User-generated content is defined as a type of content that has been created and distributed by unpaid contributors through pictures, videos, testimonials, tweets and blog posts to promote a product or brand. In today’s culture, social media has allowed ordinary customers to share their positive or negative experiences, which reduces the gap between customer and provider. A brand’s reputation can be built or destroyed within seconds through user-generated content. User-generated content is the cheapest and fastest way for brands to expand their customer base.

Examples of great user-generated content

Coca-Cola

The marketing team at Coca-Cola came up with a campaign called ‘Share a Coke’ through social and ad channels. Coca-Cola would print 150 most common and popular names within a country and ask people to share a Coke with a loved one. Overnight the campaign started getting a great response and people were out finding their named bottles or friends’ named bottles. This was a big hit with the public.

Netflix

To promote Stranger Things 2, Netflix started to incorporate a bit of user-generated content to help promote the new upcoming series by just posting images of stranger things of their daily lives. Eventually, the campaign gained traction and Netflix generated almost 1 million audiences in just 2 weeks.

Apple

Due to the smartphone market, Apple felt that customers were dissatisfied over the camera capabilities for pictures shot in low light. Apple launched a #ShotOnIphone campaign to redeem and gain trust in iPhone’s camera abilities. The campaign involved users to post their pictures shot in low-light with their iPhones. The low-light photos were then posted on YouTube under the campaign name “Shot on iPhone”. Not only did Apple regained users’ trust in the iPhone camera but they also saved a lot of money on development and production of implementing the strategy. In addition, they also made Apple users feel like a family and made users feel special when their photos were used in Apple ads.

Starbucks

In 2014, Starbucks encouraged customers to draw some artistic doodles on their white cups launching a contest for them on social media with the hashtag #WhiteCupContest. The winning design would be used as a limited edition template for the cup design of Starbucks. The contest had generated around 4000 cup designs. Starbucks revisited the challenge in 2016 but hosted another challenge called the #RedCupArt challenge. Again the response was brilliant, the use of these challenges showed that Starbucks appreciates customer feedback and the challenge was easy to participate allowing customers of all ages to participate in the contest.

Benefits of User-Generated Content

User-generated content, when used effectively, can be great for a brand in two ways. First, financially, when launched successfully can reduce the cost of development and production costs due to customers providing the content. Secondly, user-generated content enriches the relationship between customer and brand by providing that piece of interactivity and feedback from loyal customers as well as brand awareness via the word of mouth. As today’s society and brand reputation are predominately built on social media, user-generated content is great for small or large-scale businesses to spread brand awareness.