By now, many of us are familiar with user-generated content (UGC) and why it’s such an effective marketing strategy for brands. When marketers think about user-generated content, we may be inclined to think more about featuring it on our social media channels or even digital advertising. The truth is that good UGC can also be very effective when presented on your website. In this post, we’ll walk you through the important steps of building a user-generated content website that will get you more engagement and conversions.
Why should you include user-generated content on your website? your website?
When you feature authentic user-generated images on your website, you’re tapping into the widespread creativity of your customers and followers. This strategy is a win-win because not only do fans of your brand feel like they are part of your brand, but 60 percent of consumers believe that UGC is the most compelling type of marketing content.
In addition, 79 percent of consumers say user-generated content has a big impact on their purchasing decisions, which means adding UGC to your site can drive more revenue for your business. Using the content that your customers are freely creating on your brand is also a very profitable strategy compared to creating and purchasing all of your website images yourself.
With that in mind, these are the steps to create a user-generated content website.
1. Defining Goals
So your team has decided to include visual UGC on your website. Brilliant! But before you start looking for solutions to help you achieve this, think about why you want to feature user-generated content on your website in the first place. Is it because you want to showcase your products or brand experiences in real life? Do you want your customers to feel more involved with your brand? Perhaps your main goal is to increase online conversions? Or maybe a combination of all these things?
Define goals and intentions around having UGC on your website, such as:
The pages of the website where you want to feature UGC
Your goals should help you determine where and how you take advantage of UGC on your website. If you’re looking to inspire shoppers and more effectively move them along the path to purchase, you’ll want to feature UGC on your brand’s homepage, making that content shoppable to connect inspiration with action.
Need to increase conversion rates on product detail pages (PDPs)? Try to display relevant social proof alongside your professional product images. Make a list of where you want to place UGC on the pages of your website, detailing where this content will be placed on the page.
Web metrics to track success
How will you determine if Is adding user generated content to your website an effective strategy for your brand? Think about what success looks like for your business by featuring UGC on your website: more conversions, lower bounce rates, a reduction in bounce rates, more time spent on the site, higher order values, etc.
Write down these metrics along with the numbers you’d like to achieve with user-generated content on your website. Be sure to compare and then track progress as you go.
2. Who are the key stakeholders?
When you start the process of managing your UGC, it’s important to decide who will oversee the day-to-day management and maintenance of user-generated content on your website. Will this person be on the marketing team? Will it be the responsibility of multiple people or one person?
Once you’ve determined who these stakeholders will be, work to create a process for moderating and managing all user-generated content. . Will it be with a UGC tool? will it be manual? How much time will you need to spend on this on a weekly basis?
Based on the goals you’ve set, think about how the process should be organized.
3. Determine what type of UGC you want to feature
Okay, now you know where you want to place your user-generated content on your website and the metrics by which you’ll measure success. Now, decide what types of images should appear on your UGC-centric pages.
Decide what you want that UGC to look like. Perhaps you want people to display your products in real life settings or in particular places? You may want to display your own branded social feeds (featuring user-generated content) on web pages. Whatever type of user-generated content you want to display on every page, here’s how to get the quality UGC you want:
Ask and incentivize audiences
To acquire the UGC you are looking for, ask your customers and followers! Find out who you want to create the content. Are your customers, loyal followers, those who are part of your community?
Once you assess which groups are best for creating user-generated content, reach out to them on the channels they interact with further.If they’re on Instagram, try posting a funny image that invites people to share UGC. If they are the ones who have opted in to hear from you, send an email asking them to get creative and share their experiences with your product or service.
Run a user-generated content campaign or contest
Don’t be shy. Be specific with what you want people to believe. Request a certain type of visual content and make it fun by including hashtags or even a special contest or giveaway.
If people want to participate and give you permission to use their content on your website, encourage them with a hashtag and ask them to label your brand. Who knows, telling people they have a chance to be featured on your site can be a pretty good incentive in itself.
Set UGC moderation guidelines
Of course, not all UGC produced will be considered usable based on the parameters you set to make the final cut for your website. To successfully embed user-generated content on your website, you need to make sure you have the right processes and resources in place.
No matter who on the team is overseeing the content, establish a formal process for reviewing, rights management and content approval that any team member can refer to when necessary. This will put everyone on the same page. Create your own brand content moderation guidelines, document them, and make them available to the broader marketing team.
