The Golden Goose

Can you feel it?  The UGC (User Generated Content) backlash is beginning, and it feels so familiar.  It’s 2000 all over again. 

When the dot com bubble burst in April 2000, people misunderstood the nature of the shakeout.  While companies that had no real business reason for being went under (yes, Pets.com, I’m talking to you), the internet as an underlying vehicle for distributing content remained healthy and vibrant.  it didn’t die, as many expected.  The ‘net remained vital, it was just the businesses built on top of it that went bust. Entrepreneurs and established companies jumped quickly into the fray…learned…retooled…and came back with more viable, more grounded business offerings.

We’re in the midst of the same sort of high decibel shakeout in the world of UGC.  With the advent of YouTube, companies have capriciously jumped on user-generated commercials as a way to connect with their consumers, demonstrate credibility and cool, and perhaps most importantly, elbow out expensive ad agencies by letting their users do it themselves.  And for the most part, UGC commercials haven’t been breakthrough, nor have they generated buzz, nor have they reinvented the brands as “consumer run”.   So now, many big companies are questioning the fundamental value of UGC.  If it’s not a Diet Coke/Mento’s geyser, is it really worth it?

The answer is absolutely 100% YES.  Stop thinking about UGC as commericals and start thinking of it as any content created by your consumers.  It’s not just video, it’s blogs, MySpace pages, Flickr photo collections, conversations on message boards and forums.   UGC is a vehicle for developing a deeper understanding of your consumers - their motivations, their headset, their passions, their language, their artifacts.  What do they love?  What do they hate?

UGC serves us an incredible gift, heretofore unprecedented in the world of brand and consumer research.  Our consumers are putting their hearts & their ideas out for us to discover.  They are allowing for us to eavesdrop in their world.  We can find brand evanglists, extreme consumers and lapsed users, and navigate their worlds as never before.  We can listen silently or join the conversation.

UGC even guides us with product hacks that can open up a new world of innovation.  It connects us to users who care enough about our products to talk about them, critique them, improve them, evangelize them, identify with them.  It’s a treasure trove of insights.

If you are thinking of UGC only as video advertising, you’re missing the boat.   It’s time to embrace UGC, not trash it.  UGC is the best tool you’ve got going to connecting with consumers and understanding your brand.