Are you engaging?

This content originally appeared on January 28, 2021 as part of the Future of Marketing weekly email series. Subscribe here.

Welcome to Future of Marketing

Each week, we send you the most relevant trends, resources, and strategies in social and user-generated content (UGC) from leading marketers and brands around the globe.

Today we're discussing...

• Why you should engage your biggest fans
• Content maximization 
• Heinz's latest UGC masterpiece

Overproduction vs. delight

Did you know 93% of marketers agree that consumers trust content created by people more than content created by brands?

It's essential to invest in delighting your biggest fans because word-of-mouth is the most powerful form of marketing, after all.

Let's break down a few stats from TrueLoyal's State of UGC 2021 report: 

• 41.2% of marketers rank engagement as their top metric to measure
• 72.2% of these marketers have more responsibilities now than compared to 2019
• 51.5% indicated a reduction in budget in 2020

The problem is… 

Achieving consistent engagement is challenging without adequate resources to succeed – with time, budget, and team size being the top three challenges holding marketers back.

User-generated content (UGC) not only alleviates the challenges that come with content production (because your audience creates content about your brand) – but UGC fuels trust, engagement, and conversions.

Continue to balance branded content with UGC. Highlight and reward the stories your fans and audience are sharing.

But rule of thumb: make it less about you and more about them.

Content maximization

If you're a solo marketer or part of a small team, our hat goes off to you.

Melanie Deziel, Author and Chief Content Officer, tweeted that you can take one video and repurpose it in multiple formats – audio, transcribed text, bite-sized clips for social media, and more.

You know... instead of sporadically creating and distributing content across multiple channels without a clear strategy.

The secret is to take a step back and create shareable content – content your audience is interested in. 

Try asking your fans who they want to learn from, and find ways to collaborate and create content with industry leaders they are suggesting – whether it's a blog series, video, podcast, newsletter, a research report.

Then, reformat this content according to each distribution channel's consumption behaviors (i.e. Instagram is more visual while Twitter is more text-heavy). Because remember… what works on one channel doesn't always work on the other.

TIP: If your content is interesting and properly formatted, the chances of your audience re-sharing it will only increase.

What we're learning

• Instagram adds content publishing API, enabling business accounts to schedule posts [AdWeek]
• Doordash is going to the Superbowl as Budweiser skips for the first time since 1983 [WSJ] 
• NEW BLOG: Omni-channel Marketing: Creating Content Sustainably Across Multiple Channels [FOM]
• Twitter launched Birdwatch, a community-based approach to misinformation [Twitter]
• NEW BLOG: State of UGC – The Results are In [TrueLoyal]

#brandcrush: Heinz 💘

Each week in #brandcrush, we highlight exceptional brands that are channeling their customers' voice to connect more authentically with their audience.

Heinz anonymously funded a focus group, where participants were asked to draw their representation of ketchup. 

Most of them not only drew the Heinz logo but also included elements like the number “57” and signature tomatoes, according to Ad Age. 

Participants were recorded as they drew their masterpiece and Heinz repurposed some of that footage to create a light-hearted video. Avish Sood, Brand Manager at Clorox, shared it here.

That isn't even the best part…

Heinz shared these drawings (UGC) across billboards and packaging, demonstrating how to take one idea across multiple channels… from digital to out-of-home and physical experiences.

Talk about an omni-channel UGC masterpiece.

Office hours ⏰

Every once in a while, we gather our team of experts to answer your
burning marketing questions about UGC. Have a question? Let us know.