Category: Social Media

UGC by Level of Contributor Participation 

Forester, a marketing research firm, conducted a survey of US consumers and asked them how often they participated in at least one of the indicated activities per month. And what they found, while not necessarily surprising, is interesting nonetheless.

13% of contributors are creators – These are people actively producing and uploading content such a blogs, videos, or photos.

19% are critics – These are users providing ratings, reviews, or evaluations that power the bulk of eWord of Mouth

15% are collectors – They are doing social bookmarking, posting things to Pinterest are similar sites

19% are joiners – People who join social media websites w/o contributing content

33% are passive spectators – They read posts, watch videos, and look at photos

and 52% are inactives – Those not engaging in any of the other activities

Now, for you math whizzes out there that have already added up all of the percentages and figured out that it’s over 100%, some consumers may be in more than one category.

The participation by consumers in UGC is obviously related to the level of involvement that each type of UGC requires. The more difficult it is contribute, the less of that contribution we’re likely to see. If it were so simple and easy to create online content, then people like this kid wouldn’t be making so much money. BTW this kid and his family were the top Youtube earners in 2018. They made $22 million dollars. On Youtube. In a year. 

UGC by Level of Content Involvement

So back to the issue of involvement with content. We can breakdown UGC based on how much effort, or involvement, it requires to execute the UGC. Again, the more difficult it is contribute, the less of that contribution we’re likely to see.

High involvement content is difficult and time-consuming to create. Writing up blogs, doing podcast shows, or recording videos requires planning, production and editing time, and promotion to be successful. in fact, this category of UGC is less about commenting on brands and more about contributors creating their own products.

• High involvement
  • Blogs
  • Podcasts
  • Videos

Medium Involvement UGC has a much lower bar. These are activities that require a little effort, but have much less impact. Writing product reviews on Amazon or other sites, gathering links for your favorite things on Pinterest, or tweeting up a storm on Twitter.

• Medium involvement
  • Product Reviews (e.g., Amazon)
  • Social Bookmarking (Pinterest, StumbleUpon)
  • Microblogging (e.g., Twitter)

Low involvement require very little effort and they also tend to have little impact.

• Low involvement
  • Post Comments/Replies
  • Forwards (e.g., Retweets, Repins)
  • Ratings

Why are UGC and eWOM effective? 

Next, let’s look at why UGC and eWOM are so effective. 

Consumers trust each other more than marketers

91% of consumers trust online reviews from strangers as much as from actual friends and family. This is a big deal as it shows that online eWOM has nearly the same power as face-to-face WOM

According to Nielsen, 75% of people don’t believe advertisements, but 90% of consumers believe suggestions from friends and family. The brand doesn’t inspire nearly the same amount of trust as those we know.

eWOM generates two times more sales than paid ads and

People are 4x more likely to buy when referred by friends. Again, strong indicators that who we trust matters a lot when it comes to what we buy.

Consumers crave authenticity

Consumers can easily sniff out a slick marketing message. That’s not what they want. A recent survey by Cohn & Wolfe found that 63% of consumers would buy from a company they consider to be authentic over a competitor.

So, how do consumers choose brands then? They choose the ones that most understand them and can speak to them authentically. Unfortunately, this is a lesson that many marketers can find difficult to learn.

Consumers want to be a part of a community

According to psychological research (McMillian & Chavis 1986), there are four things that drive a sense of community:

• Membership
• Influence
• Integration and fulfillment of needs
• Shared emotional connection

I’ll give you an example from a recent experience of mine. This past summer I took my family on a great vacation to Central Europe. I wanted to have a good camera to take with us, not just use my smartphone camera. I did my research and picked a nice Fujifilm model (the X100F if you’re wondering). What I didn’t know at the time, was that were is a growing community on Facebook where owners of this specific camera can talk about the camera, Fuji, photography in general, and share photos. I was a fellow owner of this particular camera and so I belonged. I had membership in the community.

Membership also included the influence that individual users could have over the community, but also the influence that the community can have on its members. A 2-way street. There are some expert photographers in the Facebook Group that have a lot of influence over how other members act and think. But the community can also wield its own influence over individual members, and also over Fuji, as when we make product suggestions.

Integration and fulfillment of needs is really about reinforcement. Does the group foster a sense of togetherness that is rewarding to its members.

Finally, shared emotional connection. The interactions of members in shared events and the specific attributes of the events may facilitate or inhibit the strength of the community. As I get to know the other members of the group, post photos, critique others’ photos, and share histories, the connection between the community and myself grows stronger.

Who should use UGC and eWOM?

All marketers basically. There’s no real reason not to. While most businesses have at least some form of UGC—like low involvement social media posts allowing user comments—right now only 33% of businesses are actively seeking & collecting reviews of their products or services online. This is a tremendous opportunity being squandered…as long as they have confidence in their products or services, of course. When we consider that 86% of millennials say UGC is a good indicator of the quality of a brand or service, this is a strong endorsement for integrating UGC into a brand’s marketing efforts.

