Have you ever scrolled through social media and seen a picture of someone wearing a nice pair of sunglasses you’ve been eyeing? Well, folks, this is the magic of visual UGC. In simple terms, visual UGC includes photos, videos, visual reviews, etc., created by people, not brands.
Recent research reveals that 93% of eCommerce marketers consider visual UGC campaigns a winning strategy. These campaigns generate more brand content and significantly reduce operational costs, which over 85% of marketers acknowledge.
What is Visual UGC?
Visual UGC stands for Visual User-Generated Content. It’s essentially any shoppable content created by regular people (not the brand) in the form of images or videos. Think of it as the visual counterpart to written reviews or testimonials.
Visual UGC for eCommerce is an essential tool where customers can’t physically touch or try on the products. Please give it a thought; an exciting product image can ignite curiosity. However, a potential customer seeing the same product’s shoppable video reviews posted by an existing user can generate trust, which leads to purchase.
Types of Visual UGC
Visual UGC comes in many forms, but here we are discussing a few of them:
- UGC Ads:
A type of advertising in which brands leverage content created by their customers or users is UGC Ads. UGC ads include photos, videos, testimonials, reviews, and other content shared by individuals who have had positive experiences with your brand voluntarily. - UGC Video:
These videos are created by customers, not brands or professionals, and are called UGC videos. UGC videos include creative expressions, product reviews, personal stories, challenges, and partnership projects. - UGC Photos:
UGC Photos are attention-grabbing pictures of real people using your products. It can be a powerful way to catch the attention and display the lifestyle associated with your brand. - UGC Reviews:
By featuring real customers, powerful testimonials integrated into video ads can develop trust and social proof by talking about their positive experiences with the brand.
Importance of Visual UGC For E-commerce Brands
Visual User-generated content is a sure way to get your e-commerce brand in the minds of your users. To capitalize on the earned content from loyal customers who advocate products on social media, brands turn the spotlight on them. To promote your brand across UGC Platforms, what particular benefits does visual UGC provide? Let’s see them:
1. Building Trust And Authenticity
Visual UGC particularly impacts customers’ brand attitudes and purchase intentions. Through social media, visual UGC enlarges discussion on eCommerce brand products. However, something needs to develop a brand’s credibility, such as customer reviews, photos, or videos of a product used by real-life users.
Visual UGC can create a brand’s positive or negative image by influencing consumer perspectives. However, due to the impact of online media, customer’s purchasing preferences are continuously changing.
For example, THE-ARE is a clothing brand that features other creators who promote their clothes on their social handles. This brand even embeds shoppable social galleries on its website. So, these are both the best ways to build trust and authenticity.
2. Increased Engagement And Brand Advocacy
Visual UGC can quickly provide organic reach to eCommerce brands as it is considered ‘Earned Media.’ Between individuals and eCommerce brand stories, high engagement and interaction of people on UGC provide an emotional connection.
This visual UGC campaign became viral in over 80 countries because many customers posted photos with personalized Coke bottles on social media and ta. With this campaign, Coca-Cola generated a 3% increase in sales and an 870% rise in Facebook traffic. This campaign is a perfect example of how you can foster a sense of community and brand loyalty.
3. Offers Regular stream of content
Across various customer journey stages, visual marketing is pivotal in generating trust and boosting engagement through authentic storytelling. Most eCommerce brands use a UGC platform that gathers, manages, and publishes visual UGC across social media and digital marketing channels.
By utilizing visual UGC on eCommerce channels like product pages or email marketing campaigns for eCommerce, you can make an impactful impression for your brand.
1. Social Media Marketing- To showcase products in action and lifestyle settings, eCommerce brands often leverage visual UGC in social media marketing. When selecting a social media channel for your eCommerce brand’s marketing, consider your audience goals and where your target audience lives.
Instagram is the best place for visual UGC; however, you can utilize Facebook to share full-content videos and stories that enhance engagement. TikTok is another excellent place for UGC.
2. Product Pages- Shoppers seek brands that provide a transparent, personalized, and authentic experience because visual UGC remains at the forefront. According to research, over 64% of people search for UGC and customer reviews before purchasing. As customers are present at the point of purchase, product pages are more important than ever to campaigns. Visual UGC can push visitors to purchase something with some social proof.
Shoppable UGC elevates your eCommerce brand sales. Tagshop is one such tool that helps brands leverage shoppable UGC galleries. This tool lets you filter relevant and valuable UGC in your campaigns. Showcase your brand’s authentic photos with tagged products and convert UGC into a visual shopping experience with Tagshop.
You can even try this for your brand after filling out the form below:
3. Email Marketing Campaigns- Email marketing campaigns provide a high-value connection between marketers and clients, which will remain the same for decades. As per the study of CampaignMonitor, email marketing delivers the highest ROI for every $1 spent by generating $38 on average.
