Content marketing is not only about creation and distribution anymore. It now maintains a focus on relevance, value and consistency to “attract and retain a clearly defined audience - and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action,” according to this article which cited the Content Marketing Institute. The report by the Institute on 2015 Benchmark, Budgets and Trends also said that 86 percent of businesses now make use of content marketing and from these, 70 percent  were creating more content than they did a year ago.

The article said that another trend observed in the report was that 78 percent of B2C companies were planning to use ‘user generated content’ (UGC) in their marketing strategies this year, a practice that was not even mentioned in the previous year’s report.

While UGC is not unheard of as a concept, it is rapidly snowballing to become digital marketers’ most powerful tool. Very rarely, if at all, can brands create content that users do as UGC qualifies as the new-age version of speaking over the garden fence.

This article cites a study by Reevoo which states that 70 percent of customers place peer recommendations and reviews higher than professionally written content. Brands can greatly benefit from this by being good at what they do, creating a place for consumers to speak about you, and even responding to them. Also, people tend to be attracted to a service or product that they know others use and trust.

According to this article, Mary Meeker’s 2015 internet trends report says that UGC is exploding across media platforms.  Facebook users today watch over four billion videos a day, which has risen 33 percent from a year ago. Youtube gaming too has a big share of the pie. Youtube gamer, PewDiePie publishes himself playing video games and earns $7.4 million a year, and has over 37.7 million subscribers, the article says. Meanwhile, users are turning into the source of breaking news on platforms such as Twitter.

Gaming companies are also successfully making use of UGC. Nintendo, through Mario Maker, allows players to develop 2D Mario levels. Not only does this allow users to indulge in fun fantasy but also drives user engagement.

The strength of UGC lies in the fact that it is focused around the user. This can be observed in the gaining popularity of platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat and Pinterest where users display their strengths and stories. This article said that there was a 75 percent YoY rise in pin creation on Pinterest. Also, over 65 percent of Snapchat’s 100 million daily users were uploading photos and creating ‘stories’ about their lives.

Marketers must thus shift focus from only creating content to developing opportunities to create content. This could be capturing moments that can be uploaded on Instagram or stories that users can put up on Snapchat. Also, rather than broadcasting, marketers must work on creating opportunities to drive conversation. This could be live communities of users who are digitally savvy and engage globally with your brand.

UGC leverages the power of the collective. Smart marketers observe these trends and react to them by developing opportunities for users to share their version of the story.