Content Creators & UGC: A Saving Grace of eCommerce in 2022?
Introducing WeScale Creators Hub
The popularity of UGC and the importance of great ad creatives are not entirely new. Many marketers have experienced their power and their importance to our work. However, in 2022 there has been a new wave of emphasizing the vital role they play in eCommerce business by feeding the algorithm the content that will push it to bigger audiences.
Why is that❓
As you know, all the new privacy laws introduced to various social media channels, especially those belonging to Meta, bring a lot of trouble to marketers. You are probably familiar with the changes Apple 🍏 made with IOS14. Another important announcement is from Google, which is planning to phase out the support for third-party cookies for Chrome. This means that social media advertising pixels will be almost absolute in the future; it will be even more challenging for us to measure the effectiveness of advertising and find the right audiences.
So what is in our power to control and improve? 🧠
The quality of ad creatives and UGC content, which will increase reach and drive traffic to social media profiles and online stores.
Brand content is polished, beautiful ✨, and much needed, with a lot of potential to directly sell products to customers.
We shouldn't forget that social media is made to evoke attention based on social proof, and there is no better way to harvest this power for your brand than UGC.
While the primary source of reviews is not family and friends anymore, the customers still want them. Studies show that 9 out of 10 customers 👀read reviews before buying something.
You can show positive reviews for your brand in many ways; we believe using UGC is one of the best ways to do it. ✅
What will the use of UGC in your ad creatives do for you and your brand? It will:
➡️ Promote authenticity and credibility boost
➡️ Increase brand awareness significantly
➡️ Present an undeniable social proof (just as powerful as word-of-mouth)
➡️ Build trust for your brand (consumers trust recommendations from real people)
➡️ Impact purchasing decisions on a higher level
➡️ It gives the consumers a voice
➡️ Attract brand advocates and brand ambassadors
➡️ It makes people feel they are a part of an online community
We were already using a lot of UGC content for our client's ad campaigns in which we discovered that UGC improved the client's ROAS by 50%+ and beat all the other creatives.
There were still a couple of challenges we were experiencing quite regularly.
1️⃣ The quality of UGC we received was terrible and didn't convert.
We would order UGC content through various platforms from content creators with whom we didn't really have a strong relationship. The content they would deliver to us was a lot of time, very underwhelming.
Meta advertising is one of the primary services we excel in. We have tested thousands of creatives for our clients, so we have gained a good perspective on recognizing performance-oriented ad creatives.
Besides that, there was no way to give constructive feedback to receive better content in the future.
2️⃣ Time-consuming process of receiving the UGC content.
When we sign a new client, one of the first things we look at is their ad library and content assembly. We noticed that many brands have very little valuable content for us to use for ad creatives, so we always order the content for them. This whole process significantly delayed the start of advertising.
3️⃣ The general distrust of advertising.
Customers changed a lot. They are now much more active and distrustful in advertising, so authenticity is at the top of their list of things they value in brands. UGC gives them the trust they want that no other type of ad can.
🤔 If UGC is so great, why is everybody not doing it? 🤔
Glad you asked. Besides the struggles we mentioned, UGC can be very tricky to use if you have little experience with it.
😵💫 Finding content creators that deliver high-quality content can be very difficult and expensive.
😵💫 It's hard to monitor the branding because you have less control over the content that comes from unknown sources.
😵💫 Your community must be engaged to generate new content for you continuously.
😵💫 Knowing how to write the creative brief to get the right content you are looking for can be essential and requires the right person with the right skill.
😵💫 Once you run ads with UGC, you have to know how to analyze results, so you can also find the content that converts in the future.
How did we decide to conquer our challenges? 👀
Since we have already worked with many incredible content creators that have built strong relationships with our team, our team started brainstorming🌪️ how we could take that to the next level and establish the system. It was in this brainstorming session that our CEO Jure asked:
"Why don't we make our digital hub for content creators that deliver high-quality, performance-oriented content?"
Introducing WeScale Creators Hub
What is WeScale Creators Hub?
It's our answer and solution to the problems we were facing, and a project we believe will bring a lot of value 🪙 to our clients.
Essentially it's our digital place where we connect all the proven content creators we've worked with before, whose content performed well and generally accepted our feedback. They showed interest in being at our disposal to make the on-demand content we need.
You probably wonder how WeScale Creators Hub works, right? Let's jump right in!
