Instagram Reposting
By Stanley Meytin
How To Get And Share User-Generated Content on Instagram
User-generated content is one of the best (and cheapest) forms of content marketing you can leverage for your branding strategy.
No matter how small or new your brand, there are people out there talking about you. You want to engage with these loyal, happy customers to keep them coming back while showing other prospects that you have a solid fan base behind you.
People love talking about products that reflect their lifestyle through social platforms. User generated content—the content that they create—helps spread the word about your brand that you can use to your advantage.
What is UGC?
User-generated content (UGC) refers to a photo, video, or review that a customer posts on his/her own feed about your brand or product. Typically, a customer loves your product so much that they are posting positive feedback about you through their own channel.
Basically, your customer is creating his or her own content about you. Then, your brand can go repost and reuse that content as a way to spread the good news and good review about your brand.
What makes UGC so unique is that users aren’t just leaving a review or giving you feedback. They’re actually going out of their way to create content about your brand, which starts to build a deeper level of engagement and interaction with your brand.
UGC is slightly different than influencer marketing, although they’re similar. Influencer marketing is when you partner with an individual (or individuals) to create a mutually-beneficial marketing campaign. Even if you’ve incentivized customers to put out their own content about your brand, like a discount code or giveaway, they’re not “marketing partners” per say.
Think of UGC as visual word-of-mouth marketing.
What are the benefits of UGC?
User-generated content has incredible benefits for your marketing strategy. In fact, it’s one of the most beneficial and cost-effective strategies you can implement.
1. Cost-effective
It’s a lot less expensive to repost user-generated content than it is to continuously create and put out fresh content. You’re basically getting access to a treasure trove of free content.
(Even incentivizing for UGC can end up being a lot less expensive than creating new).
2. Trustworthiness
And the content’s not just free… but other customers love it. Viewers feel that UGC is more genuine and authentic, since it’s coming from “real” people and not a brand. So they tend to trust it more. In fact, millennials trust UGC 50% more than brand-created content.
Establishing a level of trust is one of the best ways to push customers to action and start building baseline relationships.
3. Engagement
Because UGC has an innate sense of authenticity and trust, users are more likely to engage with it. One of our favorite statistics we’ve discovered is that reposting UGC on Instagram has almost a 690% higher engagement compared to other forms of content. That’s a lot of engagement you just can’t ignore.
Plus, you get a major boost in engagement from the original poster of the content. Let’s say Lilly posts about your brand, and then you repost Lilly’s post on Instagram. Lilly will feel like you appreciate her as a customer, so she’ll feel even more engaged with your brand. They’ll get a rush of dopamine when your brand promotes them, so they’ll get an even better (fuzzy) feeling towards your brand. This makes people loyal—which makes them want to purchase and share even more.
4. Reach
The more people that are talking about your brand, the wider your reach. This extension of your network also becomes more natural and effortless, since your customers are positively promoting you to their friends.
There’s no better reach than natural “word-of-mouth” reach.
5. Recall
Since UGC is more engaging and trustworthy, it also has a greater recall than other forms of content. Reports show that millennials find UGC to be 35% more memorable than content that comes from mainstream sources.
6. Conversion
People trust you, they engage with you, and they remember you. Altogether, that means they’re also more likely to buy from you. 84% of millennnials report that UGC influences what they buy, and over 68% claim it’s a good indicator of quality of a brand or service.
UGC is like a product review. Consumers want “personal recommendations” from people who have tried the brand. They want recommendations from people like them, who are living the same sort of lifestyle. UGC is like a visual positive review from social followers and friends they trust.
7. Instagram engagement
UGC doesn’t just engage your users. It also demonstrates engagement on Instagram’s platform. Instagram’s algorithm likes to see reposts, because it demonstrates a more connected network.
Every time someone posts about you, you get a boost of engagement juice. And every time you repost a follower’s post, you get another boost. The more people are talking about you and the more you engage with followers, the more Instagram will reward you for your involvement on the platform. This bump in engagement can help you have a wider reach, appear higher on Insta feeds, and reach more potential customers.
Bottom line: UGC is influential and well-received. There’s no better way to promote your brand than by promoting the people who love your brand.
How do you use UGC?
UGC shows massive results. But how do you get it ad use it? How can you encourage people to create their own content, and then how do you leverage that content in your own strategy?
1. Check your tags.
If someone posts a picture of you on their Instagram feed or Story, they’ll likely tag your brand. So, be sure to keep an eye on the “heart” section of your business Instagram to see who could be talking about and tagging your brand. If you see a tag, repost!
2. Create a hashtag.
#Starbucks is one of the most popular tags on Instagram. They’ve seen major success launching new products just by word of mouth on social media.
