User engagement has become extremely important when it comes to keeping brand loyalty and increasing the followers. But that doesn’t happen overnight, you already know that your brand doing well. Now, the next step is to imbibe the policy of good-will content that is created by your loyal audience and that can be technically termed as User-Generated Content. User-Generated content or UGC can simply be coined as a content that is posted by a customer in the form of an image or video about your brand. You effectively seek permissions and use that content in your marketing strategy to further bring accolades to your brand and this time with loyal users.

There are several things that are gets attached with repurposing the UGC. It’s a no fixer that how you are going to use the content. Any photos, snap, tweet or video that is shared about the brand is a UGC and it works automatically with happy customers and bring loyalty to the business. So what’s the notion that helps marketing teams to repurpose UGC?

Sneak Peak on why use Repurpose UGC?

UGC is undoubtedly ted good news for the brands as well as for marketing purposes. It helps to bring in more sales and build customers relations. The audiences can see the experiences and how other customers feel. It is more than convincing for a person to see a product is willingly appreciated by the other user than the brand publishing it. A recent survey, states that 76 percent of users trust UGC than the ads by the brand itself. Almost 84% trust online reviews put up by buyers similar to personal recommendations. As we earlier said, how brand engagement is important from a sales perspective – 97% of people purchase with the brand they interact with and it boosts conversions by a whopping 78% percent.

Now, the next question that confuses your mind is whether to use the UGC content, is it really legal?

UGC is nothing sort of a lethal bomb, UGCs are a content that is generated by the users and using Hashtags itself means that they are implying to use that content for the purpose of marketing or viewership or whatever. Social works rely on the data that is copyrighted and original so the sole rights are with the creator of the original content even if your brand Hashtag is being used.

If you go a legal way, there are lot of implications that are attached to it and questions that are innumerate like – do you require permissions from original poster? Do you require permissions of the person in the image? Can you repost it? Do you send some sort of agreement asking for posting? Etc. Let us take an example of Airbnb. They reach out to users on Instagram who use their tags or posts, asking their permissions to post content in their own feeds. The brand leaves a comment for users to click on the link where they can read terms of use for UGC. Users can reply with #airbnbphoto for confirming and also provide the link to Airbnb for featured image.

Every social network comes with its terms and conditions so assume that all content is copyrighted so the best option is to seek permissions from the original content creators. The users should know that it is the brand that is walking up to them, and there is no doubt about any sort of intentions. Do not jeopardize with the brand reputation by holding it loose, there should be no contradictions to the brand using UGC seeking permissions.

So, finally how can you Generate UGC?

For making optimum use of UGC, your brand should exactly know the system how, when and why you are going to use UGC. The first and foremost is the basic is to create a brand Hashtag so that you can use to repost it into your own feeds. Customers are willingly sharing your brand Hashtag and when you ask for permissions to repost them it is their chance to stand in the limelight hence almost 65% will grant permission to use the content within 24 hours.

Brand can also use UGC by holding contests or sweepstakes that challenge the people to use the brand Hashtag in a photo or any posts to gain entry in to the prize draw. Take for example; Japanese retailer MUJI encouraged their followers on social media to post its photos of artwork with MUJI pens. The brand campaign saw a good 2,500 people entering the contest with the Hashtag #mujipenart. This greatly increased its social out-reach and it created an entirely UGC based campaign that drove many people to it in return for awards and prizes.

The buzz created by your audiences far outweighs the total marketing costs and in bargain you may win a lot of customer loyalty. UGC generates customer engagement and the brands will possess images and comment mentioning them that further goes on to speak how good the brand is or how better the experience was. The UGC campaigns may fall short of your marketing needs sometimes; in that case brands can always rely on influencer marketing.

Influencer marketing is a sure shot way of bringing attention to your brand with a popular personality or a celebrity having millions of followers promoting your brand. Instagram influencers help to create content on behalf of your brand, this allows your brand to gain credibility and engage with your customers. So that is all about creating your brand market buzz, influencers will keep doing their targeted work, now let’s check how you can succeed with UGC? How you can repurpose the UGC created?

Steps to Repurposing User-Generated content

The big data that is available on web is truly humungous and to make a good use of it is an art that only few social media companies utilize. It’s no big deal, it’s actually a standard norm but to stand out of the crowd you need to do things differently.

1. Publishing UGC with the product
   As a brand you already have multiple things and material that you are using for marketing purposes. the example of Sonos is truly inspiring, they have embedded Instagram UGC as a part of the buying process on its website. The Sonos product page shows the product alongside customers with the product to show how they are using the product and how they like the brand. The images inspire new customers to look over it and visualize their lives with the pictures depicted and hence buy the product.



2. UGC inside emails and promotion materialsHere we take an example of the brand Chubbies where you receive newsletters with UGC content. The brand doesn’t necessarily promote their products but simply use real photos with happy customers that show users how authentic the brand and the product is.The brand simply influences users by promoting products with customer satisfied faces. Chubbies collects its data from customers by asking its customers to share their experiences with Chubbies on social media. The brand has inspired a total of 331, 000 people to follow them on Instagram and 1.6 million on Facebook.
3. Have your brand’s Hashtag
   Hashtags are the future and prominent methods to promote your business. Have a unique Hashtag for your business that differentiates itself from others. It could be your company name, or using your own tagline, you can also make use of products in your marketing campaigns for Hashtags. Take an example of Coca-Cola’s #shareacoke campaign that results in a 2 percent increase in sales.There can a Hashtag that doesn’t at all talk about our brand name but reflects everything about your brand. Make use of user sentences that will inspire the likes of people in that product segmented group.

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p style=”text-align: justify;”>Hashtags give an identity to the brand and helps start a conversation with whoever is familiar or not familiar with thebrand. You can build or tablish the brand loyalty amongst the customers.