Driving Website Traffic with UGC

Driving Website Traffic with UGC

The rise of user-generated content has fundamentally changed marketing as we know it. In the age of Big Data and eCommerce, UGC is remarkably effective for generating website traffic. Content marketing has increasingly become vital in attracting new customers to online stores. Brands must build meaningful experiences that provide a unique value and build trust with their audiences. This can be achieved with great content.

Undeniable UGC statistics:

  • 82% of marketers see an increase in visitor engagement when UGC is part of a brand’s website experience.
  • The amount of ads and brand content we get exposed to on a daily basis has increased from 500/day to ~5000/day in the last 50 years.
  • 80% of consumers trust reviews written by other customers above professionally written content.
  • According to a long studied Gallup Poll, consumers were asked which profession they thought practiced integrity. Advertising and marketing fell below the pharmaceutical and legal industries, at just 4%.
  • Of the world’s top 20 largest brands, 25% of their search results are linked to visual user-generated content.

Visual content marketing platforms - such as ShareSpring - are providing online businesses more control over earned content. Visual marketing assets have earned a pivotal role in many marketing strategies. Use social media to drive customers to your website and make your business more social, more visual and more viral.

UGC was mainly found on the social media networks. Savvy marketers are now migrating UGC to more prominent and permanent positions on their own websites, thanks to social wall platforms like ShareSpring.

Benefits of sourcing user generated content on your website:

  • Build brand affinity. As you form stronger relationships with your customer, you will grow your brand advocates, which is the most durable and highest kind of customer loyalty.
  • Build trust among customers. Whether it’s over stylized products or perfectly coiffed models, we have an innate ability to spot a fake when we see it. Websites become more relatable and authentic.
  • Build website traffic. UGC is amazing for SEO because it gives search engines a constant stream of fresh, relevant content.
  • Build your social following and virality for your brand. Customers visit your social channels for promotions, but also for conversations.
  • Positively affects bounce rate, keeping visitors on site longer. Social media aggregators are providing a powerful way for brands to share UGC in one unified spot.
  • Provide social proof, leading to increased purchases.
  • Save time and money. Earned content is readily available and more affordable. Brands save big on advertorial photo shoots.

Best Practices for UGC Marketing:

  1. Develop. Create a set of brand guidelines for identifying the types of content that makes the most sense for your brand. Set some goals.
  2. Grow. If you aren’t already active on your social networks, start! Get your social hub going. Be helpful and share what makes your company unique, fun and/or brilliant. People would rather engage with brands that already have a following.
  3. Invite. Encourage customers to be creative and share. Tell them what you’re looking for. Come up with creative hashtags and contests to encourage your fans to create and share new content.
  4. Listen. Invest in social listening to figure out what your customers say about your brand on social media.
  5. Organize. Utilize UGC platforms (like ShareSpring) to make your job easier. ShareSpring’s social aggregator specializes in helping brands collect, curate, and activate UGC images and videos from social networks and are powerful tools for marketing efforts dedicated to website engagement and conversion optimization.

ShareSpring is designed specifically to harness the power of UGC, by marketers for marketers. Our user-generated content platform is a robust, yet intuitive way to collect, filter, monitor and distribute customer content from one seamless dashboard.

Drop us a line to see how we can help you strategize about bringing in your best customer content and increasing traffic and brand affinity.