Direct-to-consumer marketing initially seemed to go against the laws of buying decisions. People would always want to lay on a mattress before buying it, right? A safe assumption has turned into a completely wrong perspective. It turns out people are more than happy to buy a mattress on the internet (as long as there’s a refund policy involved) and the proof is in the profit.

Casper used social media, paid ads, and user-generated content to take their 2014 founded startup to $100 million in sales in less than two years. It’s one of the hundreds of thousands of DTC brands, like Allbirds, Warby Parker, Dollar Shave Club, and Bonobos, that have shaken up retail, taking what was once a heavily offline retailer experience into an online customer journey.

The direct-to-consumer trend wasn’t a rocket that took off in one moment. It was the hare that used consumer sentiment and current events to edge its way into a competition for retail brands and eventually became an essential part of their business model. Social commerce has further accelerated the trend.

Why Should Retail Brands Care About Direct-to-Consumer?

Direct-to-consumer eCommerce sales reached $129 billion in 2021, up from $111.5 billion in 2020.

Apparel brands like Nike are “…doubling down on our approach with Nike Digital and our owned stores, as well as a smaller number of strategic partners who share our vision to create a consistent, connected, and modern shopping experience.”

Legacy brands like Nestlé are looking at direct-to-consumer as added shelf space.” Nestle’s North America Executive VP and CMO Antonio Sciuto explained to Think Google, “We need to think about search with the same obsession that we think about our store shelving. It’s exactly the same.” Their DTC marketing strategy has shaped into subscriptions for their products like Nestea and San Pellegrino.

As established consumer brands turn to digital, it’ll continue to push customer expectations towards online retailers. Two out of every five Americans have already purchased directly from a brand or manufacturer online, and e-commerce customers will  reach a new high of 103 million by 2022.

Shopify Plus covers Molson Coors Beverage Company’s shift to direct-to-consumer (sparked by the COVID-19 2020 pandemic). Their D2C strategy ended up growing sales by 188% month of month.

Without the need for brick-and-mortar rent, in-person employees, and the necessary technology and equipment to run a store, the profit margins for D2C are higher than that of in-person shopping experiences. Add a subscription model and retail brands can see a higher customer lifetime value and potentially more frequent orders as customers lean into the convenience of at-home delivery (while getting customer insights they never had access to before).

Direct-to-consumer is becoming the obvious choice for retail brands, but the question is: are you ready to make the shift?

Checklist: Should You Go Direct-to-Consumer?

Going direct-to-consumer is more complex than setting up a website and hitting publish. Backend fulfillment and technology have to get situated before you can confidently take a brick-and-mortar retail business online.

#1: Is your goal to increase sales, customer lifetime value, and order frequency?

With DTC, you’ll be able to manufacture and ship your products directly to your buyers, increasing profit margins and customer lifetime value (thanks to marketing strategies we’ll outline later). The DTC model creates more touch points that lead to brand loyalty (and more customer data!).

Retailers are adding online stores to their mix and going direct-to-consumer faster than ever before.

#2: Do you have a supply chain and fulfillment process that can handle online orders?

Your fulfillment process will have to integrate with your brick-and-mortar store and your online store. If both stores use the same inventory, your brick-and-mortar store needs to notify your online store of quantities for different SKUs.

Figuring out this process ahead of time is crucial to ensuring your online store gets a good reputation. If the customer experience involves sending “Oops, we’re actually out of stock!” emails after they’ve purchased, you’ll lose their trust, which is a huge part of the online shopping experience.

Only go direct-to-consumer when your fulfillment process can handle both your brick-and-mortar store and your online store—or suffer the logistical and brand damaging consequences.

#3: Can you set up an online store?

Setting up an online store for D2C can be easy thanks to marketplace platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce. But, it’s still a question of whether retailers should outsource, build on a marketplace, or take on the entire project. By outsourcing, you can get your online store set up and work through the kinks faster than trying to figure it out yourself, but this is only the start of the journey and there are thousands of variables to take into consideration.

Depending on the products you sell, you also might need to bring in another fulfillment center. You can work with a local wholesaler or look on marketplace sites for the products you’re looking to sell. (Your online store can sell far more SKUs than your consumer retail brick and mortar stores could ever hold in inventory.) Walmart started doing this years ago.

Set up your online store to be secure, fast, easy to navigate, and trustworthy.

#4: Are you ready to hire expert DTC marketing help?

Your DTC marketing strategy needs to be constantly improving, there are always areas that can be optimized. To get more eyes on your store through SEO, content, and paid ads, and drive higher conversions you’ll need the help of a team of experienced digital marketers. One important element of a high impact DTC marketing strategy is UGC. Adding user-generated content across your website and product pages to make your site more trustworthy. UGC in emails such as abandoned cart notifications can turn an “almost sale” into a converted sale. And UGC in organic and paid social ads can attract new customers while rewarding and recognizing your repeat customers.

The goal of marketing your online store is to bring more awareness to your brand, traffic to your website, and conversions. It’ll also help establish customer loyalty, as your content adds more touch points to your customer experience. Unless you have a large, loyal audience—getting your online store off the ground might take some time.  One way to accelerate this is to work with a team of digital marketing experts that have experience in driving results for online consumer retail stores. Regardless, social commerce and paid social ads should be at the top of your list as you invest in marketing.

Here are a few specifics you’ll want to consider when marketing your online retail store.

How Do Direct-to-Consumer Companies Approach Marketing?

Just like Casper, Nestle, and Nike, your approach to marketing your online store is based on the successful strategies of the DTC brands that paved the path before you. Their strategies have brought in billions of dollars in consumer purchases, showing exactly what a brand needs to make an online sale.

Strategy #1: Use micro-influencers to spread awareness

DTC’s and traditional retailers alike are tapping into the power of micro-influencers to share their message. A micro-influencer has less than 100,000 followers, high engagement, and a niche audience. They have more pull with their followers than influencers with a million-person audience (even A-list celebs!) with a 7x increase in engagement compared to mega influencers. Eighty percent of social media Livestream viewers say they’re likely to buy a product as a result of the endorsement of their favorite influencers.

Glossier has been using micro-influencers for years to grow its Instagram following and to sell more products. What initially started as a beauty blog has turned into an established online beauty commerce business that is now adding brick-and-mortar stores to its portfolio. Founder and CEO Emily Weiss explained to Entrepreneur that “70% of online sales and traffic comes through peer-to-peer referrals.” Glossier continues to add micro-influencer content to their social media and product pages to increase engagement and conversions.

Strategy #2: Ask customers to make content

If you have any amount of customers, user-generated content about your brand is being created every day. Choosing to leverage it in your marketing strategy or to let it expire on social media is a marketing choice (make wise choices!). UGC can be repurposed across marketing channels to drive greater results.

• Ads based on user-generated content receive 4 times higher click-through rates and a 50% drop in cost-per-click compared to average ads.
• One-quarter of search results (25%) for the world’s biggest brands are links to user-generated content.
• Forty-eight percent of shoppers claim that user-generated content is a great method for them to discover new products.

CBInsights shows the comparison of responses on social media to BarkBox and their established competitors like PETCO, PetSmart, and Pet Supplies Plus. Their favorites and replies far surpass those of any of their competitors.

Successful DTC brands like BarkBox brilliantly repurpose this user-generated content into content for their social channels. CBInsights compares BarkBox’s content to PETCO’s below, showing how UGC can drastically improve content quality (while reducing content production costs).

Strategy #3: Measure the right DTC metrics

Direct-to-consumer metrics and retail metrics aren’t the same. DTC success isn’t quantified in the same way that retail success is (although you’re aiming for revenue in both cases). While retail metrics look more like daily sales, with DTC you can create more predictability around how many people will visit your online store each day. Based on your content marketing, search engine optimization, and paid ads, you can figure out how many site visitors you need per day to get your average order volume.

That’s the beauty of a D2C model. While attaining that predictability will require the help of a marketing professional, you can turn an unpredictable offline retail store into a predictable online D2C store—while continuing to work in-store.

