How to build trust with user-generated content

Wondering what it takes to gain customers’ trust and convert potential leads into customers?

Then keep reading to find out how you can leverage your existing happy customers to build trust with user-generated content and help you convert potential leads into new customers.

Why you need to build trust with your customers

It is very important for brands to establish trust with their customers. You have to make your customers feel highly valued and appreciated. By engaging with them and providing timely customer support you can build that trust and even create a sense of brand loyalty. It is through authentic conversations and overall excellent customer experience that brands establish a real connection with their customers.

But this has to go beyond just advertising or promotional content. Your customers want resources, support and a community that makes them feel like a part of something. They need relevant and engaging content through social media, blogs and emails. Customer feedback should be valued and acted upon. Ultimately, these content and touchpoints should help you nurture and build a relationship with your customers.

 

How to build trust with your customers

As visitors to your website check out the features and pricing of your product or service, they’re looking to see social proof, ie reviews, ratings, testimonials and other customers’ experiences before making a decision to purchase. An authentic review or testimonial can go a long way in convincing new customers that they will have success with it too.

Happy customers are the best brand advocates and your website and social media should feature them. These images and videos will go on to help potential customers understand how others use the product or service. Your existing loyal customers can help you convert potential leads into customers, by vouching for your brand, products and services.

 

Successful businesses build trust with user-generated content

The success of a business is largely dependent on its ability to provide value to its customers. This has been made possible with the advent of new ways for businesses to interact with their target audiences, such as social media and online reviews, which have given way to user-generated content.

Businesses that are getting ahead in this digital era are those that have adopted user-generated content and discovered how it can be used for their benefit. They identify the best-fit customers and highlight their experiences and distribute this content across their marketing channels.

For example, Jucy, the travel specialist that operates 1000s of cars and campervans in Australia and New Zealand, collected video footage from people traveling in their iconic purple and green campervan to build a video library that could then be shared on their website and social media. The #JUCYMOMENTS campaign encouraged travelers to share videos of their favorite moments which got others excited to go on an adventure as well.

Similarly, Jax Tyres & Auto, specializing in the sales and service of tires, wheels, brakes and suspension leveraged UGC to provide their loyal customers with content about the things they loved the most – tyres. They took advantage of their close community of auto enthusiasts, the Jax Tribe to crowdsource video clips using Vloggi to post on social media. This not only engaged their loyal customers but also helped them showcase how the product performed and looked in a fun way instead of a long and boring case study.

Often, customers who enjoyed a product or service are more than happy to share their experience on social media with their peers. Brands need to monitor and track how their customers share this content through hashtags and tagging features.

One of the UK’s top travel destinations, Tatton Park used a social listening and content discovery tool, SnapSea to keep track of what visitors were sharing on social media. SnapSea helped identify top-producing hashtags and keywords, acquired the rights to the content, and curated a personalized board of engaging UGC. Tatton Park then repurposed this content to showcase the exciting seasonal events and themes, encouraging more people to visit.

How can you provide social proof and build trust with user-generated content?

Customers want to hear from other customers before making a decision to spend their money on a product. People trust other customers as they are objective, unlike any promotional content that a brand puts out there. Real customers’ experience is authentic and credible. That’s why you should collect and gather user-generated content and promote authentic reviews and product-in-use videos. Your prospective customers need to know that real customers trust your brand and that they can too.

Here are the 4 stages to build trust with user-generated content –

1. Gather qualitative data to identify the specific needs of your target audience

Identify what your customers value and what they enjoy the most. Are they speaking about any one feature constantly? What makes your potential customers hesitate or what aspects of the product are they unsure about. Is it whether your product or service would be a good fit for them?

Whatever concern has them sitting on the fence about whether or not to make that purchase, you need to address it. By gathering qualitative data on what your potential customers need from you, you can provide social proof that addresses the very same concern.

And what better way to provide proof and reassurance than a demonstrated success story of another customer with a similar need who is very happy with your brand!

2. Identify user-generated content that meets these needs

Based on what your prospective customers are looking for, you can find and curate user-generated content that addresses it and dissolves any doubt in their minds. With plenty of images, reviews, testimonials and product-in-action videos, you can provide them with all the social proof they need to gain their trust and confidence. Through this, you can create valuable resources and content that you can distribute on all your platforms.

3. Collect and curate user-generated content

It is easy for customers to go online and talk about the products they enjoyed or the ones that disappointed. But if your customers are talking about you online, you have to track it using content discovery tools like SnapSea.

Whether it’s reviews, pictures of products or simply sharing their excitement of having purchased something, UGC is free, organic promotion for your brand and your offering that you can leverage to provide social proof. This way, you’ll never miss a glowing review or a product picture when a customer shares it on social media.

With SnapSea, you can acquire the rights to reuse content through an automated approval process that allows sharing assets through the web, social and digital channels to create a visual content library.

If you’re looking for more ways to source video testimonials and reviews from customers, you can use Vloggi, a video collection tool that allows brands to directly source and manage UGC videos with a simple link or QR code. Contributors provide consent to reuse at the time of upload and you can easily build an extensive video library with clips to publish anywhere.

 

4. Market your content worldwide

To take full advantage of UGC, ensure that they are accessible to your potential customers by making it a part of your content strategy. Don’t just upload it on one platform and forget about it. You should share it on your social media channels, website, email newsletters and any other channel where your customers may see them. Here are 7 places where you can post the user-generated video content you’ve collected.

 

Conclusion

Building a good reputation for your brand and gaining customer trust takes time and is a long and ongoing process. If you have made your customers happy and they love your products, make them your brand advocates! Get them to share their experience with you so new customers know that you’re trustworthy and reliable.

But forget long and boring written testimonials and case studies. Try user-generated content instead. They can help your brand create a genuine connection as they are authentic, very engaging and highly effective in converting leads. If you have customers who love your brand and are happy to recommend you, all you have to do is share a link with them using Vloggi to start building your video library.

Vloggi can get you started

If you’re looking for ideas on how to collect video testimonials, check out our blog 4 easy ways to collect video testimonials from customers.

If you already have a campaign idea in mind, that’s great! Simply register for free and select the testimonial template to get started or choose from any of these plans to find one that suits you best.