The rise of digital has turned us all into content generators – whether we’re sharing photos and videos or posting a blog or uploading a podcast. But can brands use this to their advantage?
Speaking at MediaTel’s Media Playground event on Monday (3 November), Livefyre’s head of European business development, Gavin Page, said that the longevity of original content is key to keeping brands at the frontline – and that original content can be kept alive for much longer through the utilisation of user generated content (UGC) and social storytelling.
“Brands and publishers have suffered from the fact that they can’t surface the levels of content that are now available,” said Page.
“What UGC does that’s interesting to brands and publishers alike is that you put something up there [online] through UGC, and you can then keep that original content alive for much longer.”
According to research from Livefyre, 36% of brands said that producing engaging content is one of the biggest challenges they face, while 21% struggle with producing enough content.
Currently, two billion pieces of UGC are created every day – from sharing videos and photos to online reviews – meaning that a huge pool of potentially valuable content remains untapped.
Page said that UGC, which is “trusted 50% more than information from other media sources”, not only offers better advertising opportunities for brands, “but it also means, from a journalistic perspective, that content becomes more valuable as well.”
Research from Lifefyre revealed that 95% of publishers who added UGC increased levels of engagement; however, Page warned that too much content can be equally as damaging as irrelevant content.
“Content drives SEO, but relevancy drives ranking,” he said