BigCommerce shares four metrics for eCommerce brands to focus on:

• Purchases
• Repeat purchases
• Average order value
• Lifetime value of revenue

With TINT, brands increase on-site purchases by adding user-generated content to their marketing funnels and use Attention Score to ensure that they are using the very best visual content.

What Happens if D2C marketing is Just a Trend?

Direct-to-consumer saw a huge spike thanks to COVID-19, a spike that led to 10 years of eCommerce growth in only 90 days. As Shopify Plus’ Global Director of Marketing, Hana Abaza explains, “During the pandemic, direct-to-consumer brands with thriving ecommerce experiences were able to very quickly and easily pivot their marketing and messaging, their energy. They didn’t have to fundamentally rethink their business model. They could focus on very different things because they were at a significant advantage.”

But does that mean direct-to-consumer is around to stay? Or will brands use time and resources to create online stores that will become irrelevant in a few years?

Technology will continue to shift the online shopping experience. Online shopping has yet to decrease in growth in the past five years, so it would take an opposite-of-COVID-19 Black Swan event to change consumer habits. What we may see in the future is a lack of websites in direct-to-consumer. As Facebook and TikTok create in-app shoppable experiences, retail brands might not need to pay their annual website subscription service to make sales. While this could reduce friction, it could also develop data problems in the future—as apps control the data you have over your customers.

We’ll have to wait to see how commerce plays out, but until then, we know what’s working today. And that is UGC.

Schedule a TINT demo today to learn how to drive DTC marketing results.

The post Should Your Retail Brand Go DTC? appeared first on TINT.

What are Instagram Stories?

In 2016, Instagram boldly launched its newest feature: Stories.

The move was controversial as the Facebook-owned company replicated Snapchat’s main content model—photos and less than 10-second long videos that disappeared in 24-hours. With a proven success story thanks to Snapchat, Instagram was able to take the same feature template and run.

There are 500 million daily active Instagram story users and 67% of people surveyed have swiped up on the links of branded Stories. These numbers can be hard to wrap your mind around but they all point to one undeniable truth:

Using Instagram Stories in your business is a strategic way to build relationships with your audience and future customers. With half a billion people using the Stories feature, your target audience is enjoying Stories from their favorite accounts. They’re also taking action and swiping up to learn more about the products they’ve been shown.

Why do Instagram Stories work so well? We’ll explain the 3 reasons Stories have gone so viral and give you Instagram Story inspiration to start publishing your own.

What Makes a Great Instagram Story?

Generation Y and Generation Z love Instagram Stories. They’ll happily share their day-to-day experiences with their followers and their followers will gladly interact with their Stories. The proof of this is in the number of daily active Instagram Story users.

But, why are Stories so popular? Here’s our take.

#1: They ask for a small time commitment

One account’s Instagram Stories will only take a minute (usually less) to watch. This tiny time commitment plays into the part of our mind that feels like we’re not committing to anything by watching Stories. Unlike a 15-minute YouTube video, someone can cruise through a few Stories and justify it by knowing that they’ll be off Stories in a moment (or at least that’s what we all tell ourselves).

#2: They give a new content perspective

Before Stories, perfectly curated feeds were all the rage. Brand accounts published high-quality, professional photos to their feed. Stories introduced a new kind of content, the type that wasn’t shot on a professional camera, edited in Photoshop, and posted in the perfect order. It gave a different look at content, the team behind a brand and product, and a new (faster) way to consume content. Ultimately, it highlights the authenticity of the account.

#3: They’re interactive

Unlike an Instagram post or IGTV where your interaction options are like, comment, or share—Stories are interactive in a new, fun way. Stories have stickers, polls, and other options that let your audience play with your Stories. Question stickers let them ask questions directly on your Story, polls ask your audience what their opinion is on a topic, and the slider gives the option for rating.

These have been key factors in helping Instagram Stories take off and become a truly global sensation. Knowing why Instagram Stories have become so popular is just the start though. The hard part is hitting publish on your first story.

Here’s some Instagram Story inspiration to help you out.

What Are Some Inspiring Instagram Story Ideas?

Posting your first Instagram Stories can feel a bit daunting but once you’re in a posting groove you’ll start hitting the “Post to Instagram Stories” without a second glance. The hard part is starting. Once you’ve created the inertia to continue posting to Stories, you’ll start to see how your audience reacts to them and how you can improve them to get more views, engagement, and click-throughs.

If you’re stuck on what to create for your brand’s Instagram Stories, here are a few ideas to get you started.

Post an Interactive Story

Remember, Instagram Stories give your audience a level of interaction that’s not available through other content forms. Lean into this interaction by using polls, quizzes, questions, and sliders in your Stories.

Thinkific used the slider feature to see if their audience agrees with the reason people buy courses in the first place:

Reshare Feed Posts

You can reshare feed posts to your Stories by clicking the paper airplane next to the like and comment button of a feed post. You’ll be prompted to share this feed post with a user, users, or to your Story. By sharing your brand’s feed posts to your Story, you can help get more eyes on the content. You can also reshare feed posts from other users too, like your customers or the influencers you’re working with.

Chipotle’s Instagram account dedicated to their employees, @PeopleofChipotle, reshared their salary graphic:

Create a UGC Story

User-generated content (UGC) is a photo or video created by your fans, audience, or customers that provide social proof about your products. It’s usually created at the 3 most exciting stages of the customer journey: when someone orders your product (for eCommerce), when they buy your product in-store or receive it in the mail, and when they get the benefits from the product. UGC has higher engagement and conversion rates in comparison to brand-created content which leads to more views and swipe-ups on Stories.

Ikea reposts user-generated Stories to their Stories to promote their shipping to Guadalajara:

Instagram Stories are like the rest of your content strategy. It takes time to figure out what works and doesn’t work. This is when a spreadsheet can become your best friend—keep track of the engagement on each Story and what type of Story it was to figure out which Stories get the most interaction from your audience.

If you find that all of your Stories are flopping, it’s time to troubleshoot.

Troubleshooting Your Instagram Stories

If you’re finding that you’re not getting engagement and conversions even though you’ve posted Stories for at least 14 days, it’s time to see what the problem is. Your Stories shouldn’t flop, and just like your marketing strategies, there’s probably a slight tweak you can make to get the results you’re looking for.

What should you not post on Instagram stories?

The first thing to look for is if your Story content is Story-friendly. Story-friendly content resembles the Instagram Story inspiration we mentioned above: interactive, reshared feed posts, and highlighted UGC. Non-Story-friendly content would be:

• Photos or videos taken in landscape/horizontal orientation: Use portrait/vertical orientation so your viewers don’t have to turn their screen to watch your content.
• Videos are too long: If you’ve splintered YouTube video clips into an Instagram Story and it’s causing the Story to be over one minute long (for that specific video), cut down the video to less than one minute to keep your audience’s attention.
• Irregular posting schedule: In the content world, consistency is key. Post to Stories at least once per day to show your audience they can expect to see Story content from you daily.

Why are my story views so low?

If your Story views are really low after creating Story-friendly content for a few weeks, your audience is telling you something. There’s an improvement you can make in your Stories, the question is: what is it? Luckily, Instagram Stories give you the option to ask your audience questions.

Use your Story to ask your audience what they’d like to see from you and create a feed post asking the same question. Here are a few copy and paste questions you can ask your audience:

• Question Sticker: What’s your favorite Story content we’re creating?
• Poll Sticker: Would you like to see more of X content or Y content on our Stories?
• Question Sticker: If you ran our Stories for a day, what would you post?
• Countdown Sticker: Real-time anticipation builder that includes sneak peeks of new products.

Why is my story displayed last?

If you look at another Instagram user’s account and see your Story as the last Story to view—the algorithm isn’t out to get you. We promise. Every Instagram user has a different timeline based on how they interact with accounts. If a user hasn’t viewed much of your content or engaged with it, your Story will be further down the priority list in comparison to the other people they follow. As someone interacts with your content (watching your videos, liking your posts, commenting, DMing you, and watching more Stories), your Stories will start to be one of the first Instagram suggestions for them to watch.