UGC is also generally very inexpensive to implement. Join a social network and manage it, add a review and rating system to your website, give customers the ability to share with others. It’s easy to get started and it’s a mystery why all companies don’t at least do these things.

What are the Privacy Implications of UGC and eWOM?

One of the themes that you’re going to see throughout this course—especially in keeping with the Marquette Core Curriculum Discovery Tier track—is the idea that all of these digital marketing related concepts that we talk about certainly have benefits, but they may also come at a cost.

Some recent research has shown that consumers are willing to pay privacy costs for the gains in social capital made possible by creating personally identifiable UGC online. Costs such as receiving unsolicited marketing communications (spam email) and unwanted advances from online acquaintances  

The other aspect of this is the potential effects UGC can have on individuals professionally. Everyone has heard the stories of someone posting something online, only to have it used against them at work or during a hiring process. And yet we still post things online that can potentially have serious consequences. Despite the fact we spend so much time on social media liking and commenting, It’s been argued there is an emotional detachment between users and their digital data. People just don’t see the data they leave behind as a reflection of themselves. And that’s unfortunate because it can have serious repercussions personally and professionally. We’ll talk more about that later in the semester when we cover Online Reputation Management.

At the end of 2006, Time magazine did what that normally does. They named a Person of the Year. In keeping with the past, the Person of the Year is the person or people who made the “strongest influence” on history in the past year. Sometimes the Person of the Year is a force for good, sometimes not so much (Hitler). In 2006 though, Time did something unexpected. They named you the Person of the Year. Ya, that’s right you. And well, me too. Actually, all of us. All those who contribute to the internet were seen as the strongest influence on history for the year 2006.

But how have you and I had such a strong influence on history? Not just in 2006, but really every year since? It’s called User-Generated Content or UGC. And it’s kind of a big deal

What is UGC?

So what is User-generated content? UGC is any type of content provided by unpaid contributors. There are few important things to address about this definition. Let’s start with the use of the term “user”. This is a hold-over from the software development industry. As marketers we typically don’t like using the word “user” to refer to consumers or customers, as it dehumanizes people a bit. But because UGC platforms like social media and product review sites originated from the software industry, the “user” moniker stuck.

Actually, let’s talk a bit more about how we refer to these people contributing content to us online. One of the concepts in Media Theory that gets a bit of attention is how we refer to people. Media and cultural studies often refer to them as “audiences” or receivers of content. In marketing, we describe these same people as consumers of content. Unfortunately, neither of these perspectives is adequate in this modern age where people can now contribute to the online communities that exist around their favorite products online. Hence, the word “contributors” in the definition.

I should add though, that the idea that we audience/consumers were just passive couch potatoes in the past but now we want to finally be active participants—this is bogus. The reality is, we’ve always been interested in being a part of the creation process. Whether it’s sitting in a live TV studio audience, being a contestant on a game show, or a “star” of reality TV. The difference is now we have the internet and online platforms, which allow all of us to contribute content with widely available and affordable tools (laptops, smartphones). There’s nothing strictly “online” or “digital” about UGC. It’s just now these online or digital tools make it so much easier for users, er audiences, I mean, consumers to contribute.

Finally, these contributors are unpaid. That may be a little confusing sloggers like Casey Neistadt actually make quite a bit of money, he’s making money from advertising on his content deliver platform (Youtube) or video sponsorsBut that doesn’t necessarily mean they are not getting value from it. Don’t forget that there is a certain amount of social currency attached to those upvotes on Reddit, retweets on Twitter, and likes on Facebook. 

Feedback vs eWOM

There are two ways to think about UGC:

• What are consumers saying to me?
• What are consumers saying about me?

The first is customer feedback. This is nothing new. It used to be customer comment box with the notecards and little pencils. Now our techniques are a bit more sophisticated, but the underlying concept is the same: Ask your customers for their honest feedback and use that input to improve your products and services.

The second is word-of-mouth, or in this case, electronic word-of-mouth, since it is facilitated by electronic means. But this really isn’t new either. If I tell any one of you—face to face—about a new restaurant and how great it is, this word-of-mouth can be very persuasive and useful to a brand (in this case the restaurant). As with customer feedback, the concept is the same, but the tools have changed. We now have social media, review sites like Yelp, and other platforms we must pay attention to as marketers to ensure we’re aware of what’s being said about us online. When consumers engage with each other and bring brands into their dialog, we call this word-of-mouth. When it’s done online, we call in e-word-of-mouth.

BTW, eWOM is UGC, but not all UGC is eWOM. For example, if a customer sends a direct message to a brand or posts a question to a brand on social media, that’s UGC, but it’s not eWOM.

Not all UGC or eWOM is created the same, however. In fact, there are different levels of involvement that a user can engage in when creating UGC.