Sue Davis & Nancy Duin
User-generated content and content strategy
Yesterday, Sue Davis and Nancy Duin gave us an inspiring seminar on content strategy at The Content Room (Thank you, Sue and Nancy!). We enjoyed it so much that we asked them to extend it a little bit by sharing their thoughts about user-generated content here.
How do we, as content strategists, manage user-generated content (UGC)?
UGC is different from typical published web content. We can’t plan for it in the same way. It's not repeatable or predictable. The less predictable and controllable it is, the less scope for incorporating it into our content strategy. But that doesn’t mean we don’t try.
Types of user-generated content
- Twitter tweets and Facebook comments
- Questions from users via email, feedback forms and call centres
- Polls and surveys
- Ratings and reviews
- Quotes and testimonials
- Crowd sourcing
- Tail-ranking
- Customer stories – e.g. case studies and guest blog posts
- Comments – e.g. on a blog
- User discussions on forums
Why UGC might have a place in your content strategy
If your content strategy is to keep users on your site for as long as possible, increase page views and/or build a sense of community that keeps them returning, UGC can be quite effective because interaction increases the amount of time people spend on a site. If you’re an online retailer, UGC should be a critical part of your strategy. Customer reviews will act as virtual word-of-mouth about your products and services. UGC is also good for search engine optimisation (SEO). It provides unique content, and users' comments often include juicy keywords that are good for Google ranking. And if you want to be the central point of a timely conversation, UGC is vital.
Things to consider before having UGC
First priorities
- Who are your users?
- What types of content do they want/need/expect?
- What’s the best way to give it to them? Could it be user generated?
- Are your users likely to contribute the sort of content that you can work with?
How should UGC be managed
- How does it fit with the requirements of your organisation? Your users?
- Do you have the resources to manage and curate it?
- What are the legal implications – e.g. copyright issues?
- Do you have the technical infrastructure?
- How can you encourage good quality comments? Should you give direction to users?
- What will you do about attribution? Will all contributors be named?
- Will you pay your contributors? YouTube pays some video contributors.
Creating UGC
- Where will it sit on your site?
- Will you leave the content in its raw state or will there be some selection and editing?
- Will contributors be allowed to have avatars?
- What sort of content are you aiming for? It could be educational, entertaining, inspirational or promotional. Ideally it should contain elements of all four.
- How can you stimulate engagement? What are the incentives for users to keep generating content? 'Upvotes' and 'downvotes' – giving UGC a positive or negative rating? Comment contests, leading by example, keeping it alive by replying to comments?
Workflows
- Aim for a low barrier to entry. If contributing is too complicated, people won’t do it. How can you make it easy?
- Should users register first?
- What is the right moderation level? Pre- or post-moderation? Done by software or by a person checking it?
- Who will edit the content if this is considered desirable?
- How can you integrate UGC back into your site – i.e. repurpose it? For example, answers to frequently asked questions (FAQS), suggested by users via email and call centre interactions.
When things go wrong
- What should you do about 'trolls' or when arguments or bad behaviour get out of hand?
- What about negative comments? Ignore or address?
- Who will police infractions of the rules? What are the penalties?
- Can some comments be removed, but others be left in place?
Future-proofing
- Should you archive the content?
- If so, how will you do this?
Sue Davis and Nancy Duin (The Thing Itself) are part of Cypres' ecosystem.