You can incentivize your followers to watch your Stories by doing giveaways, creating special discount codes, or unique opportunities they can only know about from your Stories. Here are a few ideas for incentives to get people to watch your Stories:

• Set up a giveaway on your Story and use a feed post to post your audience to the Story
• Create a special discount code for Story viewers that’s only available for 24 hours
• Ideate an interesting opportunity your audience considers highly valuable and promote it only to your Story viewers

How many Instagram stories in a day are too many?

The answer to this question depends on your brand and the relationship you have with your audience. Some brands can post 10+ Stories a day and their audience loves it while other brands work better with 5 Stories per day. Figuring out how much to post is another part of the testing process.

To start, choose one topic to post about per day of the week. For example:

Monday: Employee-generated content that shows behind the scenes of working at your brand

Tuesday: User-generated content talking about your products

Wednesday: Tips for using your products

Thursday: Industry-related content that your audience is interested in

Friday: Memes your audience relates with or a stories takeover

Marketing takes time, data, and practice. Don’t be disheartened if your first few Stories aren’t “successful.” Keep A/B testing different types of Story content to figure out what your audience engages with the most to increase your Story views and conversions.

With over 500 million daily active users on Stories, it’s clear there’s a marketing opportunity with this type of content. But, adding more content creation to your marketing team’s plate might not be an option.

With user-generated content, you can repurpose the photos, videos, feedback, and testimonials from happy customers to your Stories and get higher engagement and conversions.

Schedule a call with a TINT specialist to see how we can help you find UGC (even if your brand wasn’t tagged in the post), get the legal right to use it, and keep your collected UGC organized and ready to use across your marketing channels and campaigns in the future.

The post Need Instagram Stories Inspiration? appeared first on TINT.

Smartphones and social media have further accelerated this journey, placing purchasing decisions and consumer resources at the fingertips of shoppers… literally. This democratization of marketing strategy has put user-generated content front and center.

Now, marketing campaigns are about turning the customer journey into a new experience. It is no longer about who has the prettiest advertisements. It is about brand awareness, using the voice of fans who drive this content strategy through their contribution of user generated content like product reviews and visual content that add authenticity to the experience.

This customer journey is a slight deviation from the marketing and sales funnels taught in Business 101. Now, a consumer goes from brand awareness to buying from that brand in record time. Social commerce takes place both on- and off-network. Potential buyers gauge popularity through the lens of customer trust and the connections they make with relevant content creators.

Marketers can now spend less time stuffing keywords (*pro tip: don’t keyword stuff) and instead activate brand advocates whose loyalty should be showcased across social media platforms and content campaigns.

Users and Customers Are Telling Your Brand Story

A marketer’s role used to be figuring out how to tell a brand’s story in a way that perfectly resonated with their ideal customer. They did this with owned content creation like TV ads, magazine ads, billboards, and product placement in movies and tv shows. Social media gave brands the chance to have a new owned channel. With this channel, the brand could post what they wanted when they wanted, without paying a massive premium to get it seen by their ideal audience.

Add in Facebook’s decision to monetize through ads, and these brands suddenly had access to consumers in the place they spent most of their time. Online.

This was when the story started to move out of the marketers’ hands and into the consumers’ hands. The voice of a company doesn’t have to be an overly-curated brand voice developed in a marketing bullpen. It can shift into the voice of your actual customers.

With user-generated content, brands can post their customers’ experience during the buying journey and let those customers tell other ideal customers why this brand is perfect for them.

User-generated content (UGC) is a photo, video, testimonial, feedback, or comment that customers create during the buying journey. It can be a photo of their confirmation email with text saying, “Can’t WAIT for this to arrive!”, a video of themselves unboxing their new package, or a 5-star review on the product page about how happy they are with their purchase.

The user-generated content customer journey is the brand story, told from the customer’s perspective. And, it’s proving to produce oversized ROI.

How To Use User-Generated Content in the Customer Journey

There are three steps along the buying journey that are generally the most exciting for a customer:

1. When the customer first purchases a product or service
2. When the customer receives their product or service
3. When the customer experiences the benefit of using the product or service

These steps are the most shareable experiences in the buying journey because they’re the most exciting. Customers are more excited when they first purchase than three days later while they’re waiting for the purchase to arrive at their doorstep. As a marketer, it’s important to focus on how to amplify and share the excitement across these 3 critical steps of the customer journey with UGC.

Fifty percent of consumers want brands to tell them what type of content to create and share. With customers telling the brand story, the marketer’s role has shifted from developing content to curating and highlighting that narrative.

When the customer first buys a product or service

As soon as a customer purchases a product, you want to make this moment as easily shareable for them as possible. You can do this by adding plugins and widgets to your after-purchase thank you pages that let customers share their new purchases with the click of a button.

This button opens up their social media profile populates their Facebook post or tweet with content to share. Medium has this feature, making it easy for their readers to share content to Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Take a look at how they pre-populate a tweet so it’s ready to share, without the user having to do any heavy lifting.

Content is the name of the game as your users share their purchases on social media. Collect it, tag it, and keep it organized in your UGC Studio to redistribute when you’re ready. Be sure to ask the user permission to share their content and have them agree to your terms and conditions.

Now that you’re collecting a stream of content from excited customers you can use this as content in your own customer journey. You’ll show this content to cold leads and warm leads to use social proof to transition them into hot leads.

Coca Cola, UGC, and the Customer Journey

Before UGC rose to prominence, the most accelerated customer journey was created by brands using viral marketing techniques to try to get their prospect’s attention. They wanted their customers to know who they were, what they did it for, and what the benefit was; quickly and in flashy ways.

For example, Coca-Cola’s iconic celebrity endorsements from Britney Spears, Lebron James, and Penelope Cruz used to have to do the selling for them. Coke’s goal was to show their ideal customers that all the cool kids were drinking their soda, so they definitely wanted to drink it too.

The ad campaigns were curated by marketers who told the story of coke in a way that used to work really well. Today, we’re seeing a shift in consumer buying behavior. Seventy percent of consumers trust online peer reviews and recommendations more than professional content and copy.

They don’t need a Super Bowl-style ad to convince them to buy a product. They need a customer or influencer to tell them why they should care about this product.

Here are a few places you can use UGC a customer creates right after purchasing a product:

• Paid social ads
• Organic social media posts curated to nurture your audience
• Engagement email campaigns
• Nurture email campaigns

When the customer receives their product

Once a customer has received their product, the customer journey shifts. They’re no longer wondering what it would be like to experience having this physical or digital product. They’re living through the experience, and they’re excited about it.

This is another perfect opportunity to ask your customers to share their perspectives. For physical products, you can ask them to make unboxing videos or take photos when using it for the first time. For digital products, you can ask customers to share their feedback after reading the first chapter of your digital book, create a video after watching the first module of a workshop, or tag you in a tweet during a virtual event.

The key is to be specific about what you’re looking for. Just like the customer journey, you want the UGC creation experience to be as frictionless as possible. If you make it easy for your customers to create UGC for you, they’ll happily oblige.

Casper and UGC Unboxing Magic

Casper asked micro, nano, and mega influencers to help them share their brand’s story. The story is simple: order a mattress, have it delivered to your doorstep, unfold it, and get a great night’s sleep.

People were given discount codes to share with their audience and Casper asked them to share videos of themselves unboxing their Casper mattress. Here are 3 unboxing videos (of many) with 59,000 views, 140,000 views, and 75,000 views.

Here are a few places you can use UGC a customer creates when they get their product:

• Paid social ads, especially retargeting
• Website landing page
• Email campaigns promoting offers
• Organic social posts with direct call-to-action to buy

When the customer experiences the benefit of the product or service

The last exciting moment of the customer journey is when someone benefits from the product they bought. We say “last” loosely, as there are more exciting moments to come (like upgrading or becoming a loyal customer for years to come). For now, we’ll stick to the simplest version of the customer journey: the excitement that comes from purchasing, receiving, and experiencing the benefits.

This is a crucial part of the customer journey to document. At this point, you’ll want to be asking your customers to send direct feedback about their experience with their purchase.

