How can brands stand out from the crowd and reach consumers in meaningful ways that motivate them to buy?

User-generated Content (UGC) is the answer.

UGC (user-generated content) can be impactful in any medium. UGC is trusted by consumers and can be shared via email, social media or websites.

BRP , owners of iconic brands like Ski-Doo, Sea-Doo and Can-Am, is a company that understands the power of UGC. That’s why we asked BRP’s Global Asset Factory & Social Media Lead, Bellanis Pereira, to join our Co-founder, Peter Cassidy, in a keynote presentation at last week’s NES 2021 event , to share her insights on the value of growing a brand through user-generated content. Here is a summary of their conversation. View the full keynote here.

PETER: CAN WE GET A BREAKFAST BACKGROUND ABOUT YOUR ROLE AT BRP.

Bella At BRP, I have two roles. The first is that I am the global leader for all things social media. I am responsible for guiding our international marketing teams on social media best practices. This includes how to improve our social game, from community management to content creation. My second role is as the head of Asset Factory. This team assists marketing teams in producing high volumes of assets using a content-first approach. Based on best practices from platforms, we adapt content to power all of our digital channels (CRM web, social, and e-com). We can respond to many of these content requirements with user-generated content.

– Obviously, COVID TURNED MANY BRANDS’ MARKETING STRATEGIES UPSIDE DOWN BUT IT ALSO CREATED OPPORTUNITIES.

B. COVID was a major change in the way we shoot product content at BRP. However, COVID also provided an industry boost. Our products allow people to explore and enjoy the great outdoors. While we were unable to schedule photo shoots with production crews for quite some time, our customers still used social media to share content from around the globe. UGC was used as a content generator by us to showcase our products and show customers how they experience our vehicles.

– HOW DO YOU SEE UGC TO HELP MARKETERS SUCCESS IN CHALLENGING TIME?

B. Marketers need to seize the chance to connect with and celebrate active communities such as the one that BRP has. Customers who care enough about our products and want to share their experiences on their social media accounts is a privilege for us as brands. This content can be shared across your channels, so don’t forget to celebrate it.

P: BROADLY SPEAKING, WHAT DO YOU SEE AS THE BIGGEST BENEFIT UGC CAN PROVIDE BRANDS IN TODAY’S DIGITAL-FIRST ENVIRONMENT?

B. UGC can be a cost-effective way to obtain content for all your digital platforms. UGC gives marketers more relevant content and plays an important part in the product consideration phase. It is important to imagine ourselves as the product being advertised.

This is a clever way to solve the problems marketers face when trying to feed their channels with enough content. A lot of companies create large amounts of content for the entire year. This can lead to large gaps. UGC can solve this problem by providing a solution to the problem of stale material.

You will always need the appropriate permissions to use UGC. Marketers should not publish anything for commercial purposes without permission. If you have the budget, reward your fans!

– WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY Trying to Achieve With UGC at BRP?

B. BRP’s key strategic pillars in content are shifting from focusing solely on the products to the experiences our vehicles provide. We create this experience by focusing on the thrill of the journey and destination, rather than the technicalities and specs of vehicles. UGC is one of the content pillars that helps us reach this goal.

Another important goal is humanizing our brands through the creation of communities. We want both new and experienced riders to feel at home with us. We would like to share more content from our customers so that others can see the beauty of our riders. UGC encourages people to try new things and that’s what our goal is to promote.

We are also creating UGC-specific strategies for all our brands, and assigning a target audience for branded hashtags. While it’s great to talk content, we also want to measure success so KPIs will be important this year.

– WHAT CONTENT TYPES DO YOU CONSIDER FOR UGC AT BRP?

B This is the most customer-related content. We offer a program called ‘Friends of BRP’ to people with influence, who come back often and share content about our brands. It can spark collaborations, so we keep an eye on them.

We also noticed that not everyone in the UGC community is an owner. A photographer who works with an influencer or a friend of one rider could be one example. All of these people can be great sources of content. Crediting them goes a long ways.

DGC, or dealer-generated content, has also been explored. These are our partners, who can also be a great source of UGC. We can also use it for marketing purposes.

P. WHAT HAS BRP DONE SO Far WITH ITS UGC STATEGY?

B We currently use UGC on all of our social media accounts, particularly Instagram. We have found UGC to work well with the increase in stories on Instagram. This allows us to share content that is more authentic from customers, and tag them in our highlights of the week. It’s not always possible to produce such frequent content at the speed and variety needed. We love UGC as a way of celebrating customers and inspiring people.

On our website, we have implemented a few Stackla widgets to showcase our owners and inspire newcomers into our industry. The idea is to showcase real people, real riders. It’s people doing things they like to do, which has come across as really good content.

– HOW HAVE YOUR SOCIAL Audiences RESPONDED to YOUR UGC USES?

B. It’s great! The content we put out is enjoyed by people. People love to see that they make it to the top highlights of the week. This encourages them to share our stories, which in turn creates an online relationship that improves our customers’ experience with our brands.

Our customers love to leave comments on others’ pictures. Being able to feature them is like having a wall of fame. It’s a great opportunity for brands to look into this. You should do it with your brand if you aren’t already.

P: WHAT ARE BRP’S UGC PLANS FOR THE FUTURE AS FAR AS ECOMMERCE?

B: This year, we’re trying out new UGC features. We are very interested in the Stackla email function. ECommerce Shopspots will also be something we are interested in testing and seeing the results.

We want to increase the number of UGC widgets on product pages and show specific products in real-life situations.

We also want to globalize UGC use in other marketing departments around world, so that they can reap the benefits of Stackla at the local level.

We plan to use the practice in Latin America and EMEA to make our content production more global. We want to show the diversity of our riders, and Stackla will help us with the curation and search of this content.

– DO YOU HAVE ANY LEARNED BEST PRINCIPLES OR RECOMMENDATIONS TO BRANDS OUT THOROUGH UGC?

B UGC is all about communication. Communicate clearly with your customers and explain how they can share your content. To encourage customers to share their experiences, make sure you use all channels of communication. A great place to start is your Instagram bio!

Be consistent with what you expect your customers to do. Ask them to tag and use your hashtag. Repetition is important. Do not confuse your followers by using a different hashtag for every contest or UGC tactic. Instead, use your existing hashtag to build consistency and increase awareness.

People should be rewarded! Surprise and delight tactics can be a great way for you to show your admirers that you care about their content and encourage them to make more.

You must always give permission to use images on your marketing channels. It is not a good idea to have their faces published on a newsletter or website without permission.

Don’t forget the creator! To engage them further and increase excitement about creating content for your brand, tag them in the caption and image.

– ARE YOU LOOKING FOR OTHER BIG TENDS TO TEST EARLY NEXT YEAR/YEAR?

B Reels on IG, TikTok are the new kids on campus. We have to push ourselves as brands to discover new ways to engage our audience in the creative process with these new formats and platforms. Although we have not yet cracked the code, we are excited about the possibilities and how we can use UGC there. We’re excited to see the future and are keeping our fingers crossed!

source https://www.nosto.com/blog/brp-growing-trust-and-engagement-with-authentic-ugc/