Deepen audience engagement and heighten trust factors by including user-generated content (UGC) in your marketing strategy. Brands can save time and money by turning to their loyal customers to create content they can share and shore up their lead-generating machine.
Enhancing user engagement via UGC is simple. Incorporating these features into your website, app and social media designs should be seamless. Here are some ways designers can add UGC features to websites to encourage their use.
1. Incorporate Social Media
Finding new ways to reach your audience is challenging in the sea of voices on social media. Business owners can tap into the power of influencer marketing and get people with an audience similar to yours to post about your brand.
Adding those details to your website in the form of a scrolling feed or reviews can build a cross-channel environment that increases engagement. Developers have access to plugins that automate content sharing. You can also add links to your social pages to encourage participation and gain followers.
Another idea is to ask your users to generate posts for you. According to research, around 83% of U.S. adults use YouTube, and another 68% are on Facebook. There is some crossover between platforms, but it’s safe to say most American adults use social media frequently. You can include embeds of posts with positive mentions as mini testimonials on your site.
2. Create Membership Tiers
If you use a content management system (CMS), such as WordPress, you can let people sign up to be contributors or editors on your site. You can set articles to only publish once approved to prevent anything inappropriate from appearing.
Adding interesting articles to your website drives traffic and shows visitors you keep things updated. If you have customers who’ve used your product for a long time or in unique ways, ask them to share their stories in a post you can add to your site.
Create a template users can follow to keep your site looking consistent. Tapping into the power of a content management system can prevent a hodgepodge look in your design as various people contribute.
3. Include Reviews
Adding reviews and testimonials gives you UGC that drives engagement and improves trust. People are much more likely to listen to what their peers say about your business than any claim you can make yourself.
Be cautious about where you gather reviews. Businesses have come under scrutiny in recent years for generating falsely inflated reviews that make their offerings look better than they are. If you use actual customers to add their honest feedback, you can use reviews as a UCG. Add an area on your website where they can post comments if they purchased the product. Utilize widgets to include Google Reviews or Facebook Reviews.
4. Maintain a Forum
Forums are still a popular way for people to connect with like-minded consumers. Many happen within social media groups or on websites. You’ll also find people posting on comment sites such as Reddit. However, for niche topics, boards on your site can attract quite a bit of traffic and generate endless content possibilities and ideas for more in-depth articles.
Create topics based on what keywords people search for on your site. If visitors frequently have a question, what better way to get it answered than through their peers? You’ll generate engagement as people post and comment on your forum.
5. Create and Publish Interactive Videos
Studies show around 81% of marketing professionals use video to increase sales. This surge in video content makes sense, as video media encourages shoppers to linger on a page longer, which typically means they will spend more. Finding a way to combine the power of video with UGC may drive more traffic to your website and increase mentions on social media.
For example, ask customers to post a short clip of how they use your product. Ask them to share video testimonials — a particularly important part of your video strategy, as more than 70% of consumers trust brands more if they have positive video testimonials available. Or, you could create a contest highlighting some aspect of your brand and select a winner.
Encourage customers to participate by giving them calls to action they can use for inspiration. Ordinarily, people may not know where to start, but you can ask them to open a video with a phrase such as, “ABC company helped me …” The overall aesthetics of the design can draw them in and encourage them to learn more through a video presentation.
6. Tweak Your Landing Page
Focus on your customers and find out what they think of your brand. Your design may need to change to reflect all the amazing UGC created to showcase your company.
Change your landing page so it features UGC. Add a slider at the top with embeds of social media posts mentioning your brand. Embed a video one of your top customers created. Find little ways to incorporate what your customers say about you, and your brand image will become one of the top in your industry.
Leverage UGC Wisely
Some of the content users produce may not match the tone of your brand. You must carefully sort through what’s offered and keep the things that match your image. Enlisting the help of customers to come up with new items to post can save you time and money and lend authenticity to your business. Take the time to set standards and vet each piece carefully for the best presentation possible.