Our process of selecting the right content creators is very particular and detailed.
Our team handpicks IG and TikTok content creators and invites them to fill out the form and join LEVEL 2 of WeScale Creators Hub, the group we call The Goal Diggers (more about that later).
🏆 LEVEL 1 of WeScale Creators Hub - WELCOME:
This is an open group where content creators learn about The Hub, where they can find the information they need, and how they can sign up for the campaigns.
🏆 LEVEL 2 of WeScale Creators Hub - THE GOAL DIGGERS:
This is the second stop in The Hub for all our team's content creators deemed appropriate.✅ Here, they find a starting campaign they must sign up for and deliver the content instructed. After that, our team once again checks their application form, social media profiles, and the content they've provided and decides if they are the right fit for the Embassy. If they are picked and decide to join, they sign ✍️ the NDA, and we move them to the next level.
🏆 LEVEL 3 of WeScale Creators Hub - THE EMBASSY:
The Embassy is where the magic happens. ✨ We named it The Embassy because we feel like content creators are the ambassadors of our agency and the clients we serve. The excellent work reflects the skills and knowledge they possess, and it's also magnified by the help and training they receive from us.
In the Embassy, our team posts all the latest campaigns from our clients. The campaigns involve a precise brief📋 about the content and all the information about the budget, expectations, and deliverables.
Content creators can apply if they wish, and our team once again chooses🎯 who will be the most suitable for the project.
Once the content creators are picked, our team will contact them privately, then they are sent the products, and they deliver the content that our team checks. ✅
After that, the content is sorted in the WeScale digital library🏆, where it's at the disposal of our Media Buying, Retention, Influencer, and Social Media team members.
THE CREATORS LOUNGE 🎬
When setting up The Hub, we thought a lot about the content creators and how we could help them and make a place to meet each other and exchange 🤝 tips and tricks.
Because our content creators are based worldwide 🌏, they probably wouldn't meet and talk to each other if they were not a part of the Creators Lounge.
The Creators Lounge is intended for everyone in The Hub but is run by and curated by WeScale's Community Manager. What kind of content can you find there?
➡️ We share the creatives that performed best for our clients and let the content creators know what made them successful.
➡️ We keep them up to date with the latest social media and content creation trends.
➡️ We share webinars, events, and educational content with them.
➡️ We let them know about new apps they can use to make and improve the content.
➡️ We chat about techniques that improve the content and advise each other on ways to stick to the creative briefs as much as possible.
➡️ We introduce them to amazing content creators and their content for some inspiration.
➡️ We chat about pop culture moments and everything that goes on with social media channels.
Now, you are probably wondering what the results of setting up The Hub are and what benefits our clients reap.
We usually give you the numbers and conversions from our client's campaigns, but we will save those for some other time. Right now, we can tell you about the results that are not as easy to measure but made a huge difference.
➡️ We significantly shortened the time between signing a new client and running their first campaign. We had cases when we did the first campaign with new creatives in just two weeks. For clients, that made the start of working with us more uncomplicated, and they've seen the results much quicker.
➡️ Because of The Hub, we can now deliver 5-10 x creatives a week for our clients, which means more options for testing and finding the right ones that perform best. One of our clients trusted us to invest more into UGC content; in return, those creatives generated more than 70% of their total sales.
➡️ The quality of content we receive is much better than what we used to receive from third-party apps. Because of our relationship with content creators, they welcome the critique and make sure to deliver content that follows our guidelines.
➡️ Not only do the ad creatives perform much better, but we're also able to receive a new batch of creatives based on the winning creatives from different content creators whenever we want. Clients find it much more cost-effective than constantly searching for new creators.
➡️ Content creators became our ambassadors and formed an ambassador-like relationship with the brands they were making content for. That unpredictable outcome only made them create content with more care and thought.
How are we so sure about the effectiveness of using UGC in ad creatives?
Our creative team built a unique, complex naming structure that shows every ad creative's performance individually. We then analyze all the creatives weekly and draw new conclusions in reports handed to the post-production team.
WeScale Creators Hub turned out to be a fantastic project for us, and we have huge plans to develop it even further. 🚀
If you want us to help you run ads with performance-oriented UGC creative, fill out the form HERE.
If you are a content creator interested in joining our WeScale Creators Hub, send an email with your portfolio to 📩 [email protected]
