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8 l bronto.comPART TWO:HOW TO COLLECT UGCUGC is useful and impactful. Now let’sreview how to gather it.SOCIAL MONITORINGThe simplest way to find UGC about yourbrand is to go onto social media networksand look at what people are saying aboutyou. If you already have accounts with thosesocial media networks, you can do this easily by searching for your brand name andkeywords and checking direct messagingpointed at you. If not, you need to start oneon each feed to find all relevant content.This will let you see what is being said aboutyou. Step two is to pick up the thread andactually talk to your customers through allthese channels. You can start a dialogue, byencouraging them to use the right hashtagsor direct message them so that you areinvolved and notified once they start to postcontent about you.Once you have this access, you can start tolook at the content you may procure andbronto.comask them for permission to use it. If youask for the permission publicly, you aretipping off other brand admirers that youare looking for UGC and can inspire them toshare their own.REVIEW MONITORINGSimilarly, you should be looking at allyour reviews across your own site, anyother third-party sites you use andreview sites, blogs and other onlineproperties where you are mentioned.Checking reviews on your own siteand across third-parties that you havecontracted to work with is simple – iftime consuming – as you should haveready access to the reviews and will bealerted either by your content management system, web-host control panel orthird-party when reviews come in.What is more difficult is keeping tabson where people are talking about yououtside of social media. Bloggers willhopefully share their own content via

internetretailing.net l 9social media with relevant hashtags andkeywords, so you can locate that easilyenough through social monitoring.For other mentions, you will simply haveto get busy with Google and set up alertsfor when you or key words you are interested in are mentioned.Another way to garner reviews is toissue short, one-question surveys aboutwhat the customer has purchased. Thiscan produce useful, quotable contentand also generate invaluable feedbackon your products and services that canagain feed into product development,product marketing and even website andlogistics elements of your sales process.For flash sale sites and rapid-turnoverretailers, this sort of feedback needs to begenerated instantly, so it is often wise tolaunch a one-question survey at checkout that asks, “Why did you choose this?”For less time-sensitive offerings or linesunlikely to be discontinued, this survey canbe conducted via email, social media oreven SMS.SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGNSRather than just hoping people are talking about you, you can start social mediacampaigns to generate content that suitsyour marketing purposes. Work out whatyou are looking for content-wise and howyou are going to use it (see Part 4: how touse UGC), then hit social media.You don’t have to limit yourself to onechannel, but it makes sense to start withone channel and create a funnel (throughjudicious use of hashtags) to directcustomers to that channel to deliver thecontent.According to BrandsWithFans5, “The bestway to source UGC is to focusinternetretailing.net

10 l bronto.comon the social networks your brand is alreadyparticipating in. Instagram and Twitter arethe most marketing friendly platforms forhashtag conversations and collecting publicphotos and videos. Facebook can also be asource of UGC if the brand has an engagedaudience that will elicit a high response toPage posts requesting submissions in comments. Facebook is not search friendly forfinding public conversations by people (notother Pages) that are re-sharable.”Now UGC campaign, it laid out a multichannelcontent marketing strategy to gather audiencesubmissions, create content and distribute it.Basics for encouraging UGC: Choose a unique hashtag – create onethat your audience will readily identify withyour brand and what you do. Ask that the audience use your hashtag– spread the word via social media, yourwebsite, email and other marketing channels. Monitor the hashtag – set up hashtagmonitoring using tools that assess whereand when you are being talked about andfeed you that content.When Cision PRNewswire6 launched its #PRis-EMAIL CAMPAIGNSbronto.com“In the case of #PRisNow, we started with ablog post on Beyond PR, then created customized posts for different social media channels,messaging that internal advocates could sharewith their networks, influencer pitches, andoutreach via ProfNet’s free query service,” thecompany explains.Email can also play a big role in UGC marketing, because it taps into your existing user basethat is likely engaged with your brand or site.Here are some things you can do with email togenerate UGC: Send out marketing emails specificallyasking for content – Adore Me and Footlockerare two great examples of this. They bothsent out emails explicitly asking contacts toengage with them by taking selfies wearingAdore Me clothes and Footlocker-purchasedtrainers, letting them know their UGC may beused in future messages. Run a contest – Contests are a great way tointegrate social in an email campaign. Oneexample would be a social media scavenger hunt with clues hidden across yoursocial channels. With this type of contest,you’ll want to include email as a part of thecampaign with one of the clues coming from

internetretailing.net l 11this channel. It can be an effective way topromote your email sign-up via your socialsites, as you can advertise the contest in advance on those channels in an effort to gainadditional subscribers7.In these examples from Adore Me andKlean Kanteen, both brands do a good jobof driving their email subscribers to theirsocial channels. Ask questions and start conversations– Does your email include a special topicthat connects with people emotionallyor includes some kind of unique offer? Ifso, encourage subscribers to share theirresponse to it with your audiences. You caneven ask them to share using a specialhashtag and provide a fill-in-the-blankcomment. For example: “This 50% discountfrom @TwitterHandle makes me feel .#SavingsDay”.Here is a great example from Maggie Sottero.Weddings, of course, are very emotionalevents, and you can do a great job of havingpast customers relive the moment.This not only helps connect with pastcustomers but also helps engagefuture customers.Another great way to regularly engageusers with your emails is to offer aquestion of the day or week and postanswers from subscribers on yoursocial site(s). Be sure to tailor yourcampaign to your particular social site.For Instagram, allow pictures to serveas answers. In this example from anOverstock.com email (below),the concept of engagement was there,but it would have been better to includea hashtag rather than forcing people toclick through the banner.REFERENCES5 -user-generated-content-marketing/6 .html7 g/internetretailing.net

