User Generated Content and Social Displays in Banking
Social media has become an important part of many businesses' marketing efforts, and for good reason. 74% of buyers base their purchasing decisions on social media and social media influencers. One major reason for this is user generated content.
What is User Generated Content?
User Generated Content, or UGC, is content created by clients and customers that pertains to a company or brand. That content is then shared on social media for the company to leverage. User Generated Content includes pictures, videos, reels, shorts, reviews, testimonials, blogs, podcasts, and more.
Why is UGC important in banking?
When it comes to banking, be it online or offline, social media has become an extremely important inclusion for companies when they are drawing up their yearly marketing plans.
Directing your clientele and target audience to your social media accounts will ensure that time-sensitive information, as well as branded material, is available and ready to see at any time for those seeking it, while also driving consumer engagement and influencing sales.
User Generated Content helps companies increase their brand awareness, strengthens their relationship with their clients and is a great way of marketing that doesn’t involve the company itself having to create content. It also helps cut down on the marketing budget significantly.
What are some ways banks can use UGC?
Generic content: As mentioned above, pictures, videos, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, reviews, user testimonials, blogs and even podcasts are some of the many ways in which companies can ask their users for UGC.
Hashtags and tagging: A great way to initiate the movement of all the aforementioned content is through hashtag campaigns and tagging users like social media influencers with their @ usernames or brand identities. Nearly 40% of users believe that direct exposure with social media influencers is the most effective strategy for a company to gain their trust and make a purchasing decision.
Digital and social displays: By putting up user generated content on screens and displays within branches, banks are able to demonstrate community engagement, involvement and testimonials to potential clients who may be first-time visitors to the bank. This also strengthens the bond with existing customers as they feel connected to the bank.
In turn, the compelling, reliable and authentic nature of user generated content can drive attention to the bank's branded social media profiles, creating additional opportunities to directly connect with consumers and deliver up-to-date services or product information.
Showing customers user generated content on digital social displays may also become a focal point for local companies and community leaders who are then incentivized to post content about the bank in exchange for this visibility and exposure.
A mere 13% of customers feel that their bank cares about them, so UGC is a great way to drive this number up.
“With user-generated content, you're able to build trust with customers that typically can’t come from branding. Featuring it on digital signage is a great opportunity to strengthen relationships with customers who visit the bank or credit union to make account decisions and transactions.”
- Brittany, Digital Account Manager
Moderate all your UGC
To ensure that no improper or inappropriate material is displayed on any digital signage, all user-generated content must be evaluated, authorized and approved for distribution.
This process, called moderation, takes place within a social aggregation platform that provides information on all hashtags, mentions and insights. The administrator of the profile can simply pick and choose the content they want to put on display while filtering out the undesirable content.
It’s important to remember that while users and customers are free to come up with the content they want, it’s ultimately up to the bank to moderate the content that they feature throughout their social media, digital signage, and other platforms.