Almost 86% of Americans plan to celebrate Mother’s Day this year, showering moms everywhere with gifts, brunches, and plenty of quality time. In fact, the average consumer spent about $180 on their mom in 2018. This spending represents a significant opportunity for brands to leverage Mother’s Day to grow sales and increase Q2 revenue. Below are four ways your brand can leverage user-generated content to help drive Mother’s Day revenue.
What is User-Generated Content?
User-Generated Content (UGC) might sound like another marketing buzzword, but it’s a content marketing tactic that’s been around for years. User-generated content is simply any type of content that has been created and published by an unpaid contributor – a.k.a. your social media fans, customers, and supporters. UGC can be anything from video to pictures to tweets or reviews.
About 86% of millennials believe that having UGC is a strong indicator of the quality of a brand. UGC provides social proof, which earns your brand more consumer trust. It’s also cost effective! Instead of an in-house team or contractors producing content, your fans are producing UGC using their own resources and time.
Running a fun, user-generated content contest is a fast and easy way to raise brand awareness and get people talking. More than 86% of businesses are utilizing UGC as a part of their marketing strategy.
Why? Because it works!
UGC posts see a 28% higher engagement rate than a standard brand post. Additionally, UGC content can increase your web traffic by up to 26%. Even though UGC content is so successful, not everyone has been bitten by the creative genius bug, which means that some people find it difficult to create content on your behalf without some sort of prompt. In fact, more than 50% of consumers want a brand to tell them what to create, when to create it, and how to share the content.
So how can you get your advocates and their moms involved this year?
Four User-Generated Content Contest Ideas to Drive Mother’s Day Revenue
1) Create A Look-Alike Contest
It’s always a compliment to be told you look just like your mother. Some mothers and their children look almost indistinguishable. For this initiative, consider hosting a contest that asks your advocates and followers to submit a photo of themselves next to their mom and have your fans, followers, and advocates vote for who looks the most alike.
The lower the barrier of entry, the more submissions you’re likely to receive. That’s why we recommend leveraging the photo-sharing power of Instagram to support your contest efforts. Users can upload their selfies and hashtag them with the appropriate tags in order to enter.
2) Sponsor A Throwback Photo Contest
Mom has always been the pinnacle of fashion; nobody rocked shoulder pads, big hair, and windbreaker suits better than her. But fashion and trends change, which can lead to some hilarious photos. Ask your advocates to upload (with mom’s permission, of course) the funniest throwback fashion photos of Mom, and have your fans vote on them.
Even though UGC is one of the best ways to boost your brand visibility, getting people to engage with your brand is half the battle. But with easy to follow instructions and the right incentives, you can easily get your fans involved. Ask your advocates to invite their friends and family to participate in the contest for additional votes towards their entry.
3) Encourage Moms to Make A Confession
Not all user-generated content has to be photo-based. With the “write” prompt (see what we did there?!), you can also encourage your fans to create written content on your brand’s behalf.
Unlock your fan’s inner writer by creating a contest that invites mothers to share their “Mom Confessions”, whether it’s hilarious secrets they keep from their children, things no one tells them about being a mom, or how they reconnect with themselves after a long day spent mothering.
Since not all moms are as fluent in social media as their children, another option would be to create a Mother’s Day themed landing page for people to submit their #MomConfessions. These hilarious or meaningful confessions can be leveraged to support your ongoing marketing initiatives days or even years after this specific campaign.
If you want to reward your favorite confessions, you can ask consumers to provide an email address. This allows you to build email lists for later email blasts that these individuals would find value in. Building your email list now creates room for those who aren’t currently your advocates to join in on your year-round fun.
4) Host a Mom Brunch
Everyone loves a good brunch. In fact, Mother’s Day is one of the busiest dining holidays of the year. In 2017, 41% of people went out for brunch on Mother’s Day with bigger party sizes accounting for over 65% of brunch patrons.
If you’re a brick-and-mortar store, consider hosting a fun pop-up brunch for your favorite customers and brand partners. Sponsoring a mom-themed brunch provides an opportunity for your advocates and their moms to feel like brand VIPs. You can make brunch even more special by inviting guest speakers or unique entertainment.
Decorate your brunch table (and store) with “Insta-worthy” visuals that’ll have your attendees reaching for their phone. Be sure to provide clear direction and signage that encourages anyone who takes pictures to use the appropriate hashtags and tag the appropriate accounts.
SocialToaster Helps You Inspire Moms and Advocates
Because user-generated content contests are a lot of work, they can be hard to manage – even for the big brands. Take the frustration out of managing UGC contests by using a platform like SocialToaster to streamline your UGC and overall advocacy marketing efforts.
Here’s how SocialToaster can help:
- Distribute content that advocates can share to their social channels
- Make sharing easy for advocates with a simple “Share Now” button
- Award points and prizes for participation
- Create opportunities for fans to submit their content through contests, survey completions, or fun quizzes.
Mother’s Day is ripe with opportunity for meaningful engagement and organic reach. If you want to learn more about how you can take advantage of this national holiday, SocialToaster wants to help!
Request a free demo and find out how we can help you create an incredible Mother’s Day marketing campaign. Or call or email us today and one of our advocacy strategists can help create a UGC-driving program that is customized to suit your needs.