What is User Generated Content(UGC)?
User Generated Content is content created by consumer who may or may not be customers. This can range from blog or social media posts, new articles, review and even videos, causing the total number of user generated content produced daily to reach over 1 Billion Terabytes (Forbes, 2018). In short, anyone and everyone is producing multiple forms of user generated content.
92% of consumers trust this kind of content
What are the benefits and implications of UGC?
The main benefits of UGC can be summarised into two main points;
1. It can represent a campaign through the use of dedicated hashtags, which in turn can serve as social proof of the success of the brand. This form of media has a more organic and natural feel, leading 92% of consumers trust this kind of content above all other forms of brand messages (SalesForce, 2016).
2. This trust with user generated content can have an adverse effect on brands, especially as 67.7% of consumers' purchasing decisions are impacted this content. A recent study by Moz highlights that businesses risk losing a large chunk of customers in the mere presence of negative articles. Specifically, losses of 22% of potential clients with just 1 negative article, and an overwhelming 70% of potential clients with four or more negative articles.
Only 1 negative review could cost you nearly a quarter of all potential customers
Takeaways
As there is a high level of consumer trust in what they see online, companies need to take UGC seriously. Restaurant review stories receive all the press, but most companies will eventually have pages from review sites ranking their names as well as social media posts and news articles talking about them.
Having just one negative review could cost you nearly a quarter of all potential customers who began researching your brand, which means they were likely deep in the conversion funnel and decided against purchasing at the last minute. Therefore, because UGC has a direct impact on customer purchasing decisions, it will impact your bottom line. As a result, unmonitored UGC can leave your company blindsided by changes in funnels and sale cycles, leaving success up to chance, when you could be optimising it to your advantage.
How to Monitor UGC
The benefits of UGC are clear, and the business implications are even clearer. Now is the time to integrate UGC monitoring into your strategy.
By utilising TIFY, you are able to track, monitor and predict what kinds of content is produced. All in 1 platform, that makes finding out what people are saying and feeling about your brand online as easy as a Google search!
Contact Us the TIFYTeam for more information.