Video is becoming more and more important as a marketing tool, and that popularity does not seem to be waning. The use of both pictures and sounds also makes video a very efficient communication tool. However, to make video really work you need to produce videos on a regular basis rather than just creating a video now and again which can make it more costly and time consuming than other forms of marketing.
One great way of creating video that is sometimes overlooked is user generated content or UGC. This is where your customers, franchisees or anyone else for that matter, makes video for you. It can be an extremely powerful marketing tool and incredibly cost effective if done right and we are going to explore a few ways UGC can benefit your franchise organisation.
The first way would be to empower your franchisees to create their own video content to promote themselves and their franchises. This could be anything from promoting products, events or new offers or the franchise organisation itself. As well as your franchisees, your customers are a great way of getting user generated content. Reviews, testimonial videos, unboxing videos and product tutorials for example. Videos made by customers are a powerful marketing tool because they are the authentic voice of the customer and therefore trusted by customers. Think of the last time you booked a holiday or purchased an expensive item. Chances are you would have looked on trip advisor or searched for a customer review or unboxing video. These are all UGC. Other ways you can create UGC are your own staff. You never know, you may even have a social influencer of the future working for you already or someone who is just fantastic on camera and would be a useful brand ambassador. It does not always need to be the founders who are the front and centre on video. Staff, customers and franchisees are all a fantastic resource of authentic and powerful video content.
So how do you go about enabling people to create their own video content?
Well firstly you ask them, and then you make it as simple as possible for them to do it.
You can request people send their video clips using tools like WeTransfer and google docs clips and that you can edit into finished branded videos to share or even send you completed videos. One powerful aspect to UGC is that the people who create the videos are able to share them also to leverage their social media following. In fact, some UGC would be made and shared by your customers without you having any input as all. However, if you can be part of the process that means you can ensure things like branding are in line with your guidelines.
As well as asking people to send in videos, you can also use tools like www.shoutout.social that automate the entire UGC video making process.
User generated content is a cost-effective way to scale your video content quickly and easily and authentic communication from customers really resonates with prospects. Franchise companies especially have so many ways of obtaining UGC in order to grow their business.