12 l bronto.comPART THREEHOW TO CURATE UGCGetting users to start creating contentthat you can use is only the first step ina UGC marketing strategy – you haveto store it, categorise it, manage it anddecide on the best contributions.content on. Doing this publically canbe great additional publicity – and willhopefully lead the creator to also reshare your request and drive even moreclicks and content creation.So what do you need to do with it to makeit useful for your marketing campaigns?But there is a catch to asking for permission publicly: It opens you to a verypublic rejection in the unlikely event thatthey should say no.GET PERMISSION TO USE ITThe first and most vital part of the process is to get approval from the contentcreator to use it. The content may wellhave been born out of your requests, butit still belongs to the person who createdit and you need to make sure that theyare happy for you to use it.How do you do this? Just ask them. Thisis known as explicit permission. But thinkabout how you ask them. Usually, if theyhave been inspired by a campaign that youhave invited them to take part in, they havegiven implicit permission for you to usetheir content – especially if it features aspecific and unique hashtag associated withthat contest, campaign or call to action.While implicit permission is recognisedlegally, it is always wise – and polite – toobtain explicit permission.To do this, you can contact them via thesocial media feed they have created thebronto.comBetter, ask them via direct messaging,email or other private channels for theirpermission. If they agree and are reallypleased, they will share the requestanyway.If the content was created using yourproduct or brand entirely off the user’sown bat and not prompted by a call toaction from you, you need to tread evenmore carefully. Usually, people are happyto share, but since it was unsolicited,you need to send them a private DM oran email to explain who you are, how youfound the content and what you want todo with it. And be prepared that they maywant a creation credit.According to lawyers at Shareroot9,getting this permission can be surprisingly difficult and so many brandsprefer to simply use content their users

internetretailing.net l 13generate as they see fit without askingfor permission explicitly or creating asituation where it is granted implicitly.Using photos that feature unintentional“brand placement” for marketing purposes has created some of the biggestlegal headaches for brands in almostevery industry.Using content that was not specificallycreated for your brand (via a campaign,for example) without permission couldland you in hot water. This includes photographs of a celebrity using a certainbrand or private photos with accidentalbrand placement.Businesses can be sued for the abovesituations on the grounds of unauthorised use of an individual’s image formarketing purposes. The bottom line?Don’t use content without the creator’spermission—it’s not worth the trouble.As always, it is best to check with thelegal department when embarking ona UGC campaign – just so you all knowwhat you can and can’t do.HOW TO STORE IT, CATEGORISE IT AND MANAGE ITOnce you have permission and have gothold of the content, you then face thechallenge of what to do with it: where do“Businesses can be sued for theabove situations on the grounds ofunauthorised use of an individual’simage for marketing purposes”internetretailing.net

14 l bronto.comyou put it and, more pressingly how doyou categorise it in such a way that youcan use it?The technology space around UGC isbuzzing as more and more companiesrecognise the value of this type of content for their business. Olapic, Stackla,Annex Cloud and others all play into thisspace with platforms and solutions thathelp you manage and curate content.The easiest thing to do is to opt for acontent management engine that willcollect, collate, categorise and curatecontent. Using machine learning and AI– today’s argot for algorithms that lookfor patterns – these platforms can trawlsocial sites and other online feeds, looking for keywords, phrases, hashtags,logos, images and more and pullingthem in for deeper assessment.Once collected, all this content is thensubjected to a much deeper interrogation by AI to determine much moreaccurately how on-brand the content is,or how well it fulfils whatever criteriayou have imposed on it for your UGCcampaign.There is typically a stage for humans toreview the content before it is then catebronto.comgorised and stored, ready for use.The really clever engines also featurethe ability to manage the rights too,requesting rights from the creator andmanaging the outcome. They then storeand organise all this content in an easyto-use dashboard that the marketingdepartment can use to find what theyare looking for – knowing where it camefrom, when, why and from whom.MODERATION AND SELECTIONPart of the process of picking the contentinvolves making sure that it is on-brand,that it doesn’t infringe other brands’ copyright, or interfere with people’s privacyand that it is neither indecent nor offensive. This can be largely automated. Butdeciding what content is actually good ismuch more subjective.Here humans come into play. For bigbrands, there could be thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions ofbits of relevant vetted content. Machinescan whittle this down to a manageableamount, but then people have to step into assess what content fits with what theyare trying to achieve.To achieve this, marketers can make useof the aforementioned dashboard to pickthe content they want (and to make sure

