The first study was published in the Journal of Interactive Marketing in 2009. This particular study was conducted by two scholars at New York University. So, it takes a look at how UGC affects the sale of music, thus the purpose of this study was to determine the degree to which UGC actually benefits the product that is the focus of these user contributions.
The results of this study reveal that both of these two types of UGC have a positive association with album sale one week before its released.
Thus, this research provides some evidence that UGC does improve the sales of a product. The second study that I would like to discuss was also published in the Journal of Interactive Marketing. This was published more recently in 2012.
In this study, three scholars from York University, so the first study was New York University. This is York University in Canada. These scholars examined UGC across three different social media sites. Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.
The goal of this study was to determine if brands were portrayed differently across these three different types of social media.
To do this, they examined UGC for two different clothing brands. These were actual accompanies. The first is called a company called Lulu Lemon, and the second was American Apparel.
They picked these two brands because they are in the same industry but different in terms of their social media activity. Lulu Lemon is very active in social media while American Apparel is not. They then randomly selected 100 different user contributions for each of these two companies across those three different social media sites. So, they picked 100 Twitter contributions, 100 Facebook contributions, and 100 YouTube contributions for both brands.
They then conducted what is known as a content analysis to determine if these contributions were positive, negative, or neutral. In essence, what this entails is having their research assistants look at the content for each of these contributions and then code them into one of these three categories.
Across both of these two brands, about half the contributions were positive while only about 10% were negative.
Also, the contributions for Lulu Lemon were much more positive and less negative than those for American Apparel. Interestingly, the degree of positive contributions on both Facebook and YouTube were about the same for both brands.
However, Twitter was much different. While 64% of Twitter contributions for Lulu Lemon were positive, only 22% of American Apparel's Twitter contributions were positive. So, that's a factor of three times more positive for Lulu Lemon that for American Apparel.
So, this article reveals that most UGC on social media are much more likely to be positive than negative. It also suggests that firms that are more active on Twitter are more likely to obtain much more positive contributions. Well, now that we have taken a look at this academic research, let's now turn to some practical recommendations. If you're a company, what can you do to enhance user-generated content? Well, first of all, it may sound simple, but just ask to share.
As noted earlier, about one out of every three Internet users has made at least one UGC. There are now about three billion Internet users around the world, thus there are about one billion people who have shown a willingness to contribute their time, energy and ideas on behalf of a brand.
The trick is, however, to direct their efforts towards your brand rather than your competitors. As noted in the study by Smith and colleagues that we just discussed, consumers are more likely to provide favorable contributions to firms that are active in social media and encourage their participation. Surprisingly, although most large firms have a Facebook page and a Twitter account, few of them actually encourage the customers to contribute.
So, for most first, social media is a one-way communication flow instead of a two-way conversation. That should be the ideal. A good way to get this conversation started is to simply ask customers to share their ideas with you.
Second, be responsive.
After a first asks its customers to give them ideas, and if it's lucky enough to receive these contributions, it needs to close the loop by being responsive.
For example, Dell Computer has a team of individuals that are just devoted solely to monitoring its discussion boards and responding to consumer postings.
So, first choose to be responsive through financial rewards. For example, the fast food restaurant Taco Bell, sends gift cards to active social media users who make positive contributions to their brand. By being responsive to user contributions, firms are more likely to obtain higher levels of UGC in the future.
Third, remember the Pareto Principle.
If you've had an economics class, you may remember this principle.
The Pareto Principle comes from the Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto who found way back in 1896 that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by only 20% of the population.
Since this time, this principle has become generalized to be known as the 80/20 rule, and it has been found to apply to a large number of phenomenon. For example, 80% of the world's income is owned by 20% of its population. This principle is also exhibited in UGC where approximately 90% of all the content is created by only 10% of its contributors.
Thus, not all contributors are equal. Some are more influential than others. Firms should keep this principle in mind and seek to identify these influential contributors and reward them for their efforts.
Fourth and finally, integrate UGC with traditional promotions.
Thus far we have largely discussed UGC as an alternative to traditional promotions such as television advertising. Indeed, these two forms of promotions are quite different and often conducted as separate activities. However, firms should consider trying to link these two forms of promotion together.
For example, Target has highlighted in its educational initiatives by creating a television advertising campaign that features videos from its customers.
These videos capture the moment in which their sons and daughters open up their college admission letters. So, it's very emotional and lots of happy moments. This advertising campaign was voted as one of the best ads of the year and has resulted in substantial attention and goodwill for this brand.
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