This could be by asking them to leave a review for the specific products they bought, incentivizing them to share a video testimonial, creating a content series that promotes sharing themselves using their product, etc.

Harry Dry from Marketing Examples reached out to his Twitter audience, asking them to leave feedback about his marketing newsletter as a reply to his tweet. This is a great example of asking for UGC: Harry created a simple, seamless way to create UGC that didn’t require a ton of effort on the user’s side.

yo! mind doing me a favour?

I’m trying to fill my new newsletter sign up with real quotes

If you find Marketing Examples (@GoodMarketingHQ) useful mind commenting a few words below

thank you for any help pic.twitter.com/yXkp49JSMq

— Harry Dry (@harrydry) July 27, 2020

Harry uses these testimonials on the landing page for his email newsletter:

Even though results are created at the end of the buying journey, you can use this UGC with cold leads, warm leads, and hot leads. The key is to find the results-based UGC that fits the current stage in the customer journey of a cold lead, another set of UGC that fits warm leads, and another that fits hot leads. With TINT UGC Studio, it’s easy to organize the UGC that you’ve collected to deploy on exactly the right channel and exact step of the customer journey to make the most impact.

Here are a few places you can use UGC created by a customer at the time when they experience the benefits of their purchase:

• Paid social media ads
• Product pages
• Emails
• Organic social posts

A Quick Summary: The Role of UGC in the Customer Journey

We’ve covered three critical steps for user generated content in the customer journey. Learn more strategies to incorporate UGC into all aspects of the purchase lifecycle and the important role of social care in our webinar with Hootsuite.

The user-generated content customer journey lets your customers’ voice do the selling for you. While elaborate advertising used to drive massive conversion, customers have stopped looking towards highly productized content to decide if they want to buy a product. Instead, they’re focusing on product page reviews and other content that drives authenticity.

Thanks to social media, brands can use customer photos, videos, testimonials, feedback, and comments to drive real results:

• Ninety-two percent of consumers trust recommendations from other people, even if it’s people they don’t know
• Forty-eight percent claim that user-generated content is a great method for them to discover new products
• Ads based on user-generated content receive 4 times higher click-through rates and a 50% drop in cost-per-click compared to average ads

The user-generated content customer journey is all about accelerating buyer intent, increasing discoverability, and creating influential brand advocates everywhere. Learn about incorporating UGC into your buyer’s journey, talk to our content experts today.

The post User-Generated Content and the Customer Journey appeared first on TINT.

The Social eCommerce funnel takes out the middleman—and creates a seamless experience for customers to see something, and immediately buy it. Facebook rolled out this functionality with their Shop feature, officially changing the game of the original eCommerce customer journey. Now Instagram is the king of social commerce, with users able to discover, click, and buy with just a few taps of their fingers.

The updated eCommerce customer journey, thanks to new features like Facebook Shop,  and Instagram Checkout means that marketing efforts need to focus on awareness and engagement more than ever. Brands need to be seen by social media users and then inspired to take action through campaigns. They don’t need to be converted into email list subscribers or plied with a 10% off discount code anymore—things are changing.

The brands that stay on top of the new eCommerce funnel are going to be the ones that are already using Facebook’s Shop feature and strategizing what content gets the most views and engagement.

The new social eCommerce funnel:

1. Awareness: The customer sees a product they want to purchase in a social media post
2. Engagement: Customer clicks post to see the price, choose their size and add to bag on the social media platform
3. Conversion: Customer checkouts on the social media platform
4. Loyalty and Advocacy: The customer shares their experience on social, providing that vital social proof that accelerated the buyer’s journey.

And the time to master it is now.

How To Influence Each Stage of the Social eCommerce Funnel

Influencing each stage of this new eCommerce funnel plays by some of the same rules as your other channels—but removes the effort of forcing an email subscription or pushing conversion through your website. Your website exists separately from this Social eCommerce Funnel, driving its own action and providing additional lift to social users when necessary.

This new funnel is going to require you to use the content that drives the most awareness and engagement because that’s the only two parts of the eCommerce funnel you have before a customer chooses to convert (and buy the product).

And that’s when user-generated content comes in. User-generated content is content that a customer creates after they buy a product, when they have the product, or when they get the results from a product.

User-generated content focuses on the journey a customer takes after they hit purchase, going from excited for their new order all the way to getting to see the results they paid for.  For example, excited customers will post a screenshot of their order confirmation email from their favorite boutique, videos unpacking the package when it arrives, and then photos wearing the clothes. 

Some brands may focus on fancy product shoots or even computer-generated product images to demonstrate absolute perfection—other brands embrace the authenticity of their customer base and influencer in a different way. These brands are focused on organizing their user-generated content so they have an endless incoming stream of new content created by their customers, for their customers.

Then, they’re reposting that content, adding the shop tags to it, and creating an eCommerce funnel that goes from Instagram post to “Add To Cart” without ever leaving the Instagram app. This content becomes posts, challenges, polls, native ads, and more.

Let’s take a look at a few examples.

Kora Organics

Natural beauty brand Kora Organics uses a mix  of user-generated content and professional product shots in their content—and each image links directly to the product in the post. For example, their Sun-Kissed Glow Body Oil is featured in this post with a happy customer.

The first image shows their Instagram post with the caption, “View Products”, which then leads to a product link for users to continue shopping through Sephora. 

Monday Swimwear

Boutique bikini eCommerce store Monday Swimwear is an avid user of the Instagram Shop feature, which has helped them reach $20 million in annual revenue. They’ve used user-generated content to tag their posts with shoppable links that let the user choose their size, add to bag, and checkout without ever leaving Facebook’s platform.

American Giant

Sustainable clothing brand American Giant is also using this new social eCommerce funnel, curating content from their happy customers and showcasing it on their own accounts to drive engagement that will lead to purchase. They’ve found customers wearing their products and posting to socials, and repurposed the customer’s content right onto their feed with a shop tag.

Social media platforms know the more seamless an experience they can create for their customers (advertisers) the better an ROI they can get them. They’ve bypassed the friction point of needing users to click to a website and then add the item to their cart—now it’s right on the Instagram and Facebook app. And they’re not the only ones on top of this trend.

Snapchat created stores for their biggest eCommerce businesses in 2019, which is the same experience a customer has on Instagram when checking out. They initially launched to 5 verified accounts, including Kylie Cosmetics.

With the new social eCommerce funnel, brands are focused on using the voice of their consumer to drive the awareness and engagement they need to get conversions on the platform. They don’t need an email funnel or website copy…they just need great content that gets their products noticed by their ideal customers. This is a new social shopping experience.

And that’s why user-generated content is such a big deal for these brands. They’ve realized that ads based on user-generated content receive 4 times higher click-through rates and 84% of millennial consumers claim that user-generated content on company websites has influenced the way they do online shopping to some extent.

Having trouble figuring out how to get customers to create UGC? Book a demo call with us and we can help you out.

The post The Social eCommerce Funnel appeared first on TINT.

With the right safe return campaigns, brands can showcase how they’ve pivoted to the new environment. We’ve pulled together some of our favorite travel campaign ideas (ever!) to inspire you to create a campaign that shows your customers you’re open for business. Each campaign highlights creative ways travel marketers are connecting to potential visitors using customer-driven campaigns to drive clicks and increase engagement.

As travel resumes, consumers are going to expect the same from travel, tourism, and hospitality. Just as they asked how companies were creating a safe environment for guests and employees during the pandemic, they’re going to ask how brands are continuing to promise safety.

Travel Brands are Using User-Generated Content To Create Successful Campaigns

Travel brands have seen the statistics. They know user-generated content establishes trust and increases conversions. They’re also diving headfirst into it. Travel marketing campaigns are tapping into the need for escapism as a long global delay. Locals and tourists alike looking for chances to find a change of scenery after being stuck at home. This could be high-end resorts in an adjacent city, or even short-term stays booked by app in their own neighborhood. Adventures don’t require an international trip to Europe, and this has the tourism industry looking a little closer to home.

