The Best Way to Advertise in 2023 is Just a Customer Away...

Whether you're a small business with a small budget for advertising, or a large company looking for the best way to maximize your marketing efforts, the best ad you can put out there is one that you're not actually putting out at all. It's call "User-Generated Content", or UGC, and all it takes is the ability to ask your customers to do it for you.

Think about things that you've purchased over the last year. How many of those came by recommendation from a friend? How much more likely are you to trust in a product or brand if someone YOU trust already uses and enjoys it? Most likely the answer to both of those questions is "ALOT." That is the reason that UGC is so important.

If you can get your happy customers to post about you, you're reaching a whole new, and much warmer audience. When you run paid ads, you're hoping to catch the right people at the right time, but you're paying for it either way. UGC rarely costs you anything, and often times goes out to people in similar life stages and styles than your current customers. Word of mouth marketing is the most effective and cost efficient marketing out there.

How do you get UGC for your business? It's simple! Some people may create it all on their own, because they love documenting everything they do. But, there are a few other ways to get UGC going that also help build your overall branding.

Create a Hashtag

One easy way to drive people to post about your brand is to create a branded hashtag. Take a little bit of time, and test a few hashtag options out in the search areas of your main social platforms to find ones that haven't been used yet, or have little to no activity on them. Ideally, you want to make it related to your company name or slogan, so there is no mistaking it for another brand. You also don't want other brands knowingly or unknowingly hijacking your hashtag after you've spent some time building it up. 

You'll use this hashtag on your posts, but then encourage your customers to post using it, offering likes and shares back on it. People love having the brands they enjoy interacting with them on social media. It makes them feel important and cared about. So when someone uses your hashtag, like it, add a thoughtful comment thanking them, and maybe share it to your stories! This means you'll have to monitor the hashtag, but check it at least once at the end of the day and interact with anyone that has used it. It will be worth it.

Run a Challenge or Giveaway

Another way to increase interaction with your customers and audience is to create something that requires action on their part. Whether it's a challenge that requires posting your product in a certain way, or a giveaway that requires them to be following and tag two friend in the comments of a post, this incentivizes people to interact publicly with your brand. People only do that when they trust and love a company, so if you can successfully accomplish getting your audience to interact in those fashions, you'll build a chain of virality and increase your brand awareness exponentially.

Ask For It

The final, and easiest, way to get UGC is to simply ask for it. Post about it on socials. Ask for it on your website. Put flyers up in your store. Ask your customers to share their experience after a class or session. However you want to do it, just do it. Unless the customer is leaving really unhappy, in which case you should be focused on fixing that relationship before asking for anything, rarely will people say no to your face. Granted, most people will forget, or just won't take the time to do anything. But, if you ask, your chances of people taking action increases dramatically. Just ask. The worst they can say is no.