User-generated vs influencer vs in-house content

For decades, celebrities have been a core part of marketing and advertising. Whether it’s a familiar face on a billboard or television advert or a more personalised recommendation from an online influencer. Popularity has been helping push products for a long, long time.

As the online world has developed, so has the definition of the word ‘celebrity’. Rewind to the early 2000s and ‘celebrity’ would often refer to movie or television stars, authors, and musicians. Now, however, celebrities can come from seemingly anywhere due to the popularity of social media.

All it takes these days is something to go viral, be it a meme or social media post, and congratulations – you’re famous. All of this has had an impact on marketing, especially when it comes to content and social media. In this post, we’ll compare three social content generation tactics to help determine which is best suited for different scenarios.

UGC creator vs influencer vs in-house content

It’s important to clear up some confusion on this subject, just to make sure everyone’s on the same page.

User-generated content (UGC) is typically made for a brand by a customer with little to no incentive. This can mean repurposing appreciative posts on social media, jumping onto posts where a brand is featured or mentioned, or re-sharing reviews to highlight a brand’s quality. While influencers can also be users, influencer-generated content is mostly incentivised by a brand through a paid partnership or mutually beneficial agreement.

Employee-generated content (often called in-house content) is pretty self-explanatory. This refers to any marketing content that originates from a brand.

To summarise: user-generated content happens naturally, influencer-generated content is pre-planned and paid for, and in-house content is made by the brands themselves.

How do I choose?

Picking between a content generation tactic all begins with a brand’s existing content output. This can include the posting frequency, the mediums, internal resources, and synchronisation with wider marketing plans.

Answering questions such as how often posts go out, where those posts go, and who creates them, can help determine the role that this additional content plays – i.e. does it support existing activities? Or replace them entirely?

Reasons to choose user-generated content

User-generated  content is popular with many brands for a wide range of reasons, including:

Building communities: If planning on creating a closed audience more akin to a community or eco-system (how Apple markets its products), user-generated content can be quite effective in helping that audience feel represented in a brand’s marketing activity.

Reduced budgets: Given that influencer marketing is often tied to additional costs, a brand may also wish to explore the user-generated route if such costs are out of the question. User-generated content is seemingly free, albeit without the amount of control that influencer marketing grants.

The industry: The industry that a brand operates in can also impact which content generation tactic is explored. For example, independent food restaurants may wish to host pictures of food taken by customers on social media to outline how satisfied people are when they leave, and fashion brands may want to re-post pictures of their clothing being worn out in public.

Reasons to choose influencer generated content

Likewise, influencer-generated content has its own benefits, including:

Wider reach: Influencers will often have sizable audiences that are pre-engaged with the content they have to offer. Utilising them can often mean much more immediate impact with a much larger audience.

Feedback: Influencers are very knowledgeable of competitors, and have likely worked with them in the past. This means they can provide critical feedback on approaches, product, and strategy to help refine them.

Establishing a brand: If just starting out as a challenging brand in a sector, collaborating with influencers can be a strong way of generating some initial buzz. Though, beware that not all influencers will be willing to work with relatively unknown brands, so it’s important to build a good relationship.

Develop a strategic social media approach

Alongside getting to work with some knowledgeable individuals, we think social media is an excellent, strategic digital marketing tool. Whether it’s collaborating with influencers or utilising your audience’s content, we’ll help you work out your best approach. Contact our expert team for more information about our social media services, today.