Airbnb Lets Hosts Ring Their IPO Bell

In a perfectly synchronized campaign where ringing the IPO bell was impossible (due to COVID-19), Airbnb handed the opportunity over to their hosts. On December 10th, Airbnb went public with all eyes on their CEO Brian Chesky. In an ode to the hosts who make their business possible, Airbnb created a campaign to share with everyone watching. The campaign showed hosts worldwide ringing their doorbells in place of the infamous IPO bell.

Airbnb hosts rang their doorbells in a multi-clip video highlighting the quirks and uniqueness of homes available for short-term rent. Their campaign took the focus away from the company on their big day and on one of their customer avatars. By giving hosts the opportunity to be part of this moment with them, they created a community moment that we can be sure these hosts will never forget.

Airbnb’s initial IPO price of $68 ballooned to $144, closing the day at more than double the initial price.

Working closely with leading brands to repurpose user-generated content into high-converting campaigns, we’ve seen the power behind putting a microphone on your customer’s voice. Airbnb reminded brands that in their biggest moments when it seems like the entire world’s eyes are on them, it’s essential to bring it all back to who really matters.

Get Inspiration:
As travel reopens, repurpose user-generated content in your campaigns to show your audience how your customers feel about traveling again. Instead of perfectly crafted brand copy, let them tell their stories because that’s what consumers are asking for.

Hilton Has Customers Tell Their Stories

Hilton proved customers are happy to use branded hashtags, even if it may not seem that way. The famous hotel was looking for ways to incorporate their customer’s voices in their marketing. With their #HiltonStory campaign, they figured out a way to hand the mic over to their happy customers.

Using TINT, Hilton created a storyboard of visuals from a social media campaign driven by their customers. Each post using the hashtag #HiltonStory made its way to a storyboard on their website where their audience could see what it was like to stay at the hotel. With user content creating a 20% increase in return visitors and improving the time spent on-site by 90%, Hilton knew the data backed their campaign strategy.

Hilton’s TINT-powered campaign was shortlisted for the best hospitality social campaign in 2016. It also brought in brand new content for the Hilton team to repurpose across their other marketing channels.

Hashtag campaigns are more effective than ever. With the right promotion strategy and incentive, customers are happy to share their thoughts and photos on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and countless social platforms across the internet.

Get Inspired:
When brainstorming travel campaign ideas consider using hashtags to drive and incentivize your audience, fans, and customers to create user-generated content. Organize that content on TINT to be able to repurpose it in other campaigns and on your traditional and digital marketing channels in the future.

Travelocity Inspires Customers To Promote Their Brand

This was the most successful marketing campaign in Travelocity’s history. Travelocity gave their audience the opportunity to win a free dream vacation. All their audience had to do was share a tweet, Instagram post, or Vine video talking about where they wanted to go. Using the hashtag #IWannaGo, Travelocity kept tabs on the UGC coming their way.

Travelocity used TINT to organize the incoming content and choose their winner. They were able to display UGC on their website so their audience could see where other people were dreaming of traveling.

By the end of the campaign, Travelocity had inspired 25,000 members of their audience to tell them about their dream vacation. If each of those people had only 100 followers, Travelocity’s #IWannaGo campaign reached 2.5 million people. The impressions this campaign created made Travelocity realize the power of asking their audience for content (and the 25,000 new pieces of content to use was a big help, too).

Get Inspired:
Ask your audience to create user-generated content. UGC serves more purpose than just conversions—it establishes brand trust and fills your content pipeline (in Travelocity’s case, for a really long time). This makes UGC an essential tool from top-of-funnel to bottom-of-funnel as your audience learns more about your brand and wants to see your customer’s experience.

The hospitality industry has an opportunity to create UGC that other industries don’t. People naturally reach for their phones to take photos on vacations. The photos are coming—the key is getting your customers to share those photos with you.

As we’ve learned from these top-notch travel campaign ideas, customers want to share content with brands. Center campaigns around amplifying your customer’s voice as consumers continue to ask for more transparency from the brands they buy from.

Marketing was weird in 2020, but it doesn’t have to stay weird.

Use user-generated content to create authentic, high-converting campaigns your audience cares about.

We’re here to help. Our content and social experts are available for a no-obligation consultation to help you plan your safe return marketing strategy. Together, we’ll walk through a blueprint designed to scale as your customers return. Schedule a time to chat.

The post Throwback Thursday: Favorite Travel Campaign Ideas appeared first on TINT.

Hotels, restaurants, clubs, museums, and similar businesses have found themselves in an unexpected situation. In March 2020, as businesses temporarily closed their doors due to the pandemic, many business operators expected a few weeks of downtime before reopening. They certainly didn’t think it would take over a year before they could return to some sense of normalcy.

Their time in limbo seems to be almost over. Depending on location, they’re able to open to varying degrees. But regardless of geography, customer expectations of safety and sanitation have changed. Many people are hesitant to venture out as the world returns to normal. 

New sparks of creativity are required to get customers through their doors. Businesses need to inspire confidence when their customers travel, eat out, shop, venture into the world.  The key is tailoring this new offer to the right people in their marketing messaging.

The key is finding the brave few who will be first to return to old habits and re-engage with brands they may have taken a break from during the lockdown.

These people are the early adopters.

Who Are The Early Adopters?

Early adopters are the people who are ready, and excited, to be the first.  While they certainly prioritize health and safety, they have trust in their hotel, restaurant, etc. to make sure they’re sticking to the new protocols. When we look at the early adopters ready to get out there again, we see 3 main types of personas:

#1: Domestic tourists

Domestic tourists are okay with traveling inside of their country. They don’t have to deal with travel restrictions or worry about another COVID-19 outbreak and having to rush back home. These are tourists in the USA living in California who are happy to take a road trip to Utah or those living in Spain who will make the drive, or take the train, from Barcelona to Madrid. These domestic tourists are looking for hotels to stay at, restaurants to eat in, nightlife, and daytime activities. 

#2: Business Travelers

Business travelers have the force of their business behind them as they travel domestically or internationally as needed. Some businesses need their employees to be in specific locations, and no matter what the situation with COVID-19 looks like they have to get them there. These travelers are going to be looking for less entertainment and more comfort wherever they’re staying. We won’t say that they’re not going to be found in nightclubs or pursuing museums during the day, but chances are their focus is on where they are staying and what they’ll be able to eat while they’re there.

Some travel destinations are also considering a marketing strategy focused at “Bleisure”. Since business travelers are already visiting destinations around the world, tourism marketers are encouring them to stay for a few extra nights, bring a plus one, and maximize their enjoyment while they’re already there.  Read our primer on Bleisure Marketing.

#3: Generation Y and Z

Millenials (Gen Y) and Zoomers (Gen Z) don’t have the same fears around COVID-19 as Generation X and the Boomer generation. While they are certainly focused on avoiding the virus, these generations knows that they’re risking less by taking a weekend trip than somebody in their golden years. 

These early adoptors can be seen as the forefront of the new normal. They’re paving the way by saying yes to the new offers from their favorite hotels, restaurants, nightclubs, museums, and more. They’re happy to test out this new normal and to give it their own stamp of approval (or disapproval). But first, they need to know the opportunity is there.

User-generated content and Early Adopters

Brands can use user-generated content to showcase early adopters. People want to know that other domestic tourists, business travelers, and folks their age are on the move. Instead of putting together a well-produced ad campaign to get people back through their doors, they can show their customers experiencing this new normal and giving their real-time feedback on what it’s like. For example, a hotel can transform their offer from a vacation destination to work away from home destination (we’ll go over this and more examples shortly).

User-generated content (UGC) is created by customers. It’s the photos they take on their phone when they see the view from their hotel, the video they take at dinner, the Instagram story that pans around the club as they’re dancing at midnight, or the aesthetic shot of a mural as they walk to their next destination.

Brands care about UGC because it performs:

• One-quarter of the search results for the world’s biggest brands are linked to UGC
• Websites with featured content see a 20% increase in return visitors
• Forty-eight percent of customers say user-generated content is a great method for them to discover new products

When it comes to advertising, consumers are interested in seeing the experience of the product or service through the eyes of someone similar to them. And that’s where UGC comes in.

