What is User Generated Content ? More importantly, how can it work for you and your vacation rental business? User Generated Content is content created by your consumers. It can be a video on Youtube , a post on Facebook, or a picture on Instagram . It’s all constructed by your patrons and it’s free marketing.
Your Goal
Your goal in this business is to humanize your brand, build trust with your consumers, and fill those empty beds with heads. One of the best ways to develop these tactics is personalizing your brand on social media. Consumers are aware and focused on utilizing the internet to research and communicate more than ever before. They trust family and friends’ recommendations more than any other source of advertisement. By utilizing UGC, you’re befriending your consumers, rather than getting lost amongst the thousands of advertisements they see every single day. Your customers love being noticed and appreciated. This type of interaction will lead to increased revenue. It’s a win-win.
Your first decision in utilizing UGC is deciding what sites you’ll want to use. Each social media network has its own demographics. In doing a little research, you can find which demographic best fits your buyers’ profile, and determine which social media sites your buyers will most likely be engaging.
Type of Content
You’ll also need to consider which type of content works best on each site. Set goals for your content. What do you want your customers to share? Establish a contest and encourage interaction from your consumers. Respond to their entries. You must treat UGC like any other marketing strategy. Establish and analyze your benchmarks consistently. Seek out the best of the best. Remember, you’re looking to represent your brand and grow business.
Be Clear
You must be clear and concise in your requests for UGC. If you don’t actively engage your audience, you can deter them, losing both interest and business. This is a slow-growing process so you must be patient. Side note, you will want to handle trolling immediately. Interact, be fun and engage!
If handled correctly, you’ll soon start building a community of followers. Communicate with them and humanize your business. Build credibility through honesty and sincerity. Use this opportunity to enlist your customers. People love attention, and always give credit where credit is due. When you use UGC, recognize the source. They’ll want to share that recognition. By increasing the popularity of your social media sites, you’ll not only be increasing sales, you’ll be introducing the world to your brand.
Does it seem like a popularity contest? You bet it does! So, get out there and like you’re running for class president and introduce yourself to your customers!
