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Tags – Customer Generated Content
Given our community-centric behaviour, we have extensively covered the topic of building relationships in business. This includes:
- Valentine’s Day and Marketing a Business – A Styling Perspective
- Are You Travelling Enough for Your Business?
- Target Psychological Safety to Develop Your Business
- Looking for the Best Content for Your Business?
- An Alternative to Sending Irrelevant Marketing Content & Killing Prospects
- From Digital to Physical Connections – The LinkedIn Example
- Digital Marketing for Accountants – Refining Your Approach
In fact, if you search for ‘Business Relation’ on our website, you will get a total of 15 pages in the results. But, more than the talk of content around building relations in business, the content itself helps in building relationships. And, if the content is coming from the audience itself, the impact is even greater; for a simple reason.
Customer Generated Content
The simplest way to put this thought forward is: what works better in terms of putting a nice word for you? You talking about yourself or a client putting in a nice word for you?
Someone else boosting you is also the preferred option, whether the effect is personal or collective at a business level. And, this was always clear.
What compelled us to write this blog is how customer generated content has taken a different shape with social media and the interactions around it. Customer generated content can take the following shapes:
1. Sharing Experiences
Social media is a fantastic tool to build relationships. However, that is not the end of how social media can be used in terms of customer generated content.
For instance, after every event, we ask our audience to share what they liked or disliked on social media, especially LinkedIn. Most of these events are around our SEO services and teaching businesses how they can use it to further develop their business.
You will be surprised to see the golden nuggets that come out of the feedback, most of which convert into testimonials. Just to clarify here, when we say testimonials, we do not just mean Google reviews. In fact, a post on LinkedIn putting a good word for you may have a shorter life, but in terms of reach, in most cases, the impact is greater and quicker.
In addition, there is another similar angle from the feedback and interaction here too.
2. Content Direction
There is no point in writing on topics that no one cares about.
And, away from a focus on keywords in blogs, Google now puts a higher emphasis on customer engagement. This means that your content needs to come out of your experiences and interactions surrounding your customers.
So, in line with our suggestion, our content now comes out of our interactions with customers and experiences in general, most of which are driven by social media.
On this front, we strongly discourage taking content ideas from around the web and repurposing them as your own. If you can find a different angle on a point in contention, that is fine. In fact, this form of content generation constitutes a large portion of research and writing itself. However, a stronger emphasis should be on the content that comes from your clients and your experiences.
And, finally, the last one of our points is quite clear.
3. Being Mentioned
Given that a whole marketing sector, i.e. PR, is built around mentions and viewings, the last point is quite self evident.
You want to be mentioned by your clients; as simple as that. And, in most cases, in terms of direct business, this part of user and customer generated content has the highest value out there.
From our own experience, we have been approached by a new client after just 24 hours of being mentioned by an existing client / contact of ours. This is quicker than any of our sales efforts to date.
Concluding Remarks
We should add here that the value in user generated content is not just from the perspective of making sales. User generated content also allows you to understand the perceptions around your brand.
And, if you can show that you are listening, by creating content around it, you establish yourself as a customer-centric brand. And, this customer-centricity is what will flourish your business anyways.
To learn more, get in touch with us today. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