Brands can incentivize users to post UGC with campaigns that ask for user-generated content in return for a prize, offer to feature the guest’s post if they use a specific hashtag, print their photo, and use it in marketing materials, etc.

Here’s how three brands are focusing on early adopters to keep themselves top-of-mind as they wait to be able to open at capacity again.

Examples of Brands Targeting Early Adopters

#1: MGM Resorts: Viva Las Office

MGM Resorts took an abrupt pivot in their messaging by stopping their efforts of showcasing a relaxing weekend in Vegas away from work to a relaxing weekend in Vegas with work. Only during COVID-19 can this pivot make sense, and right now it certainly does. MGM has created a Make Your Own Hours service so guests can check-in and out at the time that works best for their work schedule, give each guest their own Executive Assistant during their stay, and $375 in beverage and food credits. 

The Dubai Rove Hotel created this on a smaller scale by converting some of its hotel areas into podcast studios for creators, then repurposing the creator’s content across their digital channels.

#2: InterContinental New York Times Square: Escape Your Tiny New York City Apartment

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by InterContinental Times Square (@interconnyc)

Business travelers are certainly interested in getting a change of scenery—but they’re not the only ones. Domestic tourists and younger generations are happy to feel freedom after being cooped up in their homes, particularly those smaller New York City apartments. InterContinentail New York Times Square hotel pivoted their messaging from welcoming tourists from around the world to welcome tourists from their own backyard. They use user-generated content to promote their self-care retreats.

#3: Chipotle

Chipotle, with content known for being branded directly to Generation Z, jumped right into action when stay-at-home measures were put in place. They quickly realized that their new offer had to be something that held serious value to people stuck at home, and they nailed it with their Free Delivery option. Starting on March 12th, 2020, Chipotle announced it would give free delivery on all orders over $10 purchased through their app. They brought new users on to their app and now regularly promote ordering through campaigns like, guess the final score between LA vs. PDX and (potentially) win free burritos for life.

Brands like MGM, Dubai Rove Hotel, InterContinental New York Times Square and Chipotle are making strides ahead as they figure out how to reach their ideal customers today while still waiting to be able to return to normal in the future. They’re forging the relationships that will make them top-of-mind when hotels reopen to full capacity, restaurants can fill their dining room, and in-person businesses can get back to their usual routines.

They’re focused on creating offers for their early adopters and ensuring their messaging is spot on by shifting their marketing and using user-generated content that tells the value of the new offer for them.

Don’t know how to pivot your offer or messaging to suit these early adopters? Our content and social experts are available for a no-obligation consultation to help you plan your safe return marketing strategy. Together, we’ll walk through a blueprint designed to scale as your visitors, guests, and customers return. Schedule a time to chat.

The post Early Adopters in Travel: Encouraging Returning Customers appeared first on TINT.

The social platforms consumers have used to keep themselves entertained during months spent on lockdown at home are more than an entertainment tool. eCommerce retailers have emerged as the victors of 2020. People are more comfortable shopping for everything from groceries to clothing to mobile homes, all from the comfort of their own devices. As we move through 2021, social media’s role in online shopping is becoming more and more clear. But first, let’s reflect.

In 2020, eCommerce had its best year yet:

• Black Friday was the second-largest *online* spending day in U.S. history
• Chains that offered curbside, drive-thru and in-store pickup options in the U.S. increased digital sales at a 26% higher rate
• Shopify reported $5.1 billion in Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales in 2020 – compared to $2.9 billion in 2019.
• Alibaba made $35 billion within the first *30 minutes* of Singles Day

…and social media executives heard this loud and clear. Social media is responding to the increased adoption of online shopping by becoming more shoppable and more convenient for consumers.

Social is Becoming the Entire Funnel

We’re used to the marketing funnel where top-of-funnel content drives brand awareness and engagement, middle-of-funnel content works past the know, like, and trust marketing factors, and bottom-of-funnel content closed the sale.

Social media plays a huge part in the top-of-funnel content and middle-of-funnel content—but it lacks in being able to close sales. Yes, remarketing can be effective. But, this isn’t because social isn’t getting consumers to make a decision to buy a product, but because products could not always be bought on social.

Previously, every Instagram page linked out to a website where consumers could buy the products they saw on the brand’s feed. Now, Instagram replaced the notifications button with a Shopping tab, Reels are now shoppable, and TikTok is experimenting with live stream shopping – influencing user behavior (and new buying habits). This is just the beginning of a shoppable social experience.

The winter holidays of 2020 have given rise to a new year shopping boom.

As social continues to double down on shopping features, we’re already seeing brands able to close the sale without a user ever having to leave the platform. While websites certainly aren’t obsolete today—it looks like the future of eCommerce can quickly become a one-stop-shop on social media faster than we expect.

What Content is Converting Best on Social Media

Marketers have to absolutely nail their content as social content becomes one of the most important marketing channels for brands.

What content converts best on social media?

In our 2021 State of User-Generated Content Report, we surveyed leading brands to see how they’re looking at their social content.

We found that 93% of marketers agree that consumers trust content created by people more than content created by brands. This makes user-generated content (UGC) key to creating balanced content that your audience will resonate with. Here’s how UGC is impacting the marketing funnel: 

• More than 86% of companies today use user-generated content as part of their marketing strategy
• 34% of TINT users and 45% of marketers agree that user-generated content helps improve social media campaigns
• Ads based on user-generated content receive 4 times higher click-through rates and a 50% drop in cost-per-click compared to average ads
• Almost half of customers (48%) claim that user-generated content is a great method for them to discover new products

Brands turn to UGC to collect feedback, share social proof, and build trust throughout the journey. Expect to see this content more frequently in the near future. Marketing activations will look like curbside pickup site ads, website galleries with real-time social media content, digital out-of-home (DOOH) ads, and promoted content featuring customer reviews and testimonials.

Examples of User-Generated Content

Amazon

Amazon has become a user-generated content machine. Its review section continues to grow more and more robust. Companies use professional photos in tandem with UGC. The professional images are part of the hook. The customer-created content is the social proof that drives conversion. 

For example, this lift-top coffee table has professional photos in its item description:

But also features UGC customer reviews and images:

With 70% of consumers trusting online peer reviews and recommendations more than professional content and copy—these reviews are crucial as bottom-of-funnel content that drives conversions.

Levels

Levels, a continuous glucose monitor, uses UGC on their Instagram feed to showcase their customers and why they care about their glucose levels. This is exactly how brands can leverage their customers’ voices to help them showcase their products and repurpose customer content to save time and money on content production.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Levels Health (@levels)

People prefer to buy from people that look, behave, and act like them. By using UGC in their marketing, Levels creates a sense of unity by delivering content that customers, and prospects, will be sympathetic to. 

New England Patriots

The New England Patriots repurpose UGC by retweeting fans. In this post, they retweet a fan’s photo of their Gilmore jersey and garner 2,700 likes (likes range from 100-1,000 likes on average). In alignment with our past reports, UGC continues to get more engagement than company-created content. 

Dream come true.#ProBowl | @jakebailey___ pic.twitter.com/uJGqDzFtT3

— New England Patriots (@Patriots) January 27, 2021

What happens when a Twitter user can click on these jerseys and order their own, without ever leaving Twitter?

That’s the future of social commerce — and why it’s so important to understand where the trend is heading. As social continues to disrupt the marketing funnel and becomes so integrated that it eventually becomes the entire funnel, brands need to understand how to create highly engaging and converting content.

In Conclusion

In our 2021 State of User-Generated Content Report, we found that social is undeniably taking over the marketing funnel as we know it. We also found out what metric marketers care about most in 2021, how brands are going omnichannel without massive increases in content production, the newest strategy behind influencer marketing, and more. To read the 5 themes we found from surveying leading brands, download the 2021 State of User-Generated Content Report here.

Don’t have enough user-generated content coming your social team’s way? Schedule a call with a TINT team member to learn how to incentivize customers to create more UGC, get the rights to redistribute it, and automate collecting images and videos that feature your products.