There are tools that can also help ease the content selection process. More on that in the next section.
4. Establish a process for adding UGC
Finding all the UGC most relevant to your website, curating high-quality content, and adding it all in one place can be a lot of work. Who is going to do it? Of course, you can always assign a team member to do it all manually, which costs your team time and the company money, or you can let a robust tool do most of the work for you.
Implementing UGC on a website is an effective marketing strategy, but the time it takes to find the right user-generated content, filter the best pieces, request permissions, and keep it all organized can seem like a chore. overwhelming. Stackla can help you do this job. As the leading UGC platform, we make the UGC discovery, selection, rights management and publishing process seamless. Because our platform is built with AI technology, it allows marketers to automate content curation and workflows, source content directly from customers, and even take advantage of predictive content recommendations, which means you can post continually better content with less effort.
5 . Make Your Website’s UGC Shoppable
You’ve embedded authentic and compelling user-generated content on your website and your visitors love it. That’s awesome!
But if your goals are to drive conversions and online sales, you’ll need to take a more proactive approach to connecting this inspiring content with commerce. Take user-generated content on your website a step further and make it shoppable.
By syncing your product catalogs with relevant UGC visuals, you can make this engaging social proof more actionable, adding ‘Buy Now’ or ‘Buy Look’ calls to action. Link real products and experiences to the customer generated content of that specific item on your website, inspire people to buy and shorten their path to purchase.
6. Always be optimized
Okay, so you’ve got your website UGC process in place, and you’ve invested in the right resources to help you manage the process. The next step is optimization.
Try experimenting with where you place your UGC visual galleries to see what seems to be most attractive to your visitors. Remember, the job isn’t always done by the time you put visual UGC on your website. Always try new things and maximize the effectiveness you are getting from this strategy.
5 Examples of Great User Generated Content Websites
Now, the part you’ve been waiting for. —real examples of real brands leveraging user-generated content on their website. Here are some user-generated content website ideas from brands that have successfully implemented a UGC web strategy.
Smile Direct Club
Smile Direct Club chooses to feature UGC on the top of your home page; it is the first thing anyone who visits your website sees. Doing this allows Smile Direct Club to showcase several examples of social proof of their product from the first point of contact on their site.
They also have a ‘Results’ page at the top of their navigation where results Website visitors can see actual customer results displayed on the page, displaying before and after images of how the product works.
Club Med
The travel company and Club Med hospitality specializes in all-inclusive vacations for families. On their community website, they encourage people to share their experiences with other members, featuring a page full of user-generated content from their clients.
The page even allows visitors to filter through the UGC gallery by category, region and resort to find real Club Med member content for the exact experience they’re looking for. Also, images are shoppable, which means that when someone clicks on a photo, they will be taken directly to the link if they want to book that experience.
Little Bellies
Little Bellies en an organic baby and children’s food brand that has a loyal following of parents. They take advantage of this by displaying photos of their happy little customers on all the main web pages of their site.
At the bottom of their home page, Little Bellies displays their Instagram account, which is full of content. generated by parents. of their babies enjoying Little Bellies organic snacks.
In their ‘Natural Development’ pages, intended to encourage parents to let their children spoon-feed themselves and play with food, Little Bellies features curated UGC galleries of babies and children taking part in these brand-specific initiatives using the hashtags #letsplaywithfood and #welovespooning.
Four’N Twenty
The Australian food brand Four’N Twenty puts their UGC client front and center on their website. A quick scroll will bring up all the content generated by your customers who enjoy meat pies in various situations in life, from game days to date nights.
Canon
In the “Explore” section of its website, Canon seeks to challenge and inspire its active community of photographers. To do so, they created a ‘LEAP challenge’, posting creative briefs for 30 days straight and inviting their community to participate.
The page features content their clients created based on the series of creative briefs they posted. by canon. Visitors can scroll through this engaging community UGC gallery and even filter by the notice at the top to see the different types of UGC submitted for each abstract.
Conclusion
There are several things to keep in mind when including user-generated content as part of your website’s visual strategy. Knowing what you hope to achieve by implementing UGC, mapping out the process, and identifying who is responsible for managing the UGC elements on the site is crucial to knowing how to build a user-generated content website.
If If you’re interested in using Stackla to help make your job as a seller easier and your website more attractive to customers, fill out a free demo form below today.
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