Why Using UGC Strategy for This Holiday Season is a Winning Move

• Why user-generated content is important for brands during holidays
  • What is user-generated content
  • Why implement user-generated content into your Instagram strategy
  • What are the main benefits of user-generated content
• Top creative ideas for UGC content for the 2020 holiday season
  • DIY connected to your product
  • Customized messages
  • Unboxing, Transformed

• How to find a talented creator to jump-start your holiday season boost

In the drastically changed context of 2020, consumers can be easily lost in the number of marketing activities brands are preparing for them this holiday season.

That’s why it’s a good idea to move your focus to user-generated content for engaging potential consumers in the next few months. Remember, people love expressing themselves on social media and becoming part of something bigger. UGC gives your creative content a more human edge, forming a closer relationship with the consumer. As a result, engagement and conversions start to skyrocket.

Want to know how to incorporate UGC into your brand? Here are our best marketing ideas on how to benefit from the UGC strategy during the upcoming holiday season.

Why user-generated content is important for brands during holidays

• What is user-generated content

User-generated content, or UGC, is a piece of content of any kind (video, images, text, testimonials, reviews, blog posts, tweets – you name it) that is created by users rather than brands, made by consumers for consumers. It is basically any experience with the brand that people publicly share on social media. Let us explore why UGC can be a great strategy for the 2020 holiday season.

• Why implement user-generated content into your Instagram strategy

Instagram seems to be the perfect platform for collecting UGC and getting marketing success out of it.
The visual nature of the content shared on this platform is perfect for exposing your products and services to a wider audience. Instagram Stories, for instance, helps to share first-hand experiences, and the service’s integration with Facebook Ads infrastructure gives companies several useful tools to amplify and promote their best pieces of UGC.

• What are the main benefits of user-generated content

There are a number of benefits that contribute to UGC’s immense success:

• It’s customer-oriented. User-generated content puts your customers front and center, allowing them to tell their stories about your brand. By sharing the spotlight, you invite your customers to engage.
• It’s authentic. Your average consumer knows how to recognize traditional ads for what they are – and now simply skips them. UGC looks organic in the feed, but catches the eye and provokes interest, integrating your brand and your product into the casual life of a consumer.
• It’s a budget saver. Implementing UGC to your strategy allows you to stretch your marketing budget. The investment is minimal, while the ROI can be fantastic. At the same time, it has been noted that it’s the combination of UGC and professionally-produced content that nets the best results.
• It opens a nearly endless pool of creativity. With UGC, you can use the continuous flow of unconventional content created by Instagram users from different backgrounds and age groups to target different segments of your audience.
• It powers conversions. Did you know that user-generated images are 5 times more likely to lead to conversions than brand images? And, if you feature UGC on your website, you can expect a boost of 29% in conversions.

Top creative ideas for UGC content for the 2020 holiday season

• DIY connected to your product

In the new self-isolating times, people are rethinking their homes, whether that’s fixing up houses or learning new cooking skills and pulling full Marie Kondo for the wardrobes. During the holidays, consumers will keep these new skills to cook a truly home-made meal or make a DIY gift for their close ones.

What can you do as a brand? Create a series of how-to videos, immerse your product into it, and highlight your brand in the holiday rush. Help people level up their celebrations with a pinch of fun – give them a tutorial on how to wrap 50 bottles of your nail polish or teach them how to cook an edible gift card using your flour. Facebook also recommends thinking bots or Stories that give advice, Live quizzes, Instagram-ready recipes, and holiday playlists.

Invite your consumers to share the results of their creative process with your guidance via Instagram posts or stories and let the trend go viral.

• Customized messages

Using one creative template for different neighborhoods can be locally-relevant at scale. Get a creative template and use it differently on varying groups and locations. Depending on which segment of your audience or which geographical location you aim to cover, customize your message.

With Insense, you can do it in two ways. One way is to pick a selection of micro-influencers from particular states (or even cities) and customize your message for each region. Another is to mention this feature in the brief for a single creator and they can produce a few different creatives with given messages.

• Unboxing, Transformed

Unboxing videos can be a weak tactic, especially during the holiday season. However, you can help your brand to stand out from other unboxing videos by making yours in an unexpected format or making your product work on set instead of just being pulled once and then forgotten.

Here are a few ideas we would love to share with you which will help you to lighten up traditional marketing activities during the holiday season and get more out of your marketing efforts.

• Interactive Unboxing. Expand your reach to new audiences by organizing a ‘giving waterfall’ with a bunch of influencers. Let the first creator announce delivery of your branded gift and a postcard to another influencer from your selection. The latter would be asked to run a live session of unboxing plus sending the surprise box to another influencer – and so on. Don’t forget about delivering the final gift to the ‘fire starter.’

Works best for: Fashion Goods, Beauty Products, E-commerce Industry.

• Native Integrated. Uncover the full potential of your product during an unboxing video. Producing kitchenware? Great, find an influencer to film a whole Christmas dinner in the making with your pots and frying pans – don’t forget to instruct your creator on safety. Make a series of live sessions to raise retention and engagement of the creator’s audience.

Works best for: Food, Home Decor.

• Contest For All. Spread the word beyond your influencer’s crowd. Run an unboxing live session with an influencer who would ask their followers to share stories about the most wild/cute/fun/unusual/etc. gifts they ever got for Christmas. Pick a customised hashtag and get a ton of UGC for your product after just one live session.

Works best for: Beauty Products, Food, Fashion Goods, Home Decor.

• Everyday VS. Celebration. Make the most out of your collaboration with an influencer by creating ‘then’ and ‘now’ videos featuring your product in an influencer’s hands. For example, show your potential consumers that your best pan is suitable for both melting ingredients for a special sauce for Christmas turkey for a couple of hours — and for cooking everyday scramble for the whole family.

Works best for: Beauty Products, Fashion Goods, Food.

• Gifts For All Your Lovers. Collect your products in groups based on a specific feature of the target audience and put it into a carousel on Instagram feed. Let there be gifts for mothers, fathers, lovers, besties, and everybody else! You can’t mismatch if you care about people’s needs based on their most adopted social roles.

Works best for: Beauty Products, Fashion Good.

• Experiment. Check out the new instant shopping format on Instagram by hiring an influencer or a talent from your team and airing a series of live episodes for IGTV to drive real-time interactions and increase the hype around your product. Go viral and collect UGC across the platform instantly.

How to find a talented creator to jump-start your holiday season boost

The Insense team is always here to help you find a perfect match for your brand among hand-picked creators, produce an outstanding creative or run a successful paid ads campaign during the most intense time of the year.

Try Insense and reach out to more than 35000+ Instagram trusted influencers. Find a partnership that will make your marketing strategy spark through this holiday season and bring you very merry conversions this time.