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By Justin Garrity, Postano/TigerLogic

The holiday season is fast approaching, but it’s not too late for brands to create meaningful, effective campaigns. Incorporating user-generated content can be the key to driving consumer engagement, and in turn, sales. These three practices can enhance the customer experience as they shop in your stores this holiday season.

1. Start creating buzz now to inspire your fans.

Whether you’re asking users to share content for a one-day popup shop event or a season-long social media campaign, it’s imperative to build awareness ahead of time. Building buzz prior to the campaign ensures that once it’s launched, you’re not left waiting for content from fans. You can do this in a lot of ways, such as spreading the word through your social channels and including reminders on any in-store signage and collateral. Content-heavy campaigns resonate stronger with consumers; therefore, starting early will ensure a longer lead-time for your fans to build creative content.

2. Drive greater participation through clarity and simplicity.

Two hashtags should be the limit for any user-generated content campaign. The goal of incorporating user-generated content into your marketing campaign is to celebrate and showcase the creativity and passion of your fans. When you bring in more than two hashtags, it begins to impede on the creativity of your fans and leads to less interaction. Stick to one or two hashtags and let your fans do the rest.

A simple hash tag creates a consistent voice that ties together your entire campaign. It also allows you to easily search for fan content to repurpose it, as an in-store visualization or online social hub, effectively creating a social look book. Adding incentives to participate is another straightforward way to engage fans, such as introducing a charitable component or offering a free giveaway. However, for many diehard fans, seeing their social posts designed and displayed in the style of their favorite brands can be incentive enough.

3. Create galleries to showcase expressive products and the best fan content.

Many retailers introduce new products, collections and lines for the holiday season. A user-generated campaign can be a great way to drive awareness and generate excitement around new initiatives. Creating a gallery allows brands to highlight and celebrate this creative content through a social hub and encourage other consumers to join in. Especially effective for retailers is the in-store social visualization. As shoppers come into a store, seeing content posted by other fans and customers can be the deciding factor for those considering a purchase. Then, sharing this content in a gallery via an online social hub drives consumers back to your brand’s website, where users can learn about additional products and services.

NORTH Social Lab is up for People's Choice Award for the NW Social Media Awards. Check out the work in social we did for KEEN last year and "like" the video on the youtube channel to cast your vote! 

via postano.com

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