User-generated content (UGC) is an excellent tool for convincing people to buy your product. Pair UGC with a Call-to-Action button, and you have reached social commerce heaven. Read on to learn all about how to increase online sales through social media.
First of all, what is UGC? And how can this type of content help you increase online sales through social media?
UGC will increase online sales. Period.
Nowadays, user-generated content refers to brand-related content that fans create and consciously publish. Brands can then use this content in their marketing and advertising materials.
The best benefit of UGC, other than getting content for marketing purposes, is the return of investment. UGC is a powerful promotional tool that tells potential customers they can trust your brand, because someone else already bought your product and liked it. When you purchase something, are you more prone to buy it when you read positive user reviews? 100% yes!
Now that the definition and benefits of UGC are clear, only one question remains. What are call-to-action buttons, and how will they help you increase online sales through social media?
To make it easier for our customers to go straight from awesome UGC to awesome sales, we have implemented a call-to-action (CTA) button for our social walls. It’s the best way to turn viewers of your wall into buyers of your product.
Our CTA feature allows you to easily place a button on existing social media posts on your social wall. You can choose what the button says and where it links to. It’s much more than just a Shop now button. It can be a Download now button or a Get more info button, whatever it is that fits your business. It’s a call-to-action button because which action you want your customers to take is totally up to you.
Any post displayed on your wall can have a call-to-action button, and every button has a link that redirects the customer to the specific product or service referred to in the image.
A call-to-action button on a social wall has the same effect as Instagram’s or Pinterest’s product buttons, with the added benefit of not just relying on one social media network. You can add a shop now button for any of the posts on your social wall, no matter which social network they’re coming from.
Now all you need to figure out is the step-by-step of collecting UGC for your brand and displaying it on a social wall with call-to-action buttons. Lucky for you, we created a simple 4-step guide to get you started.
Step 1: Promote your branded hashtag
First things first, do you have a branded hashtag? If you do, awesome! You probably already have UGC piling up on social media platforms. All you have to do is skip to step 2.
If you’re new to the world of hashtags and want to choose the perfect one for your brand, check out our Hashtag Campaign Guide. This guide will teach you all you need to know about planning successful hashtag campaigns that incentivise user-generated content.
After creating your hashtag, promote it on social media, your website, newsletter and everywhere else you can think of. At first, you will have to motivate your followers to participate with free stuff. So make sure to plan a giveaway with nice gifts to get people involved.
Once you figure out the hashtag situation, the next step is to set up your social wall. Create your free Walls.io account, and choose a source (or many) for the wall to collect content from. A source can be any social media platform, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
Then, select to collect content from your branded hashtag and watch your feed fill up with posts from your fans. This video explains how to add sources to your wall.
The best way to lead people straight from a relevant social media post on your wall to the exact product featured in it is by adding a Shop now button. Or, if you are promoting a hotel, a Book now button. For any kind of gated content, e.g. an eBook, a Read more button is ideal. You get the point. Any action you are trying to get your customers to take can become a button.
Lead your customers exactly where you want them to go
Avoid frustrating customers by linking to your general shop page. Instead, give them exactly what they are looking for. A photo of a craft beer with a Shop now button should lead the customer to precisely that beer with an online shopping option.
Something noteworthy about the call-to-action buttons is their versatility. These buttons can have all sorts of call-to-action phrases in many languages, and they are visible even when you click on the post on the social wall. As seen in the image below, the social media post about a craft beer can be viewed in a larger format, and the Shop now button is still visible.
Watch this video to learn more about how UGC can increase online sales when combined with call-to-action buttons. You will also see how beyerdynamic uses CTA buttons on a social wall to call attention to specific products.
Finally, all you have to do is embed your social media wall full of UGC and call-to-action buttons on your website, landing page, microsite, or wherever you want your customers to start shopping.
On the main menu of your Walls.io account, go to Embed and Display. There, you will find your wall’s code snippet, which you can copy and paste into your website.
Curate your UGC wall
Curating a beautiful UGC wall is very easy; with Walls.io, you are always in control of what is shown. Our powerful moderation tools let you filter out undesired content and hide or show individual posts as you wish.
The spam filter automatically hides spammy posts and keeps your wall squeaky clean. But if you prefer to manually approve every post before it goes live, we support that too.
You can pull posts from various social media platforms, content from RSS feeds, or even upload content directly using our Native Posts feature. Native Posts show up on your wall just like regular social media posts, except you can upload them directly to your wall without posting them to social media first.
I’ve said it many times, but I’ll repeat it: if you want to increase sales through social media, user-generated content combined with call-to-action buttons are the way to go.
By motivating customers to share their reviews on social media, you will create a goldmine of trustworthy content. This content combined with call-to-action buttons will lead your customers to buy your products, which will generate more online sales. Easy-peasy.