The post When Social meets eCommerce appeared first on TINT.

Posting, engaging, and responding consistently to one social platform requires at least one dedicated member of your team—add in 5 other platforms (on top of your campaigns!) and overwhelmed becomes an understatement. 42% of users expect inquiries on social media to be responded to within an hour, if not sooner!

We saw the pressure to be omnichannel get pushed even harder last year as people were stuck at home, scrolling through platforms old and new. TikTok seemed to be an overnight success story in virality, taking users with only a few thousand followers and giving them hundreds of thousands (and sometimes millions) of views. Now TikTok is old news and Clubhouse starts to pull attention with its audio-only experience. 

Now with the exponential growth of Social Commerce, customers expect brands to be accessible and products to be obtainable on websites, social media, and livestreams. 

Brands around the world have to ask—are we falling behind by not choosing to be on every platform our audience is on? Is there a limit to this omnichannel marketing dilemma?

Why Isn’t Every Brand Already Omnichannel?

Being omnichannel is difficult. 

It requires a social team and consistent content. Without an incoming stream of content from happy users, fans, and customers, brands have to create their own content. This drives up marketing budgets, and after a year like 2020, that was the exact opposite of what everybody was trying to do.

“Most marketers struggle with feeding the content needs of ever-evolving and emerging channels. This is especially true for more established organizations that struggle to adapt in a meaningful and speedy way.”– Simon Kopec – Social Media & Content Strategy – Hospitality

In our 2021 State of User-Generated Content Report, we surveyed leading brands and found that marketers are tired. They had more job responsibilities in 2020 than they did in 2021, and yet they weren’t given the proper time, budgets, and team size to get it all done.

The brands that succeed at being omnichannel are the ones that bypass those challenges with user-generated content. Brands have users, fans, and customers create content that they can repurpose across their digital and traditional marketing channels. Encouraging customers to record product unboxing videos or entering fans into a sweepstake in return for creating a TikToks are campaigns were becoming more and more familiar with seeing.

Using TINT, The Ocean Clean Up team was able to take sustainability past the ocean and into their content strategy as well. 

How Are Brands Succeeding at Being Omnichannel?

The Ocean Clean Up (TOCU) created sunglasses made of 24 football fields’ worth of Pacific Ocean garbage and promoted the campaign with UGC and omnichannel distribution. 

Their founder told the story of the glasses via a live, virtual presentation. They sourced UGC from social media and reshared it across multiple channels to bring the experience full-circle. From displaying fans’ reactions as they unbox the sunglasses on screens behind the founder during the presentation to embedding a social wall on the website with real-time content their users are sharing across social media.

Chipotle has also taken its omnichannel presence seriously and reaps the rewards. Their Instagram channel features memes and content directed at Generation Z, with posts highlighting their latest promotions and campaigns. Chipotle’s Instagram profile has one million followers and ranges 20,000+ engagements per post. 

On TikTok, Chipotle consistently brings its audience into the spotlight with campaigns that give them free Chipotle for a year or give them a chance to create their own menu item. They also repost user-generated content daily. With 1.4 million followers and 24 million likes, Chipotle is the perfect showcase of how to be omnichannel successfully. Their content team isn’t working harder to create more content for another social platform. They’re leaning strategically on their audience to do the work for them and highlighting them by reposting fans’ TikToks to their feed.

Being an omnichannel brand takes a lot of work when you put the content creation on your team. Our 2021 State of User-Generated Content Report shows that brands are prioritizing an omnichannel presence more than ever before and using user-generated content to create the right content on each platform.

Inside of our 2021 report, we’ve looked further into the omnichannel dilemma finding the answer also lies in your Social Media Manager. Social Media Managers are your direct line of communication to your customers. They have a lot of the answers you’re looking for as you wonder how to become an omnichannel brand in 2021.

Read the report to see why your Social Media Manager is one of the most important members of your marketing team and how you can use their intel to increase engagement across all channels, established and new. We’ve also detailed 4 other themes we found from surveying boutique to enterprise businesses about their marketing experience in 2020 and what it means for their 2021 plans.

Ready to be omnichannel? Schedule a demo with a TINT team member to see how leading brands like Nike, Nestle, Marriott, and more are using user-generated content to create more content across more platforms—without sacrificing engagement.

The post The Omnichannel Marketing Dilemma appeared first on TINT.

The second-time Super Bowl champions not only took home the trophy for the big game but also won the coveted Tag-o-War hashtag battle against the Kansas City Chiefs.

It’s no secret that the Super Bowl is an internet chatter frenzy maker. At TINT, we wanted to have some fun displaying all the user-generated content, debates and all, on one landing page to see which team generated more buzz on social and if the Tag-o-War winner would match the actual Super Bowl winner.

The Tag-o-War page was created with Experience Builder quickly with a few clicks and no development time. Right away, thousands of posts from Buccaneers and Chiefs fans came flooding in displaying who they wanted to win, behind the scenes shots from the Super Bowl, and more. The respective hashtags were ingested and displayed on a dedicated landing page for viewers to keep track and join in online competition chatter.

With the two hashtags pitted against each other, the matchup of #GoBucs (Tampa Bay Buccaneers) vs. #RunItBack (Kansas City Chiefs) was slightly closer than the actual game. The Buccaneers pulled out the win with 53% of mentions compared to 47% of hashtag mentions for the Chiefs.

Total hashtag battle results:

35,079 mentions #GoBucs (53%)
31,015 mentions #RunItBack  (47%)

This example is just one way that similar Tag-O-War Hashtag battles can be created in a few clicks in Experience Builder to create real-time engaging contests with social content while building awareness around new or existing hashtags for a brand, event, or campaign.

How to Use Tag-O-War Hashtag Battles

1. Identify an Opportunity – Whether it’s a campaign, new products, event, or branding you want to battle, launching or identifying two hashtags to compare is the first step.
2. Implement – Utilizing the TINT Experience Builder – quickly launch your hashtag battle with templates, simple WSIWYG editing, and custom branding capabilities.
3. Promote – Share the hashtag battle URL on social media, on screens at your event, and wherever you choose to build engagement and promote your battle.

Experience Builder is a fast, elegant solution to empower marketers to create and launch customized UGC experiences in minutes. Your fans, customers, constituents, and users are always open to engage.

We’re here to help you launch your contest and start driving brand engagement straight away. Request a demo

The post #GoBucs Victorious in Epic Big Game Tag-o-War Hashtag Battle appeared first on TINT.

As we all navigated personal challenges, we also navigated those of our customers and fans—making sure to stay sensitive, voice our opinions, and hit KPIs. Putting together this list of best and worst ads of 2020, we have to give a slow clap of recognition for every marketer who at least tried.

Here are the best and worst ads that we saw in 2020, alongside why each ad worked or didn’t work. Take these as lessons as you plan your next campaigns—making sure to know your audience by featuring the voices of users and customers and mastering social listening.

The Best Ads of 2020:

OceanSpray

It’s impossible to start without the viral OceanSpray TikTok, which we think was the top viral ad moment of 2020. With over 26 million views on Nathan Apodaca’s TikTok and 36 million streams in 2-weeks of Fleetwood Mac’s Dream—this ad went far. But here’s the thing: it wasn’t an ad at all, it was PURE UGC! As Nathan Apodaca listened to Fleetwood Mac longboarding to work, he captured * a moment*. That moment was understood worldwide where his TikTok was repurposed across every other social platform and recreated by creators.

Why did this ad work?

This non-ad didn’t focus on the features of the product. Nathan’s unsponsored TikTok video didn’t require him to talk about the percentage of juice in OceanSpray’s Cranberry juice or what the sugar content was. This was all about a real person sharing a real experience: having a quiet, relaxing moment to enjoy your juice in. When interviewed by Yahoo! about the impact of this video, CEO of OceanSpray Tom Hayes said, “We have about 15 billion media impressions now. We can’t say that we have seen an immediate impact as the shipments are going into retailers. Retailers say there is an additional draw off the shelf, particularly with cran-raspberry. We have been impacted with strong sales with consumers coming back to products that they love in comforting times. We have seen overall great sales, and I expect to see cran-rasberry sales to pick up next quarter. We are looking forward to that.”

