User Generated Content

User Generated Content

By: Nellie Tanglib

            User-generated content (UGC) is the term used to describe any form of content such as video, blogs, discussion form posts, digital images, audio files, and other forms of media that was created by consumers or end-users of an online system or service and is publically available to others consumers and end-users. User-generated content is also called consumer generated media (CGM) (Beal, 2018). A user-generated content is also referred to as a media content which is created or developed by various individuals rather than by professionals and are made available through the internet.

 User-generated content, in a way, refers to those that were created by consumers or users and is accessed by another consumer or end-user. In this case, the consumer is the one that creates a content for others. Blogging, for example, is a user-generated content in a way that a blogger creates or shares information to another blogger or consumer for that matter.

User-generated content is most likely to be effective in advertising and marketing. This is because of its ability to raise awareness among audiences, and it helps in the popularization of a content through its ability to boost social media reach and growth. Also, it involves sourcing, annotating, and sharing the best and most relevant third party content to its target audiences. This aforementioned are further discussed on the following:

a.       User-generated content is a content curation in itself. Content curation involves sourcing, annotating, and sharing the most suitable and relevant third party content with your audience (Deshpande, P. 2017).  In addition, user-generated content as one of the content curation family includes the following: it helps build brand awareness, establish credibility, nurtures streamline lead, boost social media metrics, and support lead generation;

b.      Another benefit of a user generated content is that it boosts social media reach and growth. This is with the fact that user-generated content combined with social media platforms builds an excellent strategy in strengthening and building relationships among consumers. The fact that this creates meaningful interaction and at the same time encourages other users to generate and submit their own content which helps increase social media traffic and extended reach among followers;

c.       User-generated content also helps gain audience insights through analyzing the content a certain audience share and generate. Also, user-generated content platforms allow the audience or consumer to join and stay engaged in such;

d.      Given that most of the users of the internet are teenagers, User-generated content is most likely to be used instead of those from the traditional media which includes print, television, and radio;

e.       A user-generated content is also said to be simpler and self-policing. Simpler in a sense that the content itself is written for you rather that written by you. It is also said to be self-policing given that it is not only possible to not write much content but there are also ways for every end-user and consumer to regulate and police their selves. Also, most of user-generated contents has moderators to help keep abuse and spam away.

Moreover, if user-generated offers such benefits and advantages, it also has its disadvantages which are as follows:

a.       The credibility of a user-generated content is and will always be questionable. This is because of the fact that a single and simple question when asked on a certain site can have a varied answer. It was then that a consumer or end-user will ask who those that generate content are and how much of those information they give is correct and which is not. Given that there are lots of generating content users, wrong information or different answers are sometimes disseminated;

b.       Some user-generated content are sometimes subjected to bias which lessens the credibility of the information itself. User-generated content are often opinionated unless the site is specifically-stated as a political party site. With this, authenticity is questioned and user-generated content is sometimes referred to as a false information;

c.       Unless a UGC site is using self-policing options, such site is prone to moderating issues which includes how much work is making sure illegal or abusive activities aren’t published or allowed on your watch and is it worth it for  the possibility of being a biased and incredible information; and

d.      Another issue in user-generated contents would be ownership. This involves the possibility of who actually owns the content between either the host of that user-generated content site and the user who wrote the content or even both of them.

  

Reference:

ANONYMOUS. 2017. The Advantages and Disadvantages of User Generated Content. Retrieved online from http://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/miroraynov/2017/04/27/the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-user-generated-content/

BEAL, V. 2018. ‘User-generated Content definition’. Accessed from ITBusiness Edge
.

DESHPANDE, P. 2017. 6 Key Benefits of User Generated Content and How You Can Achieve Them. Retrieved online from https://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-business/6-key-benefits-user-generated-content-and-how-you-can-achieve-them

PULLIZI, J. 2009. The Pros and Cons of User Generated Content. Retrieved online from http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2009/11/pros-cons-user-generated-content/