The TIME magazine named “You” as the Person of The Year in 2006 as a testament to the rise of User Generated Content as a driving force on the world wide web. User Generated Content, or UGC, simply refers to any kind of content that is created by users of a system or a service and is available publicly. Basically, any social media posts, blogs, photos, audios and videos created by users would fall under the umbrella of UGC. Growing businesses need to consider UGC as a force to be reckoned with. It holds the key towards generating customer loyalty that can take a business to unbelievable heights.
As a web based customer loyalty solution, we can not stress enough just how important User Generated Content is and how crucial it is for a business to make the most out of it. Facebook is the most profitable content provider in the world, with a revenue of $27.64 billion generated in 2016, and yet it produces practically zero content of its own. This is because UGC produces the most genuine, authentic content. Since it is open-ended and comes from mostly unbiased sources, UGC is the best way to add credibility to a brand’s image and encourage enhanced customer loyalty.
How To Use Customer Generated Content For Customer Loyalty
The world today is more connected than ever before, thanks to the internet becoming a dominant player in the lives of people across the globe. There is no dearth of good resources one can turn to in order to generate User Generated Content for boosting their business. We list a few tips to leverage UGC to promote your business and get the power of an instant customer loyalty solution on your side:
1. Collect Genuine Content
Sales tactics have traditionally been centred around customer acquisition. But the period between when a customer notices your business and when actual sales happen is slowly getting more exposure. Getting a customer to make a purchase isn’t easy. This is why conversion rates are more important than acquisition rates. Customer reviews are a great way to gain the trust of incoming new customers. Customers across the world are wary of “fake” reviews, so it is a good idea to go out of your way to find genuine user content.
A good user authentication process would be a great way to reassure your customers that the content on your website is real. Don’t be worried by negative reviews, 92% customers would return to a business after a bad experience if you take good remedial measures to reassure them. If you decide to use featured reviews or comments curated from independent platforms like Facebook on your brand’s blog or advertisements, please make sure you ask for permission for using that content beforehand. It may seem tedious, but it goes a long way in maintaining trust.
2. Invest In SEO
UGC is like any other content for your website, you need plenty of it to viably use it. Contemporary customers are very keen observers and highly appreciate fresh and dynamic content as opposed to old and static content. The best way to get fresh content is to keep acquiring customers. Now, this is very important. Customer acquisition as a customer retention tactic sounds almost counterproductive, but the two overlap a lot more than we expect. You can greatly enhance customer loyalty when your existing customers notice your business getting attention from scores of new customers. A good way to get new customers is SEO. An SEO optimised website appears higher on Google searches, grabbing more eyeballs as a result. Using fresh customer reviews as Rich Snippets makes your website a lot more appealing than usual. This has a marked increase in click-through-rate.
3. Product Ratings & Comparisons
Product ratings are the best way to drive customers to engage with your brand. 75% customers check product reviews to facilitate their shopping choices. If customers see a good, authentic review next to a high-friction step like “Get A Quote” or “Buy Now”, the likelihood of them completing the purchase increases significantly. Product comparisons take building customer trust up another notch. They are a good way of demonstrating that your business cares about assisting the customer to make the best purchase to fulfil their needs. Product ratings and comparisons are a great enhancement to overall UX if incorporated well. It would be a good idea to experiment with multiple visual strategies to present these elements to target audiences.
4. Use Visual Media For Customer loyalty
Multimedia is the most popular form of content in the 21st century. The human brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text. 90 percent of information transmitted to the brain is visual. Visual data is clearly the most impacting form of information. No doubt businesses invest heavily in getting video content for their websites. Video content increases your ranking in Google Search by 50% compared to plain old text. Textual content should by no means be neglected. However, recent times call for more focus on User Generated Content in the form of pictures or videos. Good infographics and videos on your website’s landing page can significantly increase sales conversions. Businesses have become exceedingly active in providing their customers with the capability to post pictorial or video reviews.
5. Get A Quote From Industry Influencers
Industry influencer doesn’t always mean high-level executive or expert. Any person with a strong base of followers from a certain industry is an industry influencer. That could be a general celebrity, an Instagram sensation, a teen-idol, a magazine columnist for a popular periodical. It could even be a blogger whose reviews are read by lots of people. The biggest benefit of getting content from industry influencers is sheer follow base that becomes available directly to your business. Influencers may be busy people, but most of them will be gracious enough to leave a small quote or answer a quick question. Even if you are a total stranger who is approaching them for the first time, which is mostly the case. A couple of emails or tagged tweets should be able to elicit some response. Be sure to not stretch it farther than that if you don’t get a response.