Author: Paige Thulin
The Insider’s Guide to Analyzing User-Generated Content to Drive Business Growth
Eight practical ways to leverage data from UGC to improve your business and generate more sales
The Value of UGC Goes Beyond Traffic & Sales
User-generated content is a gold mine of incredible insights just waiting to be discovered. But figuring out how to tap into this data source to drive impactful improvements can seem overwhelming.
If you’re not sure how to execute on this objective, you’re in good company. In fact, most brands and retailers do not effectively leverage the insights they receive from UGC. They typically see this form of feedback in a vacuum. It exists only to convince shoppers to buy products.
But the holistic analytic potential of this data is immense. If you fail to realize it, you are missing out. Big time.
Read this Guide to learn:
The key reasons why you are missing a huge trick if you don’t analyze the UGC you capture
How to analyze this data effectively when you’re not an analyst
Eight practical ways to leverage UGC to improve your business and drive growth
How to Curate Social Content for Maximum Impact on the Buyer Journey
Locate authentic visual media content posted on social media by your customers. Then display this throughout your digital experience to provide the social proof that will generate more conversions.
Social Curation
We know that 88% of consumers specifically look for visuals (such as photos or videos) submitted by other consumers prior to making a purchase. It’s key to provide these shoppers with the information they’re looking for, or else you risk losing them to a competitor that does.
A simple way to generate more user-generated visual content for your home, category, gallery, and product detail pages (and other marketing materials) is to gather it from where it’s already being shared and posted by your customers — on Instagram.
In this guide, you’ll find best practices to put to use during each stage of your social collection campaign.
Pre Campaign:
Setting up your campaign and creating awareness
Plan
The first step to success when curating social content is to plan for success. The biggest component of this is selecting the right campaign hashtag to promote and follow on Instagram.
Why is this so important? Because choosing the right hashtag allows you to generate content that’s most relevant to your brand and your products. Plus, it can help you sort through the thousands of images you collect as you choose the UGC that will look best on your site.
Be sure to choose one that relates to the lifestyle of your customers and stays true to your brand’s image. General hashtags (think #OOTD) will generate millions of photos. But many of those photos won’t include your products, and they might even include products from your competitors.
On the other hand, a more targeted hashtag will generate less content, but the content will be way more relevant. This will save your team time in the long run as they won’t have to sift through a high volume of often irrelevant content.
If you want to save even more time and resources, and don’t want to sift through all of the content generated by your campaign hashtag on your own, leverage a specialist provider. The best practice approach of these vendors incorporates the moderation capabilities necessary to match and quality control the content you collect. At the same time, it will also ensure this content is on brand while being displayed quickly on your product, category, gallery and home pages.
Here are some things to keep in mind when choosing the right hashtag for your campaign:
- Relate it to the lifestyle of your shoppers
- Relate it to your brand image and the lifestyle of your brand
- Remember to be genuine and stay true to your brand image
- Keep it unique to weed out competitors
Don’t forget!
Work with your marketing team to make sure your campaigns and outreach flow with other marketing initiatives. For example, is your marketing planning to run a Holiday campaign? If so, collaborate and plan ahead so that the hashtag and your outreach don’t interfere with other initiatives.
Get inspired!
Here’s how some of our friends are getting creative with their hashtags:
Plan
The first step to success when curating social content is to plan for success. The biggest component of this is selecting the right campaign hashtag to promote and follow on Instagram.
Why is this so important? Because choosing the right hashtag allows you to generate content that’s most relevant to your brand and your products. Plus, it can help you sort through the thousands of images you collect as you choose the UGC that will look best on your site.
Be sure to choose one that relates to the lifestyle of your customers and stays true to your brand’s image. General hashtags (think #OOTD) will generate millions of photos. But many of those photos won’t include your products, and they might even include products from your competitors.
On the other hand, a more targeted hashtag will generate less content, but the content will be way more relevant. This will save your team time in the long run as they won’t have to sift through a high volume of often irrelevant content.
If you want to save even more time and resources, and don’t want to sift through all of the content generated by your campaign hashtag on your own, leverage a specialist provider. The best practice approach of these vendors incorporates the moderation capabilities necessary to match and quality control the content you collect. At the same time, it will also ensure this content is on brand while being displayed quickly on your product, category, gallery and home pages.
Here are some things to keep in mind when choosing the right hashtag for your campaign:
- Relate it to the lifestyle of your shoppers
- Relate it to your brand image and the lifestyle of your brand
- Remember to be genuine and stay true to your brand image
- Keep it unique to weed out competitors
Get inspired
Here’s how some of our friends are getting creative with their hashtags:
Promote your campaign
Your shoppers won’t use your hashtag or tag your account if they don’t know what hashtag to use or what your handle is. So make sure you promote your campaigns.
Include language in your campaign promotions reminding customers of your hashtag and Instagram handle. Let them know you want to see how they’re using your products, and explicitly ask them to share photos and videos using your products on Instagram, communicate the hashtags you want them to use and request they tag you.
