Crowdsourcing Content to Scale Marketing Efforts and Build Community
Crowdsourced content and user-generated content (UGC) are two of the most valuable marketing resources available to companies today. There are plenty of benefits for a brand crowdsourcing content, and three key benefits include cost-effectiveness, community building, and traffic growth.
From PepsiCo’s “Do Us a Flavor” campaign to Shutterfly’s community-based content generation, many modern brands have found a marketing foothold in crowdsourced and user-generated content. But many other organizations and brands have often struggled to understand how specifically they’ve been able to tap into this deep resource of content and activate it on their marketing channels. We’ll dive into a few success stories below:
Crowdsourcing Can Be a Cost-Effective Marketing Strategy
Perhaps one of the best parts of UGC is that it can be an inexpensive source of content creation. Depending on the brand, crowdsourced photography, copy, and other content can not only be cheap (or free) to promote, but also authentic and organic-feeling to consumers. And for brands that are trying to stay ahead of the game by continually putting out fresh content, UGC can be essential. “In our digital and visual era, if you’re not putting out great content regularly, you’re losing your audience and conversions,” (Porteous, 2019). Constantly creating this content can get expensive quickly, so free UGC in the end enables a brand to keep up and scale in its content marketing efforts without having to pay for premium ads. For example, “The #SayItWithPepsi campaign garnered over 46M impressions. To buy the same level of impressions via premium digital display ads would have cost nearly 5x as much. Even better, there were more than 50K measurable engagements with campaign content,” (PepsiCo, 2016).
That’s not to say, however, that all UGC is created equal. Some types, like influencer marketing, can also be expensive. But if used correctly and occasionally, influencer marketing can help brands scale their content marketing, generate organic traffic, and other benefits. “Influencer marketing is also particularly useful in helping brands reach new audiences or markets. The recommendations of the influencers act as an introduction, which can change their community’s impression of a brand or make them aware of the brand for the first time. This association enables the brand to immediately gain access to large numbers of potential consumers,” (Atherton, 2019). Many large brands, like Shutterfly, make use of everything from Authoritative Influencers (such as Shutterfly’s partnership with Ellen Degeneres) to nano-influencers (Moms with small followings who share photos of their Shutterfly Creations with a coupon code.)
On the other hand, there’s still plenty of tools available to marketers who want to utilize UGC without breaking their marketing budget. These tools include things like Creative Commons or Unsplash, which give marketers access to hundreds of thousands of free visual assets. “Working with over 100,000 contributing photographers, content is uploaded and curated by the Unsplash team so that their growing library of over 690,000 photos represents the best of the best,” (Porteous, 2019). In the end, UGC and crowd-sourced content enable brands to share content no matter their budget.
User-Generated Content and Crowdsourcing Builds Community
With the market so saturated with marketing, communities can often get lost in the background noise. That’s why it’s so essential to find marketing techniques that build –rather than detract from– community. Shutterfly did this with a marketing campaign that used user-generated photos and products to tell the stories of many of their consumers. This campaign was then later carried on with their #MyShutterfly hashtag campaign on social media. A feature on their website reads: “Show us your favorite moments, projects and photos by clicking to upload below or using #MyShutterfly on Instagram or Twitter from a public profile, and you could be featured,” (Shutterfly, 2020), encouraging their existing community to share content and interact with others’ stories. This, in turn, has given Shutterfly a massive library of content to work with.
Smaller brands can still make use of this type of content built by their already existing community and fans, capitalize on relevant topics, and otherwise find content that speaks to their audience without a major campaign. First, they should “make it a practice to check in once a week and take a look at the newly added and trending events. Your social media creation efforts will thank you for it and you’ll keep your content as relevant as possible,” (Kerby, 2018). Second, it’s important to seek out relevant hashtags or profile tagging of your brand on all social and organic media. Third, make sure to save this content somewhere safe, and develop a plan. “Your supply of visual content should not be living on your iPhone, or in a bunch of desktop folders marked ‘misc social.’ You can use Dropbox, Google Drive, your company’s internal network, or made-to-purpose database software,” (Cooper & Tien, 2020). Then, once you have a rhythm and understanding of how you’re acquiring your content, make sure to stay engaged with your community and build on it by sharing this relevant and interesting content regularly. This will in turn encourage your community to continue posting UGC, and so the cycle goes on.
UGC and Community Content Drives Traffic Growth
For relatively low effort on the brands' side, activating UGC and crowdsourced content as part of a marketing strategy can drive major business growth, traffic, and conversions. PepsiCo has demonstrated so through the years via a number of major marketing campaigns. “PepsiCo occasionally solicits input from consumers on varying products, such as the time they asked customers to share their favorite new potato chip flavor for the company’s Lay’s brand. This ‘Do Us a Flavor’ campaign debuted in 2012 after the market share started to decline among the millennial crowd. An astonishing 14 million submissions were raked in. The winner? Cheesy Garlic Bread. An 8% increase in sales followed this clever crowdsourcing innovation campaign,” (Planbox, 2020).
And this is just one example of a strategy. The truth is, UGC, crowdsourced content, and curated content marketing can take on as many forms as you can imagine. “To put it simply, curated content is a collection of different forms of materials, often designed for a particular audience that can be shared across your company’s channels. There’s no limit to what ‘content’ you can develop. That means infographics, videos, blogs, posts, presentations are all fair game,” (Lukeš, 2018). And all of these content ideas have the potential to drive immense traffic back to your brand’s website– just like PepsiCo and Shutterfly did with their campaigns.