internetretailing.net l 15that the AI hasn’t overlooked somethingreally offensive). They can manuallyselect the pieces of content they want touse and where and how.With reviews, some degree of automatedmoderation occurs to weedle out thingsthat are offensive and, with the increasing sophistication of third-party systems,fake reviews. This streamlines the vetting, but all reviews still need some sortof manual intervention before going live.(as we shall see in Part 4: How to UseUGC) – you need to be able to pick theright content at the right time and deployit. You need to link your content management systems to your marketingsystems to try and automate as muchas possible. But be prepared for somemanual tasks.Reviews are interesting as they often bega response – particularly the bad ones.While a brand or business should neverget into a slanging match with a customer – least of all in public – a bad reviewhandled well can turn into a PR win. Ifyou understand their problem, and canfix it, you can showcase it online.CONNECTING CONTENT TO CAMPAIGNSMapping the content that you havegarnered to the right campaigns andproducts is a tough call – made tougheras the volume of content goes up.Here you need again a combination ofmachine learning and human input.Depending on what you want to do – anemail campaign, a social media campaign, or even a social selling campaignREFERENCES9 at-youneed-to-know-part-1internetretailing.net

16 l bronto.comPART FOURHOW TO USE UGC INMARKETINGThe effort to gather and curate all ofthis user-generated content will be fornaught if you don’t effectively deploy it.There are three things you can use UGCfor: engaging customers and fans; sellingdirectly; and helping consumers learnmore about your products, business andcustomers.ENGAGING WITH CUSTOMERSReviews, too, are about engagement.Encouraging people to write about theirexperience builds a bond between youand them. While many people will onlywrite a review unbidden if they are upsetabout something, actively encouraginghappy customers once you have seenthem post something positive on socialmedia can yield positive results.As you roll out UGC, watch which customers contribute the most and see howtheir posts do. Are there certain poststhat seem to gather lots of likes? Or getre-shared frequently? Start to turn theseinto brand advocates – with sweetenersof early access to new lines, money off,or even just the glory of being a brandadvocate.With reviews, you need to work out wherebest to use them. Applying them to a specific product or service page on a websiteis a given, but you can also pull them outto use in specific marketing campaignsor beyond. If you send out a marketingemail about a particular product, includesome of the best reviews you have on thatitem.This is where UGC comes into its own.While it may be easy to look at it as justa way of reinforcing your relationshipwith your existing customers, it plays arole in acquiring new customers. It’s amultiplication effect. First, those postingattract the attention of their followersand then those followers attract additional attention.And getting positive reviews – and thestars that come with that – helps you engage further. Not only has that customerhad a positive experience, but startinga dialogue with them about their reviewcan make them more engaged with youas a brand and more likely to come backto you again. It also makes them morelikely to recommend you to friends andbronto.com

internetretailing.net l 17beyond – igniting again the whole brandadvocacy dynamic seen with other UGCcampaigns talked of above.However, speed is often of the essence.As we have seen, for flash sales orlimited edition lines, it is often best torequest reviews, surveys or stars at theimmediate point of sale and to then usethat data on your website and socialfeeds instantly.SELLING THROUGH UGCWhile brand engagement and loyalty aremust-haves, the real end game is to sellmore. After your UGC campaigns havegarnered all this interest and set you upas a social and celebrated brand, youneed to use this content to sell.Use your images and videos to push outmarketing materials with a sales-focusedmessage. If you ran a competition on whohas the best Instagram post about yourtrainers, now is the time to put those winning trainer images to work for you as partof more traditional marketing campaigns.Here you can use the imagery and videoon social channels, but also you can stickthem up on a billboard or build them intoemail marketing campaigns.You might focus on one “social product”per week or day that has a special price.You can choose one user-generatedproduct photo as the main hero imageand give credit to the user. Or you mightconsider testing an email that featuresmultiple products, such as a clearanceemail. Run an A/B test11 using socialor UGC photos in the email versus thestandard stock product images. In bothcases, analyse how these social sellingmessages convert compared with yourstatic promotional messages.Deploy your best reviews in emailmarketing about specific products or services. Let them do the selling for you.Running social media campaigns showsjust how interactive you are with yourcustomers, so you need to leverage that.Anecdotally, brand engagement risesnearly 30% when consumers are exposedto a combination of UGC and professionalcontent12. This is because they trust theviews of their peers and like the look ofthe pro content.LEARNING FROM UGCLearning from what the collected contenttells you is one of the most overlookedaspects of running a UGC campaign. UGCcan tell you so much you didn’t knowabout your customers, your products andyour business.internetretailing.net

18 l bronto.comFor starters, you can see which productsare most popular. But it goes way

EMAIL CAMPAIGNS Email can also play a big role in UGC market-ing, because it taps into your existing user base that is likely engaged with your brand or site. Here are some things you can do with email to generate UGC: Send out marketing emails specifically asking for content - Adore Me and Footlocker are two great examples of this. They both