Don’t forget!
Be sure your most engaged and influential followers are aware of your campaigns. If you have a community of influencers (and don’t forget about the influence micro influencers can have), make sure to add their handles to your list of Approved contacts, so their content is automatically approved and displayed.
Engaging influencers will also help increase the reach of your campaign by getting in front of your influencers’ followers as well — a great way to get more content, faster, at the start of your campaigns.
Examples of places you can promote your campaigns:
-
On your website
Homepage, Gallery page, Category pages, Product pages, Homepage banner -
Customer emails
Post purchase emails, Cart abandonment emails, Newsletters -
Packaging
Shipment boxes (e-commerce), Shopping bags, Customer cards, Receipts -
Social media
Instagram, Instagram stories, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Snapchat filters -
In person
In-store, Billboards, Videos, Magazine advertisements, Catalogs, Pamphlets, On booth backgrounds at events, On photo booth camera rolls
Establish legal messaging and terms
You’ll need to get permission from consumers before using their photos or videos across your website or in other marketing materials.
Make sure you have all legal language crafted and approved before the start of your campaign, so you can start collecting approved content as soon as possible. Establish a terms and conditions page — somewhere users can go if they have questions — and link to this page when asking for permission. Once a user gives permission to use their content in marketing materials, make sure to attribute the content to them. Say something along the lines of “Photo courtesy of [insert Instagram handle].”
During Campaign:
Managing the content you collect
Secure image rights
In order to leverage user-generated images and videos in your marketing initiatives, you’ll need to get the creator’s permission (at PowerReviews, we know how important this process is so we seamlessly incorporate it into our technology).
Best practice:
Tailor the permission messages you send for your different customer groupings and profiles.
Not all your customers are the same, so think about how best to motivate each individual to grant you permission to repurpose their content. Your messages won’t always be one-size fits all.
For example, a sporting goods company’s customers can span from beginners to more advanced athletes — both of which could respond in different ways. Beginners will be more excited to share photos of themselves learning a new skill, while advanced users might want to show more close up photos of the products they’re using to train.
Take note of who grants image rights and note which messaging works best for different users.
Post Campaign:
Repurposing the content you collect and measuring and analyzing the performance of your campaign
Repurpose content
Your shoppers won’t use your hashtag or tag your account if they don’t know what hashtag to use or what your handle is. So make sure you promote your campaigns.
Include language in your campaign promotions reminding customers of your hashtag and Instagram handle. Let them know you want to see how they’re using your products, and explicitly ask them to share photos and videos using your products on Instagram, communicate the hashtags you want them to use and request they tag you.
Some places to promote this UGC include:
- In the visual content gallery on your product pages
- In-store displays
- Marketing emails
- Advertisements
- On your social media channels
Understand your performance
After your campaign is over, take a look at its performance. Look at who is sharing content and what kind of content they’re sharing.
For example, are the images being shared poor quality? If so, you might need to provide your users with more direction on what you’re looking for.
In addition, take note of who your UGC creators are. You’ll find interesting insights into what products are being featured, and the style of content being created. With this information, your brand can learn more about how a product is being used, who’s using it, and what type of content resonates with different types of shoppers. Note what worked, and what you can change for the next campaign.
Dig even deeper
With PDP Site Analytics, track the actual sales impact of visual content on your site. PowerReviews data across all our customers shows visitors that interact specifically with visual UGC have a conversion lift of 81% over general visitors who don’t interact with visual UGC.
This information specifically applied to your own UGC and Social Curation programs helps you iterate, improve and optimize for bigger impact. Find out what imagery and video resonates best at what point in the journey, then seek to generate and display more of this.
Include language in your campaign promotions reminding customers of your hashtag and Instagram handle. Let them know you want to see how they’re using your products, and explicitly ask them to share photos and videos using your products on Instagram, communicate the hashtags you want them to use and request they tag you.
Conclusion
Authentic user-generated visual content shared on social media provides compelling social proof to shoppers on your site. Brands and retailers are increasingly leveraging this content at high impact points of their digital experience to nurture and convert traffic – whether this is on their homepages, product pages or in their marketing materials.
The key is being able to collect and display this content at scale.
The PowerReviews Social Curation platform enables just this, by providing unique capabilities to cultivate, surface and showcase social media postings to accelerate the path to purchase.
If you’re a PowerReviews customer, reach out to your Customer Success Manager to discuss how to get yourself up and running. If you’re not a PowerReviews customer, reach out to us today to find out more.
How to Drive
Direct-to-Consumer Sales with User-Generated Content
A practical five-step guide for implementing a ratings and reviews program as part of transitioning to D2C
A critical and very evident trend to emerge as part of the COVID-19 pandemic: brands that previously relied on selling their products in person have had to shift online and go “Direct to Consumer”.
