Because of a lack of resources or to get closer to their community, brands are increasingly turning to user-generated content to feed their news feed. How does it work?

More and more data

In 2010, Google's CEO Eric Schmidt had announced that the amount of content created in the last 2 days exceeded that produced by all human civilization up to 2003 (approximately 5 exabytes of data).

This was probably overkill but did show the exponential inflation of content production since the beginning of the digital age.

Brands simply cannot compete with such a constantly refreshed influx on social networks.

We're seeing more and more brands letting fans have their say, for example, about their experience with a product.

This helps relieve the pressure marketers carry to always produce more content. 

For all that, just because you have a fan or customer base, doesn't necessarily mean you have a community.

What characterizes the community ? 

In a community, there are different degrees of involvement, with influencers and followers. 

Members share some common values and have a strong sense of belonging to the group. 

Community members know the unspoken rules in place.

Brands with a strong community give their members the opportunity to become ambassadors by playing on interactivity.

Today, UGC (User Generated Content) is increasingly appealing, especially in the generation of "digital natives".

By finding the right medium and letting a constructive message spread, brands build a strong and inspiring image. 

The "home" Pinterest of Made.com

 

At Made.com, UGC is used to create a Pinterest-like user experience.

In the example above, furniture site Made.com designed a page called Unboxed, a kind of dedicated Pinterest.

This is the place where the lucky owners of furniture purchased on the site show chow they arranged their interior with their purchase.

This allows Made to capitalize on this important resource of photos that showcase its products. 

The LEGO Kronkiwongi Project

Following its LEGO Movie, the Danish toy brand has launched a campaign to  reveal and celebrate the creative potential in every child ". 

To show the talent and imagination that lies within them, LEGO encouraged them to build something based on a wacky name. 

LEGO used Facebook to start its project and asked kids to build something from the word "Kronkiwongi".

On its website, the brand then created landing pages containing videos where each child is invited to present his or her creation. 

The results LEGO achieved:

• Impressions: 27 million thanks to sponsored reach from 80% of mothers and organic reach from 3.3 million people.
• Engagement likes, clicks, comments and shares up 61% across all LEGO pages ( Source: Search Engine Watch)

Give voice, keep control!

User-generated content is an important tool in your content strategy.

As we can observe with these two examples, giving users a voice does not mean letting them feed your page's news feed unattended.

On the contrary, by providing a clear framework and a few rules of conduct, exchanges only become more natural (while still assigning a role to a Community Manager in charge of coordinating everything).

Are you giving voice to your community? What is your strategy?