We know that peer recommendations are vitally important in B2B. Customer testimonials, use cases and references are a key part of the sales process. But there are lots of ways to expand on the power of peer recommendations, and boost trust and relationships, with user-generated content for B2B.

Here are 5 ways you can add more user-generated content to your B2B marketing activities

• Invite your customers to create short videos.
  Ask your customers to make a short video, using their phones, on what they like about your product or service, or what were the most important factors in their decision to partner with you. Short “how-to’s” also work well. Help your customers out by providing filming and content tips, and promote these videos on your website and social channels.
• Get your customer experts to share their knowledge in forums and FAQs.
  Google does this exceptionally well. The Product Experts in Google’s Help Communities are regular users who want to share their expertise with other users. Once you register with Google as a product expert, your contributions are counted, and as the number of your contributions goes up, you gain badges, recognition and perks (like invitations to beta test new products and attend Virtual Hangouts with other experts). Create an expert’s forum where your customers and prospects can interact with other customers, asking them questions directly.

 

Curious to see how
we put this into practice?

In this case we developed a digital marketing strategy for one of our customers in healthcare, including customer reference cases.

• Create a community on LinkedIn.
  Take it a step further and create a community for your expert users, or anyone in the industry of field who might be interested in connecting with like-minded professionals.
• Highlight the thought leadership of your C-suite and product teams.
  This isn’t really user-generated content, but it helps to round out the perspectives of your blogs and social media posts by having different authors and viewpoints. Encourage your leaders and experts to post content on their own channels, which you can then amplify. (Certain algorithms [including LinkedIn] rank personal content above content from company pages.)
• Encourage your employees to promote your company and culture.
  This is a great way to highlight the culture of your organization, to potential recruits, your community or your prospects. Invite employees to share photos of their pets, do “A Day in the Life” series, or create a hashtag for employees to use to share images from a company event.

If you’d like to learn more about the different types of user-generated content that work well for B2B, and how you might add them to your marketing mix, contact Anne-Mie, by email at anne-mie.vansteelant@livingstone.eu, or call at +32 (0)55 59 10 01.