“Power of community storytelling & how to take your First Steps” — 5 Steps to be exact

Last week, Team Seenit attended the Telegraphs’ D.E.N Live. Emily Forbes was invited to talk on the “The Connected Customer” stage due to Seenit’s successes with My Protein, BT Sport, & Look Fantastic. Considering the accelerating application & popularity of UGC, Emily thought it best to go back to basics for those getting involved with the trend. Here are the 5 key points from her talk on “Power of community storytelling & how to take your First Steps”

1. Be Honest. 😇

Millennials & those just beginning their careers have had a childhood saturated with technology — tech that is anchored to advertising. The younger generations are innately savvy to inauthentic content & will reject it without a second thought. Video that looks to convince must strongly align to the customer interests and beliefs in order to achieve.

2. Be Inclusive. 👫

Diversification & globalisation of economically powered markets means there are more people to be appeal to. Therefore, using a range of relatable people is super valuable in producing engaging video for these audiences, and is why user-generated & peer-to-peer content is so popular as it includes so many. There is no one size fits all so cover more bases by asking more people what they think. In our experience, crowdsourced ideas & asking your community usually pulls out the best videos and projects ideas.

3. Have a personal connection.🤜🤛

Leading on from points 1 & 2, having a real interest and passion in what’s being made reflects in the final content and is invaluable for engagement.

A personal connection is also made when suggestions & ideas from those who will consume it are baked in and acknowledged. When the audience witness their ideas in action it is super rewarding and in turn, increases the effective distribution of work as people are inclined to share something they are a part of on their personal channels

This kind of content marketing results in higher engagement and is best exemplified in the powerful community of ‘Micro-influencers’. Best thing is that they are not only found on Instagram, they’re in your workforce, one of your viewers and available in all of your audiences.

4. Be Reactive. 🤳

With the modern ways that information is distributed and consumed, brands have to be reactive in what they make to harness trends, which are more frequent & fleeting than ever. It’s also crucial to avoid sour content (Pepsi’s Ad with Kendall Jenner case in point) where there is higher risk of viewers being critical and sharing those thoughts.

5. Finally, Be Global 🌐

There is no reason you can’t be and it is projected that 38% of the global population will have a smartphone by 2018. That’s a lot of people who can be your content creators and with the internet, geography is no longer a boundary for people to co-create. We see one of the best ways to accomplish this is by having a strong narrative that spans your audience globally but can be executed locally and involves individuals on a personal level. A great example of this was one of our clients, HSBC, who used their worldwide community of graduates to make a ‘Day-in-the-Life” vlog style video to show what their experience is like across the business in each country they work in. It was a great piece to share both internally and externally to show how employees support each other no matter where they are in their career and showcase a more authentic take on what its like to work there as a grad.

What happened when we asked #HSBCGraduates to film their first few months in the bank? See for yourself… pic.twitter.com/BQ0mzaBE8x

— HSBC NOW (@HSBC_NOW) October 17, 2016

Hope these tips inspire you to investigate the power of user-generated content & it unlocks the fact that everyone is interesting & they have a story to tell, they just need to be asked.

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