With over 7.1 million social media users in Switzerland, it is clear that social media channels are an ideal marketing environment for many brands and companies. The various channels, such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc., offer great opportunities to directly address existing and potential new customers with similar interests.
One of the most popular marketing tools on social media are the so-called social media ads. Social media advertising is a form of programmatic advertising and also works in a very similar way - via targeting, target groups can be narrowed down and addressed based on demographic characteristics and stored information about interests.
Ads can be placed on all popular social media channels - most of them have their own "ad manager" for this purpose, i.e. ads can only be created for the user's own platform and the data is not shared with other channels.
The format and content of the ads are flexible and individual and can range from photo or video ads to carousel posts and stories to collection ads.
The goal of social media ads can also be customized - the usual goals are to increase visibility, build brand awareness, drive customers to your website, generate leads, drive app downloads, or drive webshop sales.
What kind of content is used for social media ads?
Currently, many companies still use "brand content" that they produce specifically for social media for their social media ads. This content is often produced at great expense and is very similar to the other content created by the company.
In recent years, "user-generated content", or UGC for short, has become increasingly important, also in the field of social media ads.
UGC is content that is not created by a company or brand, but by the users themselves. Such content can have a wide variety of formats - from texts (blogs, forum posts, social media comments, etc.) to photos (e.g. on Instagram or Pinterest) and videos (Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, etc.) to audio contributions (e.g. podcasts). UGC, in which users talk about a brand/product/company, can have positive effects for the company.
The various social media channels offer a super platform for the creation and distribution of UGC, since you can create content with little effort and reach a large number of people.
Advantages
Authentic and credible:
Potential customers are more likely to trust people who have tested a product themselves. Since UGC is created directly by users of a product rather than by the company, UGC enjoys much higher authenticity and appears much more personal than brand content.
According to Hootsuite , consumers are 2.4 times more likely to view UGC as authentic than content created by companies.
Cost-effective and resource-efficient:
Another advantage of UGC is its simple, uncomplicated and cost-effective production. The creation of official brand content often involves considerable effort and expense - UGC, on the other hand, does not aspire to look like a professionally produced advertising photo/video and therefore involves relatively low effort. In addition, the creation of UGC does not require the company's human resources.
Types
There are many different types of UGC - there are, for example, testimonials, where the user recommends a product, unboxings, where an item is unpacked "live", time-lapses, where a change over time can be observed or product demonstrations, where the user shows a product, shows how it works and explains what he/she likes about it.
One way for a company to easily gain access to a large number of UGC is to work with nano-/micro-influencers. Here, the high number of followers of the individual persons is less important than the high authenticity and credibility that the creators enjoy. In addition, with nano/micro-influencer campaigns, a large amount of content can be obtained for a relatively low amount.
Currently, many companies do not yet use the full potential of influencer campaigns. Often, an influencer campaign is carried out completely separately from the other social media marketing activities. We see a great opportunity for companies here:
Companies can reuse selected UGC they receive, for example, through a nano/micro influencer campaign for their social media ads and thus achieve additional impact.
This offers various advantages for companies: on the one hand, they are spared the costly production of their own content, and on the other hand, the ads appear more authentic than is the case with brand content.
In many companies, social media ads and/or influencer marketing are already important elements of the digital marketing strategy. However, the synergies are often not used optimally - a combination of nano/micro influencer campaigns (organic reach) with social media ads (paid reach) offers various advantages for a company and can ultimately help to achieve the marketing goals as efficiently as possible.
If you would like to learn more about this topic or about social media and influencer marketing in general, please feel free to contact us at hallo@swissper.ch or book a call directly under the following link: Book a call
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