have written a very interesting article regarding ‘User Generated Content’. Thank you for that!
I appreciate the advantages and disadvantages you have brought up of UGC and I would like to further elaborate on those.
In the article you have stated that ‘92% of the consumers trust peer recommendation over advertising’. Whenever I buy beauty products, I make sure to check the online-reviews of other consumers to see whether the product is as great as the company pro-claims. I have often experienced that companies eulogize their products with advertising, whereas consumers are more honest about the product. I think that people consider the evaluation of consumers to be more honest, whereas they see the company to be superficial (they only claim the product is good because they want to make profit out of it). I think therefore peer recommendation is more popular than advertising, and it should be considered as a great marketing tool.
You have also stated the disadvantages of UGC: it could harm the brand image. The statistic in a study found that 86% of the buying decisions were influenced by negative online UGC. (ZenDesk, 2013) It is therefore important that the company tries to manage the negative UGC. The best way to do so is with a respond strategy. The company has to react on the negative content immediately as the content spreads out fast to potential customers. It shows the customer that the company is taking action with an active, personalized conversation. This discussion could soothe the undesirable perception of the company. (Goh et al. 2013).
References:
http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/why-consumers-trust-each-other-more-they-trust-media
http://www.conductor.com/blog/2015/07/earned-media/
http://www.brandba.se/blog/2016/4/26/how-to-handle-a-negative-ugc-epidemic-the-impact-of-negative-user-generated-content-ugc-toward-brand-image-when-it-becomes-viral-and-how-company-could-respond
Dear Mahdi,
Thank you for your post. This is a very interesting topic!
UGC indeed proves to be almost a free marketing tool for brands and companies.
I think Snapchat is one great example of this. Recently when they changed their privacy policy – and now said that:
“To the extent it’s necessary, you also grant Snapchat and our business partners the unrestricted, worldwide, perpetual right and license to use your name, likeness, and voice in any and all media and distribution channels (now known or later developed) in connection with any Live Story or other crowd-sourced content you create, upload, post, send, or appear in. This means, among other things, that you will not be entitled to any compensation from Snapchat or our business partners if your name, likeness, or voice is conveyed through the Services.” (Adweek, 2015)
I think that is a great marketing tool for brands – if they are Snapchat Business Partners, once they sort out the useful content, they pretty much have free UGC.
Regarding the adidas example – I actually used to work with approving UGC and from my experience I can say that its such a powerful tool. If you have a brand that people associate with and want to share with others – the brand will receive enormous amounts of free quality content. Of course, you might like to involve an agency that sorts out the content for you – as there will be tons of it.. but also a decent amount of photoshoot quality, model like pictures free of charge.
Also – I am a big fan of Asos (2016) “As seen on me” tool. It basically allows consumers to post pictures of wearing clothing, accessories and shoes purchased on Asos. Its great to see how the items look like real life, on real people. According to Deloitte (2014), Asos uses a 3rd party application to source, get permission and sort relevant posts. Looking at this platform, I can see they work with big brands – Calvin Klein, North Face, Timberland, The Body Shop, Magnum.. A powerful tool! Olapic (2016).
http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/policy-update-you-own-your-snapchat-content-but-snapchat-does-too/629279
http://www.asos.com/discover/as-seen-on-me/
http://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/uk/Documents/consumer-business/consumer-review-8-the-growing-power-of-consumers.pdf
http://www.olapic.com/