A comprehensive UGC program – including ratings, reviews, images, video and Q&A content – is now an ecommerce must-have, with 97% of consumers consulting product reviews before making a purchase.
So many brands are seeking to implement UGC quickly as part of this transition.
Download this Guide for step-by-step pointers on the entire process, including:
How UGC impacts D2C success and will enable you to sell more products
How to generate a high volume of high-quality reviews fast
How to maximize the impact of UGC
Our consumer survey of 650 Canadian shoppers highlights spending plans for the Holiday season, factors driving purchase decisions, likelihood of shopping online vs in-store and much more.
Key findings:
- Overall spending level will be in line with previous years: Two-thirds (66%) said it will either stay the same or increase this year - despite market conditions.
- Holiday shopping will start earlier than usual: Nine in ten will either start spending earlier or at the same time as they normally would.
- Huge shift to ecommerce: 54% say they will spend more online this year than they did last, although 27% say they have no concerns about Holiday in-store shopping despite pandemic.
- Looking beyond Amazon: 67% will buy from big box retailers other than Amazon and 68% will go direct to the website of the manufacturing brand this year.
- Blended cross-channel purchase methods will be a big deal: 47% say they will use curbside pickup more this year than they did last.
Download now to get these insights and more!
Our consumer survey of 2,296 UK consumers highlights Christmas shopping spending plans, factors driving purchase decisions, likelihood of shopping online vs in-store, importance of Black Friday and much more.
Key findings:
- Overall spending level will be in line with previous years: Three-quarters (75%) said it will either stay the same or increase this year - despite market conditions.
- Holiday shopping will start earlier than usual: Nine in ten will either start spending earlier or at the same time as they normally would.
- Huge shift to ecommerce: 59% say they will spend more online this year than they did last, although 32% say they have no concerns about Holiday in-store shopping despite pandemic.
- Black Friday increasing in importance: 35% say Black Friday has overtaken New Year’s Sales in importance.
- Looking beyond Amazon: 67% will buy from retailers other than Amazon and 68% will go direct to the website of the manufacturing brand this year.
Download now to get these insights and more!
PowerReviews Holiday Consumer Survey 2020
Our consumer survey of 5,383 shoppers highlights spending plans for the Holiday season, factors driving purchase decisions, likelihood of shopping online vs in-store and much more.
Key findings:
- Overall spending level will be in line with previous years: Almost three quarters (73%) said it will either stay the same or increase this year - despite market conditions
- Holiday shopping will start earlier than usual: Around three quarters will start spending earlier than they typically do.
- Huge shift to ecommerce: 64% say they will spend more online this year than they did last
- Consumers not discounting the store: 30% say they have no concerns about Holiday in-store shopping
- Blended cross-channel purchase methods will be a big deal: 55% say they will use curbside pickup more this year than they did last.
Download now to get these insights and more!
The Beginner's Guide to a Best-in-Class Ratings & Reviews Program
A best-in-class Ratings and Reviews program consists of the collection, display and analysis of User Generated Content.
But few brands are operating at this level right now – which is why we created this four volume best practice guide. In it, you will learn how to capture as many customer product reviews as possible and then how to use it across your website (and beyond) to convert browsers to buyers.
What Constitutes the Perfect Review...and How to Get More of Them
What you’ll learn:
- Ideal review content
- How to generate more reviews
- Real-life case studies
The Definitive Guide to Product Sampling
What you’ll learn:
- Best-in-class product sampling program
- How sampling = more reviews
- Best use cases for sampling
Best Practices for Showcasing Your Ratings & Review Content
What you’ll learn:
- Review display: when and where
- Biggest buyer journey impact
- Real-life examples
Analyze Your UGC
What you’ll learn:
- Why analyze UGC
- Product benchmarking and optimization
- Elevating UGC program to next level
Reinventing the Store Experience
The store experience needs to evolve
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on all facets of daily life. Of course, that includes the way we shop with consumers shifting online at an unprecedented rate.
But – as the pandemic has worn on – many consumers have become increasingly eager to get back to stores. However, their preferences and expectations have changed considerably in the last six months. Retailers must adapt accordingly.
Download our Guide to learn:
- Why the store channel still has a very bright future
- Data-backed guidance from our consumer survey on what actions you should be taking to make customers more comfortable
- Nine key store reopening considerations to set your retail operations network up for success
The Definitive Guide to Product Sampling
By now, the value of reviews in converting browsers to buyers is well known. More reviews on your site = more sales.
Product sampling – the act of sending free or discounted samples of product to a consumer – is a proven strategy for accelerating the review generation process.
But product sampling campaigns contain a number of different elements and are serious challenge to execute.
View our nuts-and-bolts Guide to learn:
How following best-in-class product sampling methodologies generate on average 85% review completion rates
The typical scenarios that lead brands to implement product sampling campaigns
The nine steps you need to follow to execute outcome-driven product sampling campaigns