One of the fastest ways to improve corporate branding and earn public trust is to get social proof. In the marketing world, social proof means many things. It often represents a company or brand for its excellent products/services as well as the negative sides. This is why most people rely on social proof when they are about to purchase a brand-new item or company they have never encountered before.
Talking about social proof, you almost can’t separate customer reviews from user-generated content. While customer testimonial platforms are available on the internet, many still prefer to provide their own review on their very own social accounts.
Users can freely produce content on their channel without possibly fighting against the third platform’s rule. Not to mention, most user review platforms limit the number of words, characters, or images used when leaving testimonials. That’s mostly why people will just post the review on their own.
Among these user-generated content spread on the world wide web, video content has been the most accessed through the past year. In fact, according to a study, the traffic for video content alone is unsurprisingly huge. With the internet traffic of 82% this year, it’s quite safe to say that producing user-generated video content can bring luck to the company itself.
Why is User-Generated Video Content that Effective? | 3 Main Reasons
Now the question is, must it be video content? How about user-generated images as in memes or GIFs?
Apart from the massive amount of video traffic throughout the year, there are many reasons why user-generated videos are effective for brands.
1. Capture more attention
Videos are highly engaging compared to other marketing tools out there. Think about it, if you’re presented with two different content to learn from, especially if it’s about a product promotion, would you be up for text-based content or visual one?
Most people will answer the latter.
Why is it so?
If that’s not obvious enough, please remember that humans are visual beings. People will look at what’s clearly shown and process it in their brain faster before finding the written thing on it.
Now the phrase ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ won’t truly work for marketing campaigns. Whether you like it or not, people will check on the cover and what’s visually presented to them before they read your title campaign.
However, images aren’t enough to deliver much information at once. They are limited by size and pixel, making it hard for marketers to showcase the many benefits of their products to customers. On the other hand, videos can help with conveying such messages in a short form. And that’s the reason why most people will choose videos over any traditional content marketing.
At Growth Hackers, we’ve helped clients like a consumer electronics brand and a beauty e-commerce store boost engagement by 53% and 61% respectively by using short, compelling UGC videos that immediately capture audience attention.
2. Improve customer trust
When people see others make a dedicated video about your brand, they are more likely to trust the company and purchase your product, or at least try it.
Remember that we talked about social proof before?
It’s one of the essential elements in having people believe in a brand. And user-generated videos are excellent for boosting social proof on the internet. We at Growth Hackers see user-generated videos as word-of-mouth on steroids: when we helped a SaaS client feature real customer stories, trust signals skyrocketed and trial sign-ups grew 44%.
User-generated videos show that many others have tried your product/services and find it useful enough to produce content about it. This is also how you can quickly increase brand awareness without putting too much effort into creating a marketing campaign from scratch.
3. Enhance SEO result
Videos tend to rank higher in search engine results than any other type of content. That’s why most marketers and businesses make sure to include product videos on their websites and post them on their social media platforms.
Besides that, videos are also excellent for boosting the click-through rate (CTR). The combination of an engaging thumbnail image with a short video description is quite hard to resist. So, when people see your content on their search engine, they are more likely to click it and watch the entire thing.
That’s how you can quickly improve your SEO result only by incorporating user-generated videos into your marketing strategy! One fashion client’s website struggled to appear on the first page of search results. By adding product and user-generated videos, our team at Growth Hackers helped them climb the rankings and increase clicks by 64% within 7 months.
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8 Ways to Encourage Customers to Generate User-Generated Video Content
Now that we know why user-generated videos are essential for businesses let’s talk about ways how you can encourage customers to generate one.
1. Offer a reward system or incentive
Everyone loves getting a reward, right?
So, one of the best ways to encourage customers to generate user-generated videos is by providing a reward system. It can be in the form of discount codes, freebies, or even a simple ‘thank you’ message.
The key is to show your appreciation for their effort in creating the content and let them know that the company highly values their input. Make sure to announce the incentives when you ask customers to make a testimonial video about your brand. Also, you can offer a huge discount if they share the information with their friends and closest ones.
2. Make it easy for them to post the content
Don’t make it too complicated for your customers when it comes to generating user-generated videos. Keep in mind that not everyone is tech-savvy, so don’t expect them to be able to edit and produce an excellent quality video from scratch.
Instead, provide an easy-to-follow guideline, template, or training video that they can follow. This way, they can quickly make the video content without feeling overwhelmed by the process. Before Growth Hackers simplified the content creation process, a skincare client received almost no user-generated videos. After we provided templates, instructions, and sample videos, submissions rose by 58% and overall engagement increased 47%.
