A guide to Community Content concepts

How appreciated brands can tap into their community to access creative content

Producing creative and inspiring content is hard. It often takes a long time and in these times, new brands need to create new content constantly. But appreciated brands have one huge advantage, they can ask their community to be a part of their content creation!

We call this Community-generated content, content that has been produced by all parts of the brand's community. The largest part of this is the customer base (UGC), but the term Community-Generated Content also includes ambassadors (AGC), influencers (IGC), and employees (EGC). Each part of the community has the opportunity to share content but how they prefer to do that often differs.

We will now explain concepts like UGC, IGC, EGC, and EGC and have a look at how a brand's community can contribute to the future of the brand by creating content for and with the brand itself.

What is UGC? (User-Generated Content)

UGC is an acronym for User-Generated Content. UGC is content that a brand's customers and users create. The most common forms of UGC for DTC brands are Visual UGC (Photos and videos) and reviews. UGC is a create to build social proof.

Brands that use photos and videos from their customers often create a closer relationship with them and builds a stronger community and feeling of being a part of the brand. When brands use Visual UGC on their website and in other channels, they allow new visitors to be inspired by other customers.

What is EGC? (Employee-Generated Content)

Employee-Generated Content, or EGC, is content that is created by the brand's employees. Beyond the professional photos some employees create in their job roles, brands today have the opportunity to use photos from all of their employees. EGC photos are often more authentic and inspiring than professional photos.

EGC can be used to inspire future employees with how their future workplace and work-life looks like. EGC can also be used to give customers an insight into what happens behind the scenes at their favorite brand.

What is IGC? (Influencer-Generated Content)

IGC, or Influencer-Generated Content, is content produced by Influencers. Collabs with influencers are often meant to reach the influencer's followers and to associate the brand with the influencer's brand. By collecting the IGC through the rights channels, their content can be reused long after the influencer has posted on Social media.

Some brands miss out forgets that the content they have paid for also can be used together with other Community-Generated Content on their website to inspire new customers.

What is AGC? (Ambassador-Generated Content)

AGC is visual content created by a brand ambassador. A brand ambassador often has a closer relationship with the brand and produces content for a longer period.

Brand ambassadors can be found among customers, friends, employees, and influencers. What makes them special is that they often produce more content and do so more continuously. By providing brand ambassadors with dedicated upload channels, they can share more easily and often.

How brands can collect visual content from all parts of their community

Cevoid's platform for Community-Generated Content provides brands with tools to collect and manage content from all parts of their community. Once the photos and videos are collected, the brand can easily create interactive galleries for their website to showcase content from their community and to inspire new visitors. All galleries can also be designed and customized to match each website and channel.

Collecting visual content through Branded upload forms (UGC + EGC)

With Cevoid, brands can create upload forms and pages where their customers and employees can share photos and videos directly from their device, without the need of sharing on social media. When they upload they are also given the option to add a description, their name, and a profile picture.

Collecting visual content through Instagram @mentions, tags and #hashtags (UGC + EGC + IGC + AGC)

In the platform, brands can easily monitor Instagram posts from their favorite hashtags and where they have been tagged or mentioned.
When the brand finds posts they want to use, they can easily send a personalized rights request through Instagram DM, where they ask for the rights to use the post on their website and in their channels. The rights request contains a dedicated URL where the owner of the post can verify and approve the request in under 15 seconds.

Collecting visual content through Creators Hub (IGC + AGC)

Cevoid latest update includes a Creators hub, where brands can invite influencers and ambassadors. Each creator (influencer or ambassador) gets their own login and dedicated upload page where they can bulk upload visual content. The first time a creator log in they fill out the information about themself, which then will be reused for future uploads. The Creators Hub allows brands to collect visual content from their influencers and ambassadors through an easy-to-use tool and to includes this content in their Community-Generated Content galleries.

How brands can showcase visual content collected from their communities

Interactive galleries

In the Cevoid platform brands can easily create galleries, decide what content sources that they should contain, and style them to match the brand's website and visual profile. All this can be done on the platform through easy-to-use tools and without writing any code. The galleries are then embedded in the brand's website and are automatically updated when the brand approves a post on the Cevoid platform.

Product pages and shoppable galleries (E-commerce only)

Brands can add product tags to the content. This makes the posts shoppable in the galleries so their customers can buy the products being featured in inspiring photos and videos.

The product tags also make the posts appear in Cevoid's product page galleries, a dynamic gallery that automatically changes its content to only display posts of the product on the specific product page.