Having a branded hashtag is a great way to find all of your UGC in one spot. You simply search for your hashtag, and all of the recent posts with that hashtag will come up.
If you’re looking to gain more UGC, we recommend creating a hashtag through-line to keep all of your content in one “spot.’ It helps ensure nothing slips through the cracks, and your users know how best to engage with your business. So, all of your own Instagram posts might have the #brandlife, and your customers can also use #brandlife when posting about your business.
3. Repost and give credit.
If and when someone creates content, you want to be there to receive it, thank them, and repost it. If you don’t engage with UGC, people will stop sharing your brand—and you’ll be missing out on all of the incredible benefits mentioned above.
Remember to not only repost but to also give credit to the original poster. This makes them feel appreciated, which will make them like your brand even more. It also shows others that you’re loyal to your loyal customers.
4. Be fast.
Instagram and Facebook Stories are becoming more popular, especially when talking about brands. Consumers may not want to dedicate an entire “feed post” to you, but they’ll show a Story using your product.
But Stories only last 24 hours. So you need to be on top of the UGC bandwagon every day to check for tags, geotags, and hashtags. You want to repost fast before the Story (and your user content) goes away.
UGC is a great way to fill up your own Stories without creating a lot of fresh content.
5. Ask for UGC.
Unless you’re a huge brand like Starbucks or Nike, you probably won’t get an influx of UGC… unless you ask for it. Customers who love your brand will be happy to talk about you, especially if your brand reflects a lifestyle they identify with. Yogis will tag your yoga mats to show the gear they use. Pet owners will even talk up your flea and tick repellant if they feel you’re doing a good job.
All you have to do is ask (and sometimes incentivize).
6. Host a contest.
Still not getting UGC? A lot of businesses see success by hosting a contest or giveaway. Tell customers that if they create content and tag your hashtag, they’ll be entered to win a prize or they’ll get DMed (direct messaged) a discount code.
At first, you might have to incentivize to get users to create their own content. But it has a snowball effect. The more people share about you and the more you repost it, the wider your reach and effect—and you’ll start to see even more UGC come rushing in.
Create and repost
There are two rules to a successful social media campaign:
1. Create awesome content.
2. Repost user’s content.
Once you have creatively designed visual stories on your page, more and more customers will be eager to share and create their own content about you!
Reading Time: 6 minutes
By Stanley Meytin
How To Get And Share User-Generated Content on Instagram
User-generated content is one of the best (and cheapest) forms of content marketing you can leverage for your branding strategy.
No matter how small or new your brand, there are people out there talking about you. You want to engage with these loyal, happy customers to keep them coming back while showing other prospects that you have a solid fan base behind you.
People love talking about products that reflect their lifestyle through social platforms. User generated content—the content that they create—helps spread the word about your brand that you can use to your advantage.
What is UGC?
User-generated content (UGC) refers to a photo, video, or review that a customer posts on his/her own feed about your brand or product. Typically, a customer loves your product so much that they are posting positive feedback about you through their own channel.
Basically, your customer is creating his or her own content about you. Then, your brand can go repost and reuse that content as a way to spread the good news and good review about your brand.
What makes UGC so unique is that users aren’t just leaving a review or giving you feedback. They’re actually going out of their way to create content about your brand, which starts to build a deeper level of engagement and interaction with your brand.
UGC is slightly different than influencer marketing, although they’re similar. Influencer marketing is when you partner with an individual (or individuals) to create a mutually-beneficial marketing campaign. Even if you’ve incentivized customers to put out their own content about your brand, like a discount code or giveaway, they’re not “marketing partners” per say.
Think of UGC as visual word-of-mouth marketing.
What are the benefits of UGC?
User-generated content has incredible benefits for your marketing strategy. In fact, it’s one of the most beneficial and cost-effective strategies you can implement.
1. Cost-effective
It’s a lot less expensive to repost user-generated content than it is to continuously create and put out fresh content. You’re basically getting access to a treasure trove of free content.
(Even incentivizing for UGC can end up being a lot less expensive than creating new).
2. Trustworthiness
And the content’s not just free… but other customers love it. Viewers feel that UGC is more genuine and authentic, since it’s coming from “real” people and not a brand. So they tend to trust it more. In fact, millennials trust UGC 50% more than brand-created content.
Establishing a level of trust is one of the best ways to push customers to action and start building baseline relationships.
3. Engagement
Because UGC has an innate sense of authenticity and trust, users are more likely to engage with it. One of our favorite statistics we’ve discovered is that reposting UGC on Instagram has almost a 690% higher engagement compared to other forms of content. That’s a lot of engagement you just can’t ignore.
