Instagram is a powerful platform for social media marketing. One entrepreneur built a six-figure business off of it. Unfortunately, it also has a steep learning curve. The good news is that restructuring your strategy can help you get the hang of Instagram more quickly. One option is to consider shifting towards a user generated content strategy.
Most Instagram marketers focus on creating their own content. The problem with this approach is that branded content and professionally curated content can make you look less genuine, which hurts your engagement rate.
You will need to invest more time and resources to nurture a strategy around user generated content instead. However, it is well worth the investment, because The ROI will be massive. Data from Starbucks showed that 61% of customers are more willing to make purchases from user generated content.
How can you create a user generated content strategy with Instagram? Here are some ideas that you may want to try. They can help you build your brand or even become an influencer.
Use hashtags to create a trend
Aerie is a women’s fashion company that developed a very successful user generated content strategy back in 2017. They started a hashtag called #UGCgoals. The hashtag was accompanied by a post calling for followers to post unfiltered photos of themselves in swimwear. They pledged to donate $1 for every image to the National Eating Disorders Association. This post was remarkably successful. It received 14,906 likes.
Art Mash is another organization that used this strategy very effectively. They created the #Procreate to encourage artists to post higher volumes of unique products. Art Mash got 5,373 likes in just six days.
This shows that you can create a strong user generated content marketing campaign with an enticing hashtag and a clear call-to-action.
Connect with the right influencers
Influencer marketing is a remarkably successful way to get traction on social media. One survey found that 25% of marketers plan to spend over $100,000 on influencer marketing this year.
However, influencer marketing is only effective if you implement it correctly. The first thing that you need to do is come up with the right goal. You should consider creating an influencer marketing campaign dedicated to attracting user generated content for your Instagram profile.
You also need to make sure that you choose the right influencers to support your campaign. Here are some tips to align your user generated content strategy with the best influencers:
- Pay more attention to engagement metrics than follower count. Far too many marketers obsess about follower count, whether they are analyzing their own profile or the profile of an influencer that they want to partner with. Follower count matters more on Instagram than on Pinterest, but it is still not nearly as important as engagement. A lot of influencers pay for fake followers to make their account seem more important. If these accounts don’t have good engagement rates, then that means their content is not going to rank high in the Instagram feed. On the other hand, their content will get a lot more visibility if they have high engagement scores.
- Make sure the account is relevant to your brand. Some influencers have massive reach, but that doesn’t mean that their content is relevant to your brand. Take a look at many celebrities such as Kim Kardashian. They charge several hundred thousand dollars for a single share on social media. However, that won’t provide much value to your brand if their followers aren’t interested in what you have to offer. You are better off finding lesser known influencers with a more targeted audience.
You also need a strong call-to-action to encourage users to submit user generated content. Make sure that it is something that a prominent influencer will be able to get on board with and that their followers will find appealing.
Solicit feedback on Content about your employees
IBM came up with a highly engaging user generated content marketing strategy. They created content showing their workers behind the scenes of the company. Content with a clear human element tends to get a lot more visibility on social media.
You could follow a similar approach. You might want to create an image of your employees working closely together and ask customers to share their input.
A Strong User Generated Content Strategy Can Transform Your Instagram Campaigns
Instagram marketing is remarkably effective. However, you need the right content strategy. User generated content can be very useful, so you should try to leverage it to its fullest potential.
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