Your instruction should also be clear. If you want an exceptional user-generated video, you need to give an explanation of what to do by creating a sample of the correct customer review video. Show them a user-generated video related to your brand and explain why you like it. This way, they can better understand the type of content you’re looking for.
3. Keep the video content short
Nobody wants to watch a long and boring video, especially when it’s not even entertaining. So, when you’re asking customers to generate user-generated videos, make sure to ask for a short-form video.
The ideal length would be around 1-2 minutes since people usually have a short attention span when watching videos online. Short videos are also more applicable when posted on different social media platforms.
Moreover, short content is now way more popular, thanks to the trend from TikTok and Instagram Reels. Shorter videos can reach out to a broader audience even beyond your reach because the platform has made it possible for people all over the world are able to access various videos from many countries.
4. Be specific with the request
Be specific with what kind of user-generated videos you want from your customers.
Don’t just ask them to ‘create a video about our product.’
Instead, give a more specific request, such as ‘create a 1-minute unboxing video of our new product.’ This way, they know exactly what kind of content you’re looking for and won’t waste their time on something that’s not relevant to your company.
At Growth Hackers, we’ve helped clients like a tech gadget company and a lifestyle brand increase relevant user-generated video submissions by providing clear, specific requests for the type of content they wanted.
5. Make a powerful hashtag
Hashtags are powerful tools that can help increase the reach of your user-generated videos. When customers use a specific hashtag for their content, it’ll be easier for you to find and track all the videos in one place. Not to mention, it also makes it easier for people to search for the videos if they’re interested in watching them.
You can use hashtags that are ear-catchy. If your tags are quite familiar among internet users, it will be easier to raise them in a short time. However, using already popular hashtags can be a downside to your brand because you’ll need a huge effort to make the tags about you. Instead, create a hashtag that people can easily remember so they can tag it on their user-generated videos.
6. Make a contest
Contests are always excellent ways to encourage customers to generate user-generated videos. People love competing with each other, so this is a great way to get them to create high-quality content. Plus, you can also offer prizes for the winners to further motivate them.
If you want to spread awareness about your brand, contests are one of the fastest ways to achieve that goal. When you provide a challenge with prizes, many people, whether existing customers or not, will be interested in participating in your event. This is great because you’ll get to attract more people who barely know about your brand to join the bandwagon, generate more leads, and possibly convert them into customers.
Start encouraging your customers to produce user-generated video content!
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7. Collaborate with social media influencers
Social media influencers have a lot of influence over their followers, so collaborating with them is a great way to encourage customers to generate user-generated videos. Growth Hackers worked with a retail client struggling to get customers to create content. By coordinating with influencers who showcased their products, we helped the client increase authentic user-generated videos in just 4 months.
You can ask the influencer to mention your brand in their video or even create a user-generated video themselves. This way, their followers will be more likely to watch and engage with the content.
They will also feel the urge to check out the brand the influencer has offered because when social media ‘celebrities’ post something about a product, it gives a sense of trustworthiness. Hence, their followers will try to purchase the product themselves and are encouraged to make a video about it.
8. Credit and tag the original creator
Make sure to share the user-generated videos on your company’s social media platforms. This way, more people will be able to see the videos, but it’ll also help increase brand awareness and reach.
You should always credit and tag the original creator when you’re using their user-generated videos. Not only is it a nice gesture, but it also helps increase the reach of the video since the creator’s followers will be notified whenever you share their content. It will also help build a good relationship with the creator, leading to more collaboration in the future.
Takeaways in Encouraging User-Generated Video Content
Do not hesitate to greet your customers. A simple message such as “Thank you for your business” can do wonder. User-generated video content is an excellent marketing strategy in this social media world. Since it’s a great way to engage with customers and promote your brand, many brands encourage their customers to make a video about the brand/product to increase awareness and engagement.
While it’s an effective marketing tool, asking customers to create user-generated video content can be quite challenging. They won’t voluntarily make the video unless they are remarkably happy or upset about the product. Rather than seeing customers make a complaint about your services on their social platform, you may as well reward them with incentives if they are to make videos about your brand.
By following the tips above, you’ll be able to encourage customers to generate high-quality user-generated videos that you can use for your marketing campaigns.
Growth Hackers is one of the top user experience agencies helping businesses from all over the world grow. There is no fluff with Growth Hackers. We help entrepreneurs and business owners encourage customers to create user-generated video content, generate qualified leads, optimize their conversion rate, gather and analyze data analytics, acquire and retain users and increase sales.
We go further than brand awareness and exposure. We make sure that the strategies we implement move the needle so your business grow, strive and succeed. If you too want your business to reach new heights, contact Growth Hackers today so we can discuss about your brand and create a custom growth plan for you. You’re just one click away to skyrocket your business.