Plus, you get a major boost in engagement from the original poster of the content. Let’s say Lilly posts about your brand, and then you repost Lilly’s post on Instagram. Lilly will feel like you appreciate her as a customer, so she’ll feel even more engaged with your brand. They’ll get a rush of dopamine when your brand promotes them, so they’ll get an even better (fuzzy) feeling towards your brand. This makes people loyal—which makes them want to purchase and share even more.
4. Reach
The more people that are talking about your brand, the wider your reach. This extension of your network also becomes more natural and effortless, since your customers are positively promoting you to their friends.
There’s no better reach than natural “word-of-mouth” reach.
5. Recall
Since UGC is more engaging and trustworthy, it also has a greater recall than other forms of content. Reports show that millennials find UGC to be 35% more memorable than content that comes from mainstream sources.
6. Conversion
People trust you, they engage with you, and they remember you. Altogether, that means they’re also more likely to buy from you. 84% of millennnials report that UGC influences what they buy, and over 68% claim it’s a good indicator of quality of a brand or service.
UGC is like a product review. Consumers want “personal recommendations” from people who have tried the brand. They want recommendations from people like them, who are living the same sort of lifestyle. UGC is like a visual positive review from social followers and friends they trust.
7. Instagram engagement
UGC doesn’t just engage your users. It also demonstrates engagement on Instagram’s platform. Instagram’s algorithm likes to see reposts, because it demonstrates a more connected network.
Every time someone posts about you, you get a boost of engagement juice. And every time you repost a follower’s post, you get another boost. The more people are talking about you and the more you engage with followers, the more Instagram will reward you for your involvement on the platform. This bump in engagement can help you have a wider reach, appear higher on Insta feeds, and reach more potential customers.
Bottom line: UGC is influential and well-received. There’s no better way to promote your brand than by promoting the people who love your brand.
How do you use UGC?
UGC shows massive results. But how do you get it ad use it? How can you encourage people to create their own content, and then how do you leverage that content in your own strategy?
1. Check your tags.
If someone posts a picture of you on their Instagram feed or Story, they’ll likely tag your brand. So, be sure to keep an eye on the “heart” section of your business Instagram to see who could be talking about and tagging your brand. If you see a tag, repost!
2. Create a hashtag.
#Starbucks is one of the most popular tags on Instagram. They’ve seen major success launching new products just by word of mouth on social media.
Having a branded hashtag is a great way to find all of your UGC in one spot. You simply search for your hashtag, and all of the recent posts with that hashtag will come up.
If you’re looking to gain more UGC, we recommend creating a hashtag through-line to keep all of your content in one “spot.’ It helps ensure nothing slips through the cracks, and your users know how best to engage with your business. So, all of your own Instagram posts might have the #brandlife, and your customers can also use #brandlife when posting about your business.
3. Repost and give credit.
If and when someone creates content, you want to be there to receive it, thank them, and repost it. If you don’t engage with UGC, people will stop sharing your brand—and you’ll be missing out on all of the incredible benefits mentioned above.
Remember to not only repost but to also give credit to the original poster. This makes them feel appreciated, which will make them like your brand even more. It also shows others that you’re loyal to your loyal customers.
4. Be fast.
Instagram and Facebook Stories are becoming more popular, especially when talking about brands. Consumers may not want to dedicate an entire “feed post” to you, but they’ll show a Story using your product.
But Stories only last 24 hours. So you need to be on top of the UGC bandwagon every day to check for tags, geotags, and hashtags. You want to repost fast before the Story (and your user content) goes away.
UGC is a great way to fill up your own Stories without creating a lot of fresh content.
5. Ask for UGC.
Unless you’re a huge brand like Starbucks or Nike, you probably won’t get an influx of UGC… unless you ask for it. Customers who love your brand will be happy to talk about you, especially if your brand reflects a lifestyle they identify with. Yogis will tag your yoga mats to show the gear they use. Pet owners will even talk up your flea and tick repellant if they feel you’re doing a good job.
All you have to do is ask (and sometimes incentivize).
6. Host a contest.
Still not getting UGC? A lot of businesses see success by hosting a contest or giveaway. Tell customers that if they create content and tag your hashtag, they’ll be entered to win a prize or they’ll get DMed (direct messaged) a discount code.
At first, you might have to incentivize to get users to create their own content. But it has a snowball effect. The more people share about you and the more you repost it, the wider your reach and effect—and you’ll start to see even more UGC come rushing in.
Create and repost
There are two rules to a successful social media campaign:
1. Create awesome content.
2. Repost user’s content.
Once you have creatively designed visual stories on your page, more and more customers will be eager to share and create their own content about you!
What story would you like to share?
Whether you want to launch an idea, spark a movement or simply get people talking about what you do, you have one shot
at delivering your message in a way that matters. Let’s make sure you do it right.
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