Why CMOs need to embrace user-generated content

Editor’s note: Gene Austin is the CEO, president and director at Bazaarvoice. This is an edited version of a post that originally appeared here under the title “Follow your customer: The need for authentic and visual content.”

The only constant is change. In business, we either change along with the market or we become irrelevant.

Today’s market is changing faster than ever: the power of the customer voice to take over brand messaging; the convergence of paid, owned and earned media; mobile and the omnichannel; and big data. The pressure to stay abreast of and capitalize on all this change is overwhelming. It requires internal change to happen at a faster and faster clip each year – while the trends driving that change are still unclear and unpredictable.

CMOs are worried. Two-thirds feel ill-equipped to help their business use social media effectively and 82 percent feel unprepared to harvest and make use of big data.

The first step in keeping up with change is to capture the authentic opinions of your customers. By doing so you have both created a conduit for feedback to you on which change can be most meaningful to your future while also providing the most influential content to each consumer. And that, of course, is authentic opinions from other people – user-generated content (UGC).

You must capture and share what consumers think – on their terms, in their language and in their mediums – to create a better experience. This includes reviews, Q-and-A and engaging advocates to drive brand growth. This simple move has huge impacts on your business: driving sales, reducing returns, helping consumers make smarter decisions (which leads to higher satisfaction) and so on.

With a new social app popping up every day the types of content out there for you to capture are always changing. The newer social networks like Instagram and Vine have paved the way for visual storytelling and businesses have quickly realized its potential to help consumers discover, explore and engage with them. Visual content hubs are one example of creating a visual story out of your fan-created content.

The “moment of truth.” This is a familiar term. It simply means the moment in which a customer decides to pull the trigger and buy. But when is that moment today? With mobile, social and Internet always available there is no “funnel” or set “purchase path.” We can go from never considering a product to buying it in just a few swipes of our thumbs while we wait in line for coffee.

So the moment of truth is always in flux, always changing. The “moment” isn’t one specific point in a shopper’s journey – it’s whenever they decide it to be. And you have one chance at this moment, so that content and context better be right.

For a long time now, the most effective content at that moment of truth has been reviews. But recently, the value of reviews has changed and not for the better. Some errant companies decided to try to get the same value from fake content and they paid people to write positive reviews. They edited or even threw out negative feedback. And frankly, that’s deplorable.

Because of a few cheaters 70 percent of consumers have now questioned the trustworthiness of reviews on the Web. Because of a few cheaters your honest and authentic reviews have less value. This is why it’s so important to develop an authenticity policy and communicate it to your customers. Authentic content is:

• unedited by anyone but the author; 
• transparent, in that any incentives given to reviewers are stated and employees identify themselves; and
• free from fraud and spam.

We encourage clients to add trust marks to their sites that let shoppers know that their reviews are authentic and came from real people. You’re then delivering the content consumers say they want, in a context that lets them know it’s authentic, at the moment of truth. And having a policy like this makes your content more trusted – 44 percent of consumers are more trusting of reviews when they’re accompanied by a trust mark and a description of the authenticity policy.

When you’re capturing the user-generated content that matters most to consumers – be it text reviews and Q-and-A or customer-created photos and videos – and delivering it at the moment of truth, you can stay ahead of the changes. By following your customers’ preferences for things like visual content and trusted context your business can ride the wave of change, while others wipe out.

Dealing with change involves first and foremost providing the information your consumers want the most – trusted user generated content. By doing so you provide a foundation for feedback that identifies the most important changes you need to better align with your customers. At the same time, you are giving them the most influential information they can have at the moment of truth. Enveloping your program with a true commitment to authenticity increases trust and transparency with your customers for years to come.