Right.
So yesterday I was scrolling through Instagram and I saw the perfect hoodie.
Right?
I fell in love with it immediately.
It was my favorite color.
It had a great design.
It was everything I'd ever wanted.
And so I went on the website and it didn’t really have any additional information.
It kind of looked like nobody had really bought that.
It didn’t have reviews or pictures posted by the customers.
It made me feel like it might be a scam or it might be fake.
I feel like this might be a common problem for store owners.
Maybe that might be the reason why they’re not getting sales, but that is still just
my guess.
I don’t know for sure.
So that’s why I’ve invited you here as Printful’s Social Media expert to explain
the value of user-generated content and also how our customers—the store owners—can
use user-generated content on their social media and on their website.
So what is user-generated content?
User-generated content is any type of content created by customers featuring a business.
I mean, in the most organic way UGC isn’t paid, it provides extra social proof, reassuring
customers that it’s a good idea to buy from you.
For example, it could be an Instagram post with a person wearing products, a TikTok video
reviewing an order, or a YouTube video.
It could also be textual, like comments, reviews, testimonials.
But what makes this type of content especially important for new online store owners?
People trust more in user-generated content than brand-created content, and there are
some advantages to it.
First of all, it’s free marketing.
There’s a high power in word-of-mouth recommendations.
Once a customer, who is happy with the purchase and receives the product, shares their feedback
and visuals on social media, they promote the brand for you.
Another one I already mentioned is that it’s authentic.
If a third party shares genuine feedback and opinion about your product on social media,
your prospective customer will trust this user-generated content more than brand-created
content.
OK, that actually makes a ton of sense.
You wouldn’t necessarily trust content made by a brand because it’s in their best interest
to promote themselves.
But if you just see a happy customer, you know there’s no reason to believe that that’s
not real.
Exactly.
And it also saves your time.
UGC lets you get more original and unique content from your customers for your promos.
Meaning that you don’t have to spend so much time organizing photoshoots and creating
visuals yourself.
And the fourth thing is that it also helps you build a community.
Loyal customers not only support you by buying from you, but they can be a part of a community
that helps you create a buzz around your products and get a real movement going.
It’s important to note that UGC helps you discover customer insights.
Feedback from your customers can help you collect new ideas for product launches or
ideas on how to improve your business.
That all makes sense.
UGC is definitely super important.
As a business owner, especially when you’re just starting out, where do you find user-generated
content?
Definitely check the Instagram section of photos where you’ve been tagged in.
Ask your customers for permission to use their photos on your social media or website.
In most of the cases, they are excited that you want to feature them.
Definitely credit the owner, unless agreed otherwise.
It will be much easier to find your customer photos if you create your branded hashtag.
For example, you can add a little pack-in note to each of your orders, encouraging customers
to share their photos online after receiving the product.
Another two examples I can share, which we have done here at Printful, is having a brand
ambassador program.
Let your loyal customers be a part of their community, and as a brand, you can give free
products to them, share sneak peeks into upcoming products.
If you and your ambassadors regularly share this content on social media, more people
will notice that you have a strong community behind your brand and most likely they will
want to join.
And another thing is organizing UGC campaigns.
It can be a hashtag campaign where you ask them to share feedback, ideas, thoughts.
You can organize a challenge or contest where they submit their visuals.
As a reward, you can give something to them as a thank you.
Alright, those are very practical ideas.
That’s something that smaller and bigger brands can implement.
So I feel like that’s going to be super useful.
Right.
So I’m guessing that not all user-generated content is created equal.
So what type of UGC is like the top-performing?
The best thing that you can get?
First of all, I just want to highlight that there is no point in sharing UGC just for
the sake of sharing UGC.
It’s important to collect user-generated content that serves a purpose and gives value
to your audience.
Some of the best performing UGC examples would be being inspirational, so share a gift idea
for holidays or outfit ideas for special occasions.
Also share a review from real customers.
So you can add photos and videos from customers that have reviewed your products on your Instagram
stories, for example.
Once you have shared those stories, you can save them to the Instagram highlight section
so you have that content more accessible and available for longer.
Another example would be showing customers how to use or style your product.
It could be a fun customer video, live streaming, or a social media takeover.
Finally, show your behind-the-scenes.
In that way, customers see how your product looks once received.
And that probably also adds to authenticity.
So showing the fact that there are people behind the brand that is creating their favorite
product, it’s probably helpful.
Exactly.
Once you have all of this fantastic user-generated content, what do you do with it?
Where do you put it?
How do you use it most effectively?
First, I would say repurpose UGC on your social media.
Time and resources might be limited for you, and visuals created by customers can help
you organize your social media feed.
That way you can also let your customers’ photos do the talking for you.
Use UGC as creative content for ads.
Because when people see content posted or created on social media by a genuine user
or someone they know or recognize, they tend to get influenced by that content.
You can even add UGC to your product listings.
Remember that also lifestyle mockup images can be used for your store to make it more
relatable and visually appealing.
And the last tip that I would give is to add customer photos to your website to improve
trust and social proof.
With online tools like Pixlee, for example, you can use customer photos posted on social
media as brand creatives on your website.
It’s basically like a widget that automatically collects photos where your business has been
mentioned or tagged in.
So you know what?
I'm wondering whether user-generated content is similar in concept to influencer marketing.
It’s similar.
Influencer content is a more specific segment of UGC.
And unlike UGC created by customers, influencer content is intentionally created for brands,
sponsored or paid for.
There are four types of Instagram influencers categorized by the size of their audience.
Megainfluencers, who are celebrities with millions of followers.
Then there are macroinfluencers who have the following between 100K to 1 million.
Then there are micronfluencers having followers from 2000 top to 50K.
This number can differ.
And finally nanoinfluencers—they have less than 1000 followers.
In my opinion, microinfluencers are a great fit for smaller niche brands because they
tend to have a very loyal and engaged audience.
When you are starting out, you want to look for personalities that are respected in your
niche, and check if they have organic likes, an active comment section, and a legitimate
follower base.
Also, dig into their profiles and photos to see if they are going to be a positive representative
for your brand.
In case you have some specific type or style of content in your mind, then make sure that
influencers have experience in creating that kind of content.
Ideally, your potential partner will also be a fan of your brand or similar brands like
yours.
So you can explore Instagram or TikTok hashtags to look out for influencers that would be
a good fit and would be passionate about your product.
It’s kind of a match made in heaven if you can collaborate and work with someone who
actually enjoys your brand.
Exactly.
Awesome.
Thank you so much for coming.
I feel like these are very tangible and practical tips that we could implement everywhere.
But if the viewers want to see some more real examples of user-generated content and also
just other social media stuff, where can they go?
Well, they can also check our social media.
We’re constantly experimenting with user-generated content, so they can get some inspiration
on our Instagram or TikTok accounts too.
OK, so I’m definitely going to leave some links below for them, where they can go and
steal some ideas but yeah.
Other than that, thank you so much for watching.
We make content targeted at various ecommerce topics that might be interesting for you on
our YouTube channel.
So feel free to subscribe and stay tuned for other episodes.
Thank you.