Can User-Generated Content Work for You? (GoPro says YES)

Today’s millennial audience finds user-generated content (UGC) to be markedly more memorable than the content that marketing teams produce. GoPro knows this. The company has seen significant commercial success over the past several years. It interacts with its consumers on a personal level and allows them to share their content with an expansive audience.

Is it possible for your business to emulate GoPro’s outreach to similar success? Let’s break GoPro’s connective process down and see if you can’t start onboarding market-savvy consumers in the near future.

GoPro Enables Content Creation

If you consider the brand’s main product, GoPro has an advantage here. The company sells a content creation tool—otherwise known as a “video camera.” That jargon-ification of a well-known term serves as GoPro’s first rhetorical attempt to engage with the more creative consumers on its roster.

Consumers are encouraged to use GoPro devices to capture footage that regular video cameras or cell phones cannot. While you might be able to take a picture of your dog running on the beach without special footage. For example, you wouldn’t be able to strap your cell phone to your dog without putting the hardware at risk.

However, GoPro circumvents that danger and provides us with videos like this one.

What’s the Impact?

In providing its consumers with a content creation tool, GoPro set the foundation for its relationship with its consumers. The company wanted its consumers to produce original content from a new perspective.

Those consumers responded enthusiastically. GoPro rose to its current level of success without the assistance of a million-dollar marketing team. Instead, the company relies on its consumers to produce harrowing content that, in turn, draws new consumers to its marketplace.

Providing consumers with a content creation tool isn’t the only way to start generating UGC, though.

How Can You Bring User-Generated Content to Your Business?

If you’re looking to capitalize on UGC in the same way that GoPro did, you need to start thinking about your product like a consumer. Start by ensuring that your consumers can share their content with you through a variety of mediums, including the following:

• Testimonials: Soliciting reviews from your consumers can involve coding a post-purchase pop-up or facilitating an email-based newsletter. Those reviews and testimonials, however, count as content. Take the time to reach out to your reviewers and get permission to integrate their comments into your platform.
• Social Media Hashtags & Posts: Given the plethora of social media platforms operating today, it’s easier than ever to capitalize on an impromptu hashtag trend. Create a tag that your consumers can follow, and you’ll see an increase in deliberate consumer engagement.
• Video Content: In the vein of GoPro, why not encourage your consumers to use their phones to create videos of themselves interacting with your products? UGC on YouTube draws in over 10 times more views than text posts.
• Written Content: Don’t underestimate the value of a blog post or how-to post created by one of your consumers. This unique content generates significant consumer trust and offers future audiences social proof of your business’ ability to serve them well.

GoPro takes its UGC to the extreme, and to significant financial benefit. When you provide your consumers with additional, communicative channels, you can too.

Conclusion

Is your company in need of help? MV3 Marketing Agency has numerous Marketing experts ready to assist you. Contact MV3 Marketing to jump-start your business.

Image attribution: expressiovisual – stock.adobe.com