Your eCommerce brand can’t afford to ignore email marketing and its potential. To sell with email marketing, your brand doesn’t need to rely on discounts and special offers. Instead, focusing on creating engaging email threads that build a narrative and provide value can foster stronger customer relationships and drive higher conversion rates.
Starbucks makes its newsletter valuable by providing coffee recipes you can try at home. That way, they can also promote their brand. This type of email campaign works; if you know Starbucks is good, you get more inclined to buy from the brand.
4. Cost-Effective Content Creation
The average cost of an eCommerce brand’s product photography and videography can run into thousands of dollars. But have you calculated the average cost of your product photos and videos by asking your customers to share posts of them enjoying? It’s absolutely zero.
Product photography for an eCommerce brand at a basic level can cost anywhere from $60 to $600 for a high-volume eCommerce brand. A simple brand product video can cost a few hundred dollars and exceed $10,000.
Steps to Implement A Visual UGC Strategy
Here are some practical strategies that you can use to implement a visual UGC for your eCommerce brand.
A. Encouraging Customer Content Creation
Encouraging customer content creation is the initial step in harnessing the power of UGC. Launch hashtag campaigns, run social media contests, or ask your followers to share their experiences with your eCommerce brand.
(i) Run contests and giveaways with branded hashtags-
Running contests and giveaways with branded hashtags is a great way to promote visual UGC for your eCommerce brand. You can leverage this social selling strategy to make a fun and easy UGC contest that your users can participate in because everyone loves giveaways or prizes.
Give the winners special branded gift hampers or discount coupons. However, you’ve got free marketing for your chocolate brand with the help of visual UGC.
(ii) Partner with micro-influencers for user-generated content creation-
Collaborate with micro-influencers for user-generated content creation to get your brand seen by a large following. Micro-influencers have a high chance of impacting buying decisions or encouraging followers to create visual UGC for your brand.
Many customers will get into the conversation and create their content. However, ensure that the micro-influencer you partnered with is ideal for your brand.
(iii) Make it easy to share with a clear call-to-action and submission instructions
It would be best if you made it easy for your customers to share the visual UGC of your eCommerce brand. You need to look at your social media strategy and find ways for UGC to align with your marketing goals. Based on your strategy, create a simple yet straightforward call to action that lets your users know what content you will most likely feature.
For user-generated content submissions, establish clear and concise content instructions. Instruct users on uploading photos or videos, leaving reviews, and engaging with a site’s UGC features. Reduce the number of steps that are essential to complete a submission.
B. Showcasing UGC On Your Website And Social Media
Share user-generated content like photos, videos, and feedback on your social media channels to add social proof and develop credibility. This strategy will engage your existing users and attract new ones who relate to the authentic experiences shared by your customers. Here are some other practices for showcasing UGC:
(i) Dedicate a page or section on your website to showcase user-generated content-
One of the best ways to create an outstanding shopping experience for customers is to provide information on where they need the product page. Premium brands create rich product pages beyond product shots and text descriptions. Their product pages combine demo videos, ratings, add reviews to shopify, and customer photos to give shoppers a fantastic experience of a product.
Pairing visual UGC with ratings and reviews, like adding context or color, gives better results for your product. According to a recent study, over 86% of customers are more confident about purchasing decisions when they see visual UGC paired with ratings and reviews.
(ii) Feature UGC on social media platforms to increase engagement-
Every good eCommerce brand knows that to increase engagement, you must meet your people where they are- on social media platforms.
Nothing beats real engagement on social media. Interacting with your brand followers as frequently as possible would be best
. Reply to every comment, respond to DMs quickly, and apologize if you can’t reply on time. In these types of conversations, you need to be very authentic. When talking to followers or potential customers on social media, maintain a friendly, conversational, and helpful approach, no matter your brand tone.
When dealing with customers, be honest and give them helpful information about your brand or products. It would help if you were patient enough to answer the follow-up questions arising from your responses.
(iii) The importance of getting permission before using customer-created content-
It’s essential to ask for permission from the UGC creator before sharing it on your social media platforms. Because consent to share customer-created content is mandatory.
Reach out to the customers, express your appreciation for their content, and ask if you can feature it on your social channels. Mostly, people are thrilled to be recognized and featured by the eCommerce brand they love.
Ensure you give customers proper credit and tag them in the post when you share their content on your social media profile. This step will inspire more UGC creation for your brand apart from showing respect for their work.
Conclusion
Creating impactful and effective visual UGC for eCommerce brands is essential as customers research more before purchasing. Visual UGC is the best way to optimize your brand’s social media presence and boost sales with shoppable UGC, but it must be done correctly to get more significant results.
Your eCommerce brand must build trust and authenticity to increase engagement and create content cost-effectively. Visual UGC offers a powerful solution; however, marketers or brands face several challenges related to visual content. To ensure that your visual UGC yields more results, implement the strategies above for your eCommerce brand.
Have you included visual UGC in your marketing efforts? If Not, then what are you waiting for? Start using visual UGC today with Tagshop!
