Why It’s Easy for Home Services to Get User-Generated Content
One of the easiest ways for a home service company to stand out is to use user-generated content. UGC is an excellent idea for any business, especially for home service professionals. Not only does user-generated content help you build your social media calendar and establish that trust factor with your followers, but it’s also easy to come by, as long as you take the right approach.
What Is User-Generated Content?
As the name suggests, user-generated content refers to photos, videos, or testimony for your online presence that other users, primarily your happy customers generate. Instead of you (as the business owner, who already has too much to do) or your team (again, they have too many or better things to do) trying to come up with ideas for content to share on social media, UGC is fresh content from your customers.
When you share the content they create, you get more opportunities to get your name out there in front of people. In this case, you’re doing it in a way that’s more appealing to your target audience because they see that other customers are satisfied with your work.
Think about it this way: You’re a home improvement contractor who recently renovated a home that looks amazing. Unfortunately, with everything else you were focused on, you forgot to take good photos. Side Note: We will address in a later blog why professional photography on big projects is worth the cost. Back to my point, you didn’t have photos taken. Luckily, the customer took plenty—including before and after shots. If your luck goes a little further, your customer posts those pictures on Facebook and Instagram, and they tag your business profile in their posts. Their caption says, “I can’t believe how beautiful my home looks and how quickly this came together. Perfection Builders did an amazing job from start to finish.”
So, you as the professional here can reach out to the customer and thank them for their praise on social media. Then ask, “Hey, is it all right with you if I share that?” They’ll likely say yes.
And now you have:
Great pics of a recent job you did, including before and after shots
High praise from one of your customers talking about how good the finished product is and how quickly you got it done
That’s without any extra effort from you. And because this is hype that’s coming from another customer (not from you as the businessowner), other people on social media are more likely to trust it. Just like that, you’re expanding your customer base.
Pretty much any business can rely on user-generated content, but there are two crucial reasons that your line of work as a home service professional puts you in a good position to ask for this kind of content:
Satisfied Customers Willing to Share
Every business has satisfied customers, so it’s not as if you as a home service professional have something that another business doesn’t have, right? For example, a restaurant has many satisfied diners coming through its doors every hour of every day. And we live in an era when people are obsessed with snapping photos of every meal they eat.
But unlike the restaurant, your business is one that sometimes comes with a lot of risk. Your customers are trusting you with their home—it’s their most valuable asset, and it’s where they and their family live. They spend a lot of money with you with the expectation that you will take care of their home.
When your customers are satisfied with the job you do, it can change their lives. You relieve anxiety. You bring happiness. You make things easier. When you have that kind of effect on people’s quality of life, they want to talk about it.
Ask your customers for their positive reviews or for any photos or videos they take. They will likely be happy to share it, as this will help others who were in the same situation as them connect with the right home service professional for the job.
Visual Appeal of Home Projects
The other reason that home service businesses can potentially have an easier time with user-generated content compared with other businesses is the fact that there is a visual appeal to what you do. Some products or services are difficult to convey with photos or video—but something like a home renovation, a paint job, a flooring job, a landscaping job, a roofing job, or a hardscaping job is something that is best expressed with visuals that are highly sharable on social media platforms.
Even if you don’t ask, your customers will very likely be taking the pictures anyway. They want to show their friends and family how the job came out. So go ahead and ask—they’ll likely be giving you content they’ve already created!
Reach Out for UGC
Leveraging user-generated content for your social media platform shouldn’t be a struggle when you work in a field with so many satisfied customers and such a strong visual component to your jobs. Seeking out this user-generated content will give you more material for your online marketing efforts and strengthen the relationship you have with your followers.
But even though user-generated content seems “easy” in theory, that doesn’t mean it’s something you want to worry about on top of all the other aspects of your business.
So, let our team at ASMM Digital handle it for you—give us a call today at 443-679-4916.