User-Generated Content (UGC) for YouTube Marketing Strategy

With more than 2 billion active users worldwide, it’s safe to say that YouTube is the home of online explainer videos. From viral meme clips to even employee training videos, the video you’re looking for is most likely there.

Now that the platform has become a chock-a-block place with videos, YouTube users are only a second away from scrolling from one video to another. That means it’s only getting more and more challenging for content marketers out there to come up with attention-grabbing content and grab more attention with it. And when it comes to creating quality videos, they’ll make sure they leave no stone unturned.

But, producing videos constantly is never been an easy task. At least not before you know user-generated content strategy (UGC). The term has been widely used in the content marketing sphere but is relatively still new in the YouTube marketing field.

So, how do you leverage User Generated videos for YouTube? Let’s find out.

What is UGC?

Before we get into the nitty gritty detail, let’s make sure that we’re on the same page about the user-generated content itself.

UGC is any form of content created by the customers themselves. This content is often created in the form of reviews or testimonials or can even be an audio recording of a person describing their experience with a product or service.

Let’s say a customer just purchased a sweater from you. They take a picture of them wearing it and upload it on social media, and tag your business profile. This is what you called UGC. You don’t even have to pay them to promote your business, right? They’re willing to do it for free.

Here’s another example from Ipsy, a monthly subscription service for make-up and beauty products. They often repost Instagram posts from make-up artists and enthusiasts in their network.

The idea behind creating this type of content is to allow customers to create content for your brand on your behalf. This can be helpful for a variety of reasons, but the main one is that it saves you a tremendous amount of time and money.

Why Use UGC in YouTube Marketing Strategy?

You might see a lot of brands reposting a post from their customers using their products on Instagram. But, YouTube is still an underutilized platform when it comes to UGC– despite all the video craze that is happening.

Traditional forms of digital marketing are often expensive and time-consuming. Creating a blog with an appealing website design and unique content, for example, can be difficult if you don’t have any experience with writing, which is why many businesses outsource blog creation to freelance writers.

Creating videos is a similar process, as you will likely have to pay for some sort of equipment and pay someone to edit the video. The best part of UGC is that anyone who has used your product can create the content for you.

You don’t need to hire a videographer, write the script, or even pay someone to edit it. All you need is a platform where you can collect this content from customers.

Popular Types of UGC  for YouTube Marketing

Now that we understand why you need UGC for your YouTube marketing strategy let’s take a look at some of the popular UGC for the platform.

Video Reviews

This is when people review your product or service by recording themselves talking about their experience with it. While positive reviews could make a great UGC, you should not ignore the negative ones.

Always try to find out why some customers don’t have a good experience with your business and try to solve the problem or issue. Reviewing buyer behavior will show the professional side of your business.

Testimonials

In this case, the people who have been satisfied with your product or service will record a testimonial about it. This can be done in the form of voice, written, or even video testimonials. It’s helpful to build trust between you and your potential customers.

Let the customers say whatever they think about your product or service. Be open to any genuine testimonies you get. Trying to focus on only positive testimonials solely can make your business a bit shady.

How-to Videos

This type of video is where customers can share some tips, or often, we call it a lifehack of getting the most out of the product effortlessly.

How to Use UGC In Your YouTube Marketing Strategy?

Just like any other marketing strategy, UGC for YouTube marketing needs to be well-planned and well-executed. Here are some tips to get the best result from this customer-first content strategy.

Set specific UGC goals

First thing first. You need to understand why you need UGC and what exactly you want to achieve with it. This will help you to set the right goals and make a plan for UGC.

When you know your goals, it will be much easier for you to come up with the right strategy. So, ask yourself:

• Do you want to do UGC for brand awareness?
• Do you want to repost customers’ video content for more subscribers?
• Do you want to use customers’ videos to build a more solid YouTube channel?

Create Engaging Background Information for the UGC campaign

You need to create a great background story for your campaign in the form of text, images, or video that will be used in your UGC videos and will also be used for promoting this campaign on other social media channels and websites like blog posts, etc.

This background story will help you to attract more people to your campaign and also motivate them to share their own stories/videos through the channels as well as yours.

Encourage sharing through Social Media Networks & Email list

After setting up a great-looking landing page with all the necessary information about the campaign, you can encourage people to share it through their social media profiles (TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) or email lists that they have access to (or they can easily get access to).

This will help you spread the word about your YouTube UGC campaign across various social platforms very quickly. You can start using campaign hashtags to make it much easier for you to find UGC that your customers create.

Track and Analyze your UGC Performance

You must track back and analyze how well the YouTube UGC campaign is doing for you. You should track the performance of the types of content that people are submitting to see if there are any patterns or trends that you can work with later on.

Every time someone creates a UGC video, make sure to keep a record of it so that you can use it for your future marketing campaigns.

Make it easy for people to submit UGC

Make sure your submission process is easy and that it does not take much time or effort from the contributor’s side.

After all, you want people to contribute as much as possible so make the submission process as simple as possible. You might as well ask permission to reuse their videos just to ensure that you collect UGC content legally.

Wrapping Up

UGC can be really helpful in creating social media and YouTube content. And the best part is that you don’t have to pay a single penny to create those videos. You can ask your customers to record the videos and upload them on your behalf. You can also ask them to write reviews on your website and even on sites like Amazon.

And yes, they can also write articles for your blog. However, you have to be careful when using UGC. Make sure you are using only genuine and authentic content in your videos and other forms of marketing materials. This will help you avoid copyright issues and also avoid any negative feedback from your customers.