What do people mean by “user generated content” and why do you want it?
The allure of user-generated content (ugc) is two-fold: Web 2.0 marketing is about content volume and content authenticity. The benefits are that with greater content volume you have a significantly better chance to be found by the major search engines (aka: SEO benefit) in addition to the social networking benefit of having a real live human being that is creating all this content.
These humans have the appeal of actually being familiar with the product or service they are generating content on, as well as a passion and freshness that will differentiate this kind of content from the traditional brand or corporate-as-faceless-institution-speak. Additionally, real people appear more accessible than an info@ email address.
There is a big myth here however. First of all, the truth is that your business will see significant benefits on both SEO and conversion by implementing more human generated content for the reasons stated above. They myth is that your customers and prospects will be the ones generating this content. It ain’t gonna happen…
To get these benefits you are going to have to look to another group of human beings. People who share the customers knowledge of the products or services, who also have a passion for the brand and the company…..I’m talking about the people who work for the company. Stop thinking about Blogging as a top-down, CEO thought leadership thing, and stop thinking that you are going to implement a “Social Network” and all your fans will come out of the woodwork to post their praises.
Instead look right around you…..all those people who will add real value through Corporate Blogging….That’s your low hanging fruit when it comes to User Generated Content.
The allure of user-generated content (ugc) is two-fold: Web 2.0 marketing is about content volume and content authenticity. The benefits are that with greater content volume you have a significantly better chance to be found by the major search engines (aka: SEO benefit) in addition to the social networking benefit of having a real live human being that is creating all this content.
These humans have the appeal of actually being familiar with the product or service they are generating content on, as well as a passion and freshness that will differentiate this kind of content from the traditional brand or corporate-as-faceless-institution-speak. Additionally, real people appear more accessible than an info@ email address.
There is a big myth here however. First of all, the truth is that your business will see significant benefits on both SEO and conversion by implementing more human generated content for the reasons stated above. They myth is that your customers and prospects will be the ones generating this content. It ain’t gonna happen…
To get these benefits you are going to have to look to another group of human beings. People who share the customers knowledge of the products or services, who also have a passion for the brand and the company…..I’m talking about the people who work for the company. Stop thinking about Blogging as a top-down, CEO thought leadership thing, and stop thinking that you are going to implement a “Social Network” and all your fans will come out of the woodwork to post their praises.
Instead look right around you…..all those people who will add real value through Corporate Blogging….That’s your low hanging fruit when it comes to User Generated Content.
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