The UGC tips aren’t over yet, keep reading for part 2! 👇

🕹  Gamify it:  

Make it fun! Fenty Beauty encourages customers to share their "Fenty Face" for a chance to be featured on the brand website or social accounts. 

They've got a dedicated hashtag for #FENTYFACE, or customers can upload directly on the website. Instagram posts are also pulled into a feed directly on the Fenty Beauty homepage.

🔥 Incentivize customers:

While there are some customers who will happily share and promote your products, there are others that might need a little incentive encouragement. 

So, give customers something in return for content. 

One example is Galen Leather, which gives out loyalty points for verified reviews:

And for brands in the beauty and cosmetics industry, give customers discounts, gift cards, or other perks if they show you before and after photos. 

This type of UGC can be really effective for showing your products naturally.

👋 Leverage any relevant groups: 

Popular communities across social platforms are a great place to run contests or mine for user generated content. 

Obvi, a health and beauty company, utilizes its Facebook Group of over 45K members – most of them customers. 

“We started our Facebook group, Obvi Community, just around the same time we started our brand. Over the last two years, it has grown tremendously to just shy of 45K members,” said Ash Melwani, CMO at Obvi.

In the group, Ash holds giveaways in return for pieces of content, as well as personal stories that they use in our ad copy and emails. 

“Because we've spent the last two years nurturing this relationship with our community, when we do ask for specific things such as gathering UGC content, our community has zero hesitations.” 

💬 Encourage customers via SMS: 

As a more direct channel with higher open rates, and an easy way for customers to snap a pic with their phone and reply, this channel can drive awesome UGC results. 

Our tip here is simple: Just ask customers directly to share photos of your products. 

Note: SMS is a more personal and private channel, so you don’t want to overdo it by asking for UGC too often. Respect your customers’ inboxes and only ask once in a while. 

Strategically only reach out to your most loyal and engaged customers, so you don’t bother ones who aren’t likely to share UGC anyway. 

📸 Check out the tagged section on your Instagram page: 

You may not realize how many customers are tagging you in photos with your products. Similar to a branded hashtag, see what customers are tagging you in to pull some UGC. 

If you look at your tagged section, you’ll find customers who’ve used your products or even well-shot product photos. 

Just like in this example from OUAI. 

✍️ Send post-purchase surveys: 

Ask customers for feedback on a recent purchase, and follow up via email with a survey link. Surveys allow customers to rate your product, share their likes/dislikes, and you can ask them to upload a photo as part of the survey. 

💪 Promote strong CTAs across all channels: 

As customers interact with your brand, be clear and consistent about how you want them to talk about your brand across social media. 

Use the same hashtag throughout the purchase process. 

For example, put your brand hashtag in your Instagram bio so customers see right away how to engage with you on that channel. 

You can also put it on your packaging, like Allure does, so a customer sees it with their order. 

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What if the UGC isn’t high-quality?

“These are real customers giving their real-time impression of our products. Consumers today are smart, they know when something isn't genuine or if something is scripted. We don't tend to worry too much about quality because we know we are able to get UGC in volume and we can take bits and pieces and put things together for a more polished look,” said Ash. 

Although you can aim for perfection, with UGC it’s hard to do.  

Even if you brief customers on how to take photos or videos of your products, you’re taking away the main element of UGC that makes it work so well: The authentic images that other customers can see themselves in.

The content will feel scripted and not as organic.

“The best way for the content to feel organic is to ask them to talk about the product as if they were explaining what they purchased to a friend or family member. Keep it simple,” said Ash.

Ways to use UGC in your marketing 

“Brands should be using their UGC in ads on every single channel. Customers sell to customers – it's as simple as that.” 

On your owned marketing channels, place UGC on your landing pages, product pages, as well as your checkout page. 

This will help customers identify with your products on every page that they visit, giving them more confidence to purchase your products.