1

Quick Wins to Get Customers Posting Content About Your Brand

2

When compared to other forms of advertising, a peer recommendation has the greatest influence on purchasing decisions.

Customers post over 2 billion photos and videos every day, many of which showcase the brands and products that they love.

But how do you get customers to post photos online that acknowledge your brand?

That’s one of our favorite questions to answer here at Pixlee. We work with 150+ brands across all industries to help them collect customer content and turn it into a valuable marketing asset.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through five easy marketing hacks to get your customers sharing high-quality, creative content that gives attribution to your brand.

We’ve also included a strategy checklist at the end of this guide to make sure that your brand quickly sees real results.

We have lots of tips and tricks to help you engage your customers, so let’s get started!

“At the start of last season, the Warriors saw 200 photos a game tagged under #WarriorsGround. With Pixlee’s help, we saw over 1000% growth with 3,000 tagged photos per game.”

Kevin Cote, Senior Digital Director, Golden State Warriors

3

The first step in the process is to ask yourself why you want customers to post more content about your brand? How will customer content support the business needs of your company?

• Do you want to create more social proof or recognition for your brand online?• Do you want to re-gram fan content on your social channels to increase engagement?• Do you want to display real customer photos on your website or product pages to drive

sales?• Do you want to create an inspiration gallery that shows how your customers use your

products post-purchase?

Once you’ve answered these questions and have started to collect great photos and videos, don’t wait until you have a large pool of content to put it to use! Displaying customer content that mentions your brand will help fuel your content creation efforts and increase the number of tagged photos down the line.

How will customer photos help you meet your goals?

of consumers trust online content created by their

peers above all other forms of advertising

Nielsen

of search results for the world’s 20 largest brands

are links to user-generated content

Kissmetrics

more influential on purchasing decisions than any other type of media

Ipsos

in brand engagement when consumers are exposed to

both professional and user-generated content

Emarsys

92% 25% 20% 28%

WHAT IS THE VALUE OF CUSTOMER-CREATED CONTENT?

4

The Evergreen Hashtag

This hashtag will help you to build a conversation around your brand and to discover the content that your customers will post on social channels. So before you continue reading, make sure that you identify the branded hashtag that your customers are already using to reference your brand online, or that you select a new branded hashtag.

Before we start talking about the proven tactics to get your customers posting more about your brand, there is one non-negotiable item that you need: A branded hashtag.

5

Table of Contents

Now that you’ve thought about how customer photos will help you to achieve your business goals and have decided on a branded hashtag to pool content around, you’re ready to get started.

HERE’S THE GOLDEN RULE

Your hashtag needs to be visible at every customer touch point. Throughout your entire customer sales cycle, your branded hashtag needs to be front and center.

STARTING WITH THE FOLLOWING

6

7

8

9

10

Social Media Channels

Website and Product Pages

In-Store Live Displays

Email Marketing Collateral

Print and Packaging Collateral

6

Post consistently on social channels and engage directly with customers, ask them to submit content under your branded hashtag.

1. Place your hashtag in the bios of all of your social media profiles.

2. Post weekly, asking your customers to submit photos under your hashtag.

3. Consider running a contest or campaign and offer rewards for the best submitted content (e.g., photo of the day campaign, BOGO campaign, product launch campaigns, etc.)

4. Re-post real customer content on your social news feeds and attribute it to your customers.

Social Media Channels

7

Place customer photos on your website or eCommerce store to create a more authentic shopping experience and to encourage customers to submit their photos post-purchase.

1. Obtain permission to use real customer photos on your website by reaching out to fans directly on social media.

2. Create a gallery of customer photos on your homepage and blog to help browsers discover your products more organically.

3. Place customer photos that feature your products on their respective product pages to inspire purchase.

Website and Product Pages

8

Make your hashtag visible in-store, on live-displays, and at events to encourage customers to share their shopping experience and newly purchased items with friends on social.

1. Make your branded hashtag visible in-store using monitors, walls, or windows.

2. Place monitors or iPads in-store that showcase photo galleries of real customer photo submissions.

3. Display real customer content on print billboards or decals in physical store locations.

In-Store Live Displays

9

Email Marketing Collateral

The email-ask is a great way to showcase customer photos and directly ask customers to submit their own photos of purchased products. Make sure that your call-to-action is clear!

Include your branded hashtag and examples of real customer photos in all email communication.

• Re-targeting emails

• Abandoned Item in Cart emails

• Purchase Confirmation emails

• Customer Support emails

• Upsell emails

10

Print and Packaging Collateral

Place your branded hashtag on package inserts to encourage happy customers to share their positive experience (and new products!) with your brand.

• Handouts

• Flyers

• Packaging

• Discount offers

• Product samples

• Thank you cards

11

Your Customer Photo Checklist

Place your hashtag in the “About Me” sections of:

InstagramFacebookTwitterVineYoutube

Include your hashtag at the end of all brand Tweets, Facebook posts, and Instagram captions

Run a social media campaign that asks your customers to share photos of your products under your branded hashtag

Display high-quality customer photos on your website:

HomepageProduct PagesBlog

Set up in-store displays that showcase customer photo submissions

Print out wall decals of your hashtag for your physical retail locations

Include your branded hashtag and feature customer photos in all email marketing

Place your branded hashtag in all employee email signatures

Print package inserts that highlight your branded hashtag and feature other happy customers

Powered by the belief that customer stories are the most powerful way to

articulate the value of a product or service, Pixlee helps brands market and

sell with real customer photos and videos.

The company works with more than 150 brands such as Kenneth Cole,

Gaiam, Levi Strauss and Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants to develop a more

authentic marketing experience and create stronger relationships with their

most passionate customers.

Pixlee’s visual marketing platform curates customer-generated content

in real-time, manages permission rights and easily integrates the content

directly into multi-channel browsing and shopping experiences.

The company’s approach has proven to impact sales profoundly: Shoppers

that engage with Pixlee-managed content on a brand’s website are, on

average, 2x more likely to make a purchase.

Pixlee is headquartered in San Francisco with offices in New York.

425 2nd StreetSuite 602San Francisco, CA94107

pixlee.comhi@pixlee.com855.474.9533

@pixlee