Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Advertising and marketing are changing and more than ever, and it's the customers who are pulling the strings. The Internet has given customers ever-increasing powers to research, compare, and review brands, enabling both good and bad customer experiences to be broadcast to the world. This is proving challenging for many companies, who've always exercised so much control over their brand messages.

But many brands are harnessing the power of the Internet and "social proof" by optimizing user-generated content (UGC). These are the brands that understand the power of co-creating their brand together with consumers and tapping into the creativity of their biggest fans. For most companies, this also means encouraging—and actively participating in—reviews of their products/services and conversations around them, either on their own, or on third party websites....

Word of mouth used to be the most valuable form of a referral. With92 percent of consumers trusting the recommendations of family and friends over ads of any kind, brands were scrambling to figure out how to get these referrals. As it turns out, it wasn’t as difficult as they thought. Through user-generated content, consumers are excited to share about brands they love.

User-generated content is media created by users of a good or service. This comes in the form of Instagram posts, Facebook comments, website reviews and blog posts, tweets, and more. Generally, the motivation behind UGC is simply to share your opinion about the brand, product, or service you have consumed....