How to use user-generated content in your marketing

Marketing your restaurant or bar can feel like an overwhelming task. It takes time to create content that actually excites your audience and makes them want to pay you a visit – and there’s a lot of noise on social media, making it hard to stand out. If you want to create buzz about your establishment, user generated content (UGC) is just what you need. In this article, we’ll take a look at why user-generated content is so useful, and share our top tips for encouraging your customers to spread the word about your establishment.

What is user-generated content?

Hootsuite defines user-generated content as “original, brand-specific content created by customers and published on social media or other channels. UGC comes in many forms, including images, videos, reviews, a testimonial, or even a podcast.” Essentially, it’s as it sounds: content that’s created by users or customers. In the context of the hospitality industry, UGC could include Instagram Stories posted from your bar or restaurant, or TikToks created by guests detailing their meal.

Why is user-generated content useful?

It’s free marketing!

‍One of the best things about UGC is that it saves you time, money and energy that you’d spend creating content yourself. Essentially, it’s free marketing that you can reshare on your own channels (more on this later). Rather than hiring a videographer to record content of your signature night, pub quiz or event space, guests create this content themselves. But beyond these practical benefits, UGC actually tends to be better for your business than your own content.

It’s more authentic

‍Millennial and Gen Z users in particular value authenticity on social media. While in the past, trends favoured high-quality professional photo and video content, this has shifted over the last couple of years. You might be worried that content recorded by customers won’t be high quality, but actually, that’s not such a bad thing. According to Photoslurmp, “User Generated images are more likely to convert customers when paired against “professional” or non-UGC images” – it might be surprising, but UGC is actually better for your business than shiny, polished content.

It serves as social proof

When a friend recommends a bar or restaurant to us, we’re likely to trust their taste. UGC works as social proof: by posting photos from your establishment and tagging you on social media, your customers are essentially recommending you to their friends, introducing to you a new audience and potential customers. Done right, UGC can also help you build a sense of community: you can reply to customers’ content, start conversations, and take recommendations and feedback.

How to encourage your customers to create user-generated content

There’s a good chance you’ve already got access to some UGC you didn’t even know existed. Start by having a look through your tagged page on Instagram, and the content that shows up under your establishment’s name. You might find videos, Reels and photos that customers have taken, and which you can re-share from your own company account.

Watch out: it’s good practice to ask people for permission before using their content. When you’ve identified a photo or video you’d like to re-share, send a message along these lines:

“Hi, [name]. Thank you for sharing this photo/video/Reel featuring [insert establishment name]. We’d love to re-share on our own profiles, giving you credit for the content. Please let us know if you give us permission to use your content on our channels!”

To encourage people to get creative and spread the word on your behalf, here are some ideas for increasing UGC:

• Launch a competition. Consider offering a gift card for your establishment, or a free round of drinks for a group of friends as a prize. In order to enter the competition, customers will need to take a snap at your establishment and share it on their Instagram Stories, for example. They’ll need to tag you, or else you won’t be able to see their entry. For bonus entries, customers can tag their friends in the comments under the post announcing the competition. That way, you’ll create some buzz and raise awareness no matter who wins the competition.
  
  
• Create a subtle branded hashtag or content theme. The trick here is making the hashtag about something other than your bar or restaurant. The best marketing is subtle, so think outside the box a little. One example? LaLa Land Kind Café is a small chain of cafés in America – and yet it boasts over 220k followers on Instagram. Many of these followers won’t be local, and so are unlikely to become customers in the near future, but they follow the account because of their viral content series: drive-by kindness. In 1 minute long video clips, employees drive through areas local to the cafés shouting compliments at unsuspecting strangers. Thanks to the uplifting content (that isn’t directly connected to coffee!), the cafés attract large numbers of visitors who share their own content from the café, in a clear example of how UGC can help with your marketing efforts.
  
  
• Offer a small discount to customers who share a photo. This one comes down to a matter of personal preference, but some establishments choose to offer a small discount (between 10% and 15%) to those who share their experiences through content posted on social media. You might consider this option as a quick win to kick off the UGC and gather some momentum.
  
  
• Add an ‘Instagrammable’ feature to your establishment. If you’ve been keeping an eye on trends over the past year or so, Instagrammable features have been popping up right, left and centre in bars and restaurants. These floral displays at Chameleon London are one example: they look beautiful, and it’s a very welcome side effect that customers want to show off their surroundings online. Fun signage works well too, with the Gin Festival and Mighty Hoopla providing some examples. On a larger scale, the lift at One Hundred Shoreditch is a classic selfie spot: scroll through their Instagram, and you’ll spot various UGC posts like this one. Finally, you don’t need to spend money on your spotlight feature – Seabird’s Martini Mountain is a creative way of getting people talking.

Need help with marketing? At Mostly Socials, we specialise in helping food & beverage brands attract the right audiences and create exciting content that takes the stress off your hands. If you’d like more information, get in touch here.