Spotify

Spotify hit UGC gold with its annual Spotify Wrapped feature. At the end of each year, the music app shows users data based on what they streamed throughout the year. Spotify shows your favorite song, artist, genre, podcast, and more in sharable videos that can be shared directly to social platforms. Like the OceanSpray example, this isn’t a company generated ad because Spotify doesn’t force its users to share their Spotify Wrapped. Yet, the amount of user-generated content that results is in the millions.

Why did this ad work?

As social media use continues to increase, having a company hand users cool content to share with their friends and families is an easy win. Spotify users see their favorite artists, songs, podcasts, etc., and share that content on Instagram, in tweets, and more. Spotify leverages people’s desire to share this information by making it as shareable as possible—all users need to do is take a screenshot or click the share button to post *the specific part* of their Spotify Wrapped they want to share online. It also reinforces habits and use of the Spotify platform, which is great for long term user retention.

Jeep

In a perfect example of staying in tune with social listening, Jeep Wrangler couldn’t have been more on the money. As mysterious monoliths popped up in random locations around the world (still an unsolved mystery), Jeep saw an opportunity. They ideated a campaign that explained why the monoliths were there—to share Jeep’s new Wrangler 4xe Hybrid. Adweek reports the campaign was the best performing content for Jeep in the past year, with 102,000 reactions and 15,000 shares.

Why did this ad work?

Jeep’s monolith ads worked so well because they were based on social listening—one of the most important parts of marketing brands need to focus on in the upcoming year. Customers and fans are always talking online, and Jeep tuned in to the conversations. In this case, it was a mysterious monolith that left everyone with one question, “Why is it there?”. Jeep answered that question in a creative, memorable way that promoted their new hybrid Wrangler and showcased they weren’t just a corporate brand working behind screens—they were part of the zeitgeist.

Airbnb – Ring the Bell

In December 2020, Airbnb followed through with plans and launched their IPO. To celebrate, they created a brilliant video that features hosts (real people) ringing their home doorbells to simulate the ringing of the Nasdaq opening bell.

Why did this ad work?

Travel is down and even stopped around the globe and there is still a tough road ahead, but Airbnb couldn’t be more on the money. Their showcasing of real content from hosts around the world connects with the spirit of the company, continuing the authentic story of how they started over thirteen years ago with just one apartment in San Francisco, and highlighting how they’ve grown. Oh, and they also managed to exceed investor expectations when the stock’s valuation more than doubled at the opening bell.

eToro

via GIPHY

Have you thought about creating GIFs for your brand? As a marketing channel, gifs aren’t always at the top of a marketers list—perhaps until you learn about what eToro did with them. Brad Michelson, U.S. Senior Marketing Manager of social investment network eToro, uploaded a Bitcoin gif to Giphy.com with the eToro branding on it. In less than one year, his gif has 65 million views. Michelson was interviewed by Marketing Brew about his strategy, “There are very specific intentions connected to using gifs as a communication tool, which makes it an ideal channel to build a strategy around,” said Michelson.

Why did this ad work?

As consumers continue to consume and share content, brands can help. Fifty-percent of consumers wish that brands would tell them what type of content to create and share, and gifs are a great option. By adding brand or product gifs, companies make it easier to be discovered and build brand recognition through authentic content.

The Worst Ads of 2020:

GAP

In a hopeful spirit of bringing Americans together during the 2020 Presidential Election, GAP designed a sweater with a red side and a blue side that showed a love for both democrats and republicans. Unfortunately for GAP, their hope of unity wasn’t the end result. After receiving major backlash, GAP deleted their tweet promoting the sweater and issued a public apology.

Why didn’t this ad work?

For the same reason Jeep’s monolith ad worked so well, GAP’s ad failed. When it came to reading the room and listening, GAP fell short. In a tumultuous election, their customer base wasn’t focused on unity and coming together: they were focused on making sure their presidential choice got a seat in the Oval Office. While this ad sounds great on paper, social listening is crucial to understand what’s actually happening for customers and fans. Using TINT, leading brands find and organize UGC to use in their marketing channels and ensure they’re part of the conversation.

Tropicana

Tropicana released their #TakeaMimoment campaign thinking it was a fun, playful spin on their usual advertising. But not all hashtag campaigns are successful. #TakeaMimoment shared a video showing parents hiding champagne and orange juice in mini-fridges around their homes to be able to take a “mimoment” during overwhelming moments at home. Tropicana issued a public apology after parents showed their disappointment in the brand for telling them to turn to alcohol during hard times.

Why didn’t this ad work?

As one of the most identifiable brands in a grocery store, Tropicana may have gone off topic. Customers didn’t want Tropicana to tell them that alcohol was a great alternative to stressful moments, even though liquor brands can get away with the same messaging. This ad didn’t work because of the customer relationship with Tropicana. While a smaller, edgier brand would have been able to pull off the same ad campaign, Tropicana couldn’t. Knowing how their customers view them and what those customers expect from them is crucial in Tropicana’s next “edgier” campaign ideas. This ad’s response told Tropicana their customers expect them to be responsible and accountable—which means Tropicana won’t be the Oatly of the orange juice aisle.

Quibi

Remember Quibi? When it comes to this short lived platform, there’s not one defining ad that ultimately led to their swift demise. But we do know that they had a lot of budget to blow on the way down.  Between all of their ads and campaigns something went incredibly wrong. While Quibi planned to create short-form videos that could be watched on the go (something YouTube users were showing to be a viable consumer-market), they never took flight. With celebrities all over the platform and huge names working behind-the-scenes, Quibi tried to be everything for everybody and failed to take off.

Why didn’t their ads work?

Quibi came into a highly competitive streaming market with high aspirations and a massive budget, but they couldn’t spend their way to relevancy. In fairness, it was not a good time to launch just as travel and commuting ground to a halt. One big area that they failed was in trying to be the short-form streaming app for everybody when YouTube already existed. Quibi asked users to change their habit from watching short-form videos on YouTube to watching videos on their platform. They may have found more success by highlighting the stories and experiences of early adopters, but weren’t around long enough for us to ever find out.

KFC

While KFC’s “Finger Licking Good” slogan took a tough hit in the year of a pandemic, we do have a great rebuttal coming soon. When KFC ads aired as the world became more aware of a new virus strain called COVID-19—their slogan took on a new meaning. Nobody was interested in licking their fingers after eating as they tried to figure out just how dangerous this new virus was. KFC had to pull their slogan from all advertisements but came back with a note-worthy rebuttal.

Why didn’t this ad work?

Ads are only as good as their environment. Just like Apple’s 1984 ad wouldn’t have worked as well in 1985—KFC’s long-lived slogan couldn’t handle the environment of 2020. Ads are not ‘set it and forget it’ strategies and they’ll never be able to work like that. As consumers request brands stand up for what they believe in and show they’re listening to what’s going on in the world, ads will need to be more fine-tuned to consumer sentiment in the future. As for KFC’s infamous slogan, only time will tell if and how they bring that back in the future.

Squarespace

Squarespace took a shot at a Super Bowl ad this year and we have a ton of respect for them trying. Their ad featured Winona Ryder making a Squarespace website for Winona Minnesota. As she sits on the side of a snowy road, a police officer approaches her and asks what she’s doing. She responds that she’s building a website with pictures, the officer tells her he likes pictures and then walks away. Without ever showing the website, or even a full glimpse at the computer screen, the viewer never learns anything more about Squarespace or why to visit the website, WelcomeToWinona.com.

Why didn’t this ad work?

While this ad had the hopes of getting viewers to be interested in the Squarespace platform, it fell short. It may feel authentic, an actress named Winona talking about Winona, Minnesota. But trying to force influencer marketing ultimately meant that the celebrity endorsement didn’t connect, didn’t push the narrative to be more compelling and at the end of the day, people were not compelled to visit WelcomeToWinona.com. Winona answering real questions about Winona on a Squarespace website, sharing real Winona stories, would have been much more impactful.

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