User-generated content ads: Your unique brand story

User-generated content ads: Your unique brand story

With the rise of short-format video content material on social media platforms, user-generated content material has change into the brand new strategy to talk with the surface world. TikTok has initiated this pattern, permitting customers to publish uncooked, unpolished, and “sincere” video content material. Following its success, different platforms have rapidly aligned, offering extra avenues for customers to specific themselves.

 

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In the present day, video content material is king. Over 65% of individuals confer with video content material as their primary supply of data. Do you wish to know whether or not your subsequent vacation vacation spot is as cool as they write about? You go and verify a YouTube video by a content material creator speaking about that place. Are you looking for probably the most fascinating inventory to purchase? You verify a chunk of user-generated content material on one of many many video platforms about inventory funding.

You title it, there’s somebody on the market speaking about it, and almost definitely selling some manufacturers.

Video has all the time been there. Earlier than on TV, yesterday in your laptop computer, as we speak in your palms with 75% of all of the video content material consumed on a cell machine. What’s completely different about as we speak is that manufacturers are in customers’ palms (or we should always perhaps say voice).

What’s user-generated content material?

Person-generated content (UGC) is content material (not only video) created and revealed organically by particular person customers quite than manufacturers or well-known influencers. In its origin, UGC was, and nonetheless is to a sure extent, unique and sincere content material that customers would put up on-line for the general public. Because the explosion of video-based social networks, nonetheless, entrepreneurs have acknowledged the ability of the sort of format and the so-called user-generated content material advertisements or UGC social media promoting has elevated in reputation.

Why is user-generated content valubale for (app) advertising?

There are a number of the explanation why UGC advertisements have rapidly change into an integral a part of the media combine for a lot of manufacturers.

It’s, to start with, cheap in comparison with conventional video manufacturing. It’s not essential to work with standard (and really costly) influencers, as a matter of truth, micro-influencers and content material creators are sufficient. Furthermore, a single content material can be utilized throughout completely different platforms, reducing manufacturing prices much more. It’s additionally extra reliable in comparison with regular advertisements, in spite of everything our model is being endorsed. It may be extra informative and, on the identical time, humorous or partaking, in comparison with different advert codecs.

create UGC advertisements that work

Opposite to what one would possibly assume, user-generated content material used for social media promoting wants planning and testing. Plenty of testing, truly. UGC could be troublesome to handle, particularly for conventional manufacturers with a variety of restrictions or tight branding pointers.

To efficiently create a successful user-generated content material advertisements technique, entrepreneurs want to depart the precise area for creators to assume, create, and ship ideas that align with their types and the social media platform used.

A conventional method received’t work for UGC. The important thing to profitable user-generated content material for promotional functions is to be hands-off and don’t attempt to impress the viewers along with your advertising methods. TikTok says it very clearly “Make TikToks, Not Advertisements”.

Scaling app progress by means of user-generated content material advertisements

Opposite to standard perception, UGC promoting isn’t just for branding functions. Person-generated content material advertisements, if used accurately, could be the important thing to scaling effectively on a efficiency foundation. At REPLUG, we now have identified this for a while and have seen the ability of the sort of format for a few of our companions. In 2020, we managed to scale massively and in a cheap approach, past the standard acquisition channels, due to a tailored UGC advertisements technique on TikTok.

Though within the early stage, UGC advertisements have been primarily used on video-focused social networks, with time, entrepreneurs have been experimenting with this format, additionally on different, extra conventional SNS, similar to Fb.

In the present day, greater than ever, data is consumed quick and customers are on the lookout for truthful sources for app discovery, and that’s why user-generated content material ought to take a particular place in cell entrepreneurs’ inventive technique.

Price effectivity additionally for restricted geographical areas

Relying on the expansion stage or serviced areas, some cell apps might need the necessity to promote completely to restricted areas. Promoting by means of conventional inventive codecs, similar to banners, carousels, and even movies may result quite costly when limiting the geographical attain of a marketing campaign. That is much more true when video-first promoting platforms, similar to TikTok, the place the inventive method turns into essential for fulfillment.

When working in these situations, entrepreneurs should rethink how they method their media combine and punctiliously contemplate their CAC. At REPLUG, we now have been working for the previous few months with a newly launched courting app within the German market, particularly Berlin, referred to as ODXClub.

The courting area is extremely aggressive, with many established gamers utilizing a variety of actions and channels to succeed in customers. The target is one and solely: to be the primary related alternative to seek out the proper date.

ODXClub launched simply on the excellent time, just a few months earlier than Summer season. This gave us sufficient time to organize from a communication and inventive viewpoint, and excellent, over time, our method. As our Paid Person Acquisition specialists began their actions, they determined to check just a few completely different approaches to then slim all the way down to the best-performing channels and ideas.

The principle channels the place creatives performed a big function have been TikTok and Fb (with Instagram included). The method examined have been:

  • Traditional static creatives (banners and carousel portraying options, and advantages of the app)
  • Traditional video advertisements (specializing in the expertise that the app would supply)
  • Person-generated content material (having the creators produce movies that might doubtlessly be used additionally on their natural web page)

“From the very starting, the REPLUG workforce insisted on benefiting from user-generated content material, as of their expertise this may have introduced nice outcomes. Due to a coordinated effort between the groups, we achieved the “inconceivable”, bringing a wholesome ratio of male-female within the app from the very starting at extremely low prices, contemplating the restricted geographical radius.”

Phillip Schacht – Head of Advertising and marketing at ODXClub

As we began scaling spending throughout completely different promoting platforms, we observed that Person-Generated Content material was performing significantly higher than conventional creatives. When trying on the outcomes achieved, we noticed that UGC advertisements performed additionally a big function in reducing the price of acquisition on non-video social networks, similar to Fb.

Extra particularly, on Fb and Instagram, the price per set up (CPI) was 38.46% decrease than the static format, and eight.2% than a conventional video format. On the identical time, when down-the-funnel metrics, UGC advertisements additionally introduced higher customers, with a lower in CPA of 41.38% in comparison with static advertisements, and 16% to video.

When TikTok, we observed the identical pattern. Person-generated content material was (and nonetheless is) outperforming video advertisements on the Chinese language Social Community, with a mean enchancment of CPI of 44.3% and CPA of 49.2%.

With marketing campaign information in our palms, we have been in a position to verify our data, seen additionally with different companions, that UGC advertisements carry out a lot better than regular movies on TikTok. Nonetheless, most curiously, we observed that the sort of content material when used on Fb additionally created a optimistic uplift in performance-based actions with clear enhancements in price per acquisition.

Inform your story in a novel approach

On the subject of user-generated content material, manufacturers and entrepreneurs have to have a unique method than conventional inventive property creation. Creators have to be free to provide content material in their very own approach and magnificence. Right here, we collected just a few ideas primarily based on our expertise and outcomes seen with a few of our companions:

  • Undertake a “devoted” method to user-generated content material. Entrepreneurs mustn’t information or prohibit content material creators an excessive amount of.
  • Neglect about conventional advertising and communication methods. UGC advertisements want to talk a unique language.
  • Refresh content material repeatedly. Entrepreneurs have to have a large pool of content material to check and select from, because the advert fatigue is increased than in different codecs.
  • Take a look at. Analyze. Scale. Repeat.