Many mar­keters under­stand that some of the most res­o­nant dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing tac­tics are those that give cus­tomers a way to con­nect their favorite brands to their own lives. Mar­keters learn ear­ly that two-way con­ver­sa­tion is vital; it’s even more pow­er­ful to sim­ply let cus­tomers tell their own sto­ries through user-gen­er­at­ed con­tent. With its great dis­cov­er­abil­i­ty and long con­tent lifes­pans, Insta­gram offers brands an extreme­ly vis­i­ble way to inter­act with and share the sto­ry of their cus­tomers.

Repost­ed Insta­gram pho­tos pro­vide one of the sim­plest forms of UGC. More impor­tant­ly, Insta­gram pho­tos and videos extend beyond the social plat­form. Savvy brands can enhance their users’ sto­ry­telling expe­ri­ence by cou­pling the excite­ment and con­tent of brand­ed hash­tags with sol­id dig­i­tal strat­e­gy. These four brands show how uti­liz­ing social media, microsites and more can make the best of UGC.

#ShinyPonies

J.Crew has con­tin­u­al­ly inspired cus­tomers to post their own pho­tos of J.Crew prod­ucts with cre­ative brand hash­tags. The brand engages its fash­ion-savvy audi­ence and incen­tivizes them through con­tests and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of being fea­tured across J. Crew social accounts.

Through hash­tag cam­paigns like #Shiny­Ponies, which encour­ages cus­tomers to post pho­tos of their brand’s shoes and #Acces­so­ry­Fix, which asked cus­tomers to post their favorite acces­sories, the brand moti­vates its cus­tomers to par­tic­i­pate in the brand’s mar­ket­ing sto­ry in a way that J.Crew can eas­i­ly, and pow­er­ful­ly, repur­pose. J.Crew even adds print col­lat­er­al to online orders that are pack­aged and shipped to its cus­tomers encour­ag­ing them to par­tic­i­pate in the #Shiny­Ponies con­ver­sa­tion.

For each hash­tag cam­paign it runs, J.Crew cre­ates a ded­i­cat­ed land­ing page to fea­ture user con­tent. This land­ing page acts as far more than a place to show­case con­tent. It smart­ly allows J.Crew to bring cus­tomers back to its site and rein­tro­duce the shop­ping fun­nel with calls to action that point back to the prod­uct pages that cor­re­late with the hash­tag.

Strat­e­gy win: Reward your cus­tomers for tru­ly rep­re­sent­ing your brand mes­sage. When your cus­tomers cre­ate con­tent with the same qual­i­ty as con­tent you’d pro­duce, sim­ply repur­pose it to show­case your cus­tomer and encour­age oth­ers to do the same.

Bonus: J.Crew’s Shiny Ponies land­ing page is extreme­ly clear on what the brand has per­mis­sion to do with its cus­tomers’ posts. When uti­liz­ing UGC, be sure to under­stand what you can and can’t do with cus­tomer gen­er­at­ed con­tent and trans­par­ent­ly com­mu­ni­cate your intent with your cus­tomers.

#AllDayBreakfast

It’s rare that brands have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to launch a new ser­vice with instant uni­ver­sal appeal. When McDonald’s announced it would serve break­fast all day long, it did a ton of ground­work to keep it top of mind for cus­tomers.

From pub­lic and online radio to TV and print ads to social media cam­paigns, McDonald’s made sure its cus­tomers were ful­ly aware of all-day break­fast options (although, no McGrid­dles at lunch? What’s with that?). It also moved imme­di­ate­ly to get cus­tomers involved in the mar­ket­ing push.

McDonald’s fre­quent­ly reposts the Insta­gram pho­tos of its cus­tomers and has enlist­ed many brand ambas­sadors. This serves as an influ­encer tool, remind­ing cus­tomers that oth­er peo­ple like them enjoy all-day break­fast, while also beef­ing up McDonald’s reg­u­lar­ly updat­ed stream of con­tent.

Strat­e­gy win: Find ways to get your cus­tomers involved through high­ly visu­al chan­nels when you’re launch­ing a new prod­uct or ser­vice. Use their posts as influ­encer con­tent and find ways to get their feed­back, then use that con­tent to fur­ther pro­mote your launch. Cus­tomers thrive on see­ing oth­er peo­ple enjoy­ing the same things they love.

#GatorGood

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Flori­da recent­ly rebrand­ed in an effort to bring its aca­d­e­m­ic and research impact to the fore­front of its sto­ry: the Gator Good. In the process, it also made sure that the brand’s sto­ry focused on its peo­ple. The #Gator­Good encour­ages stu­dents and grad­u­ates to tell their sto­ry of com­mu­ni­ty suc­cess and giv­ing, a plat­form that acti­vat­ed the new brand through two-way con­ver­sa­tion with its audi­ence, par­tic­u­lar­ly on high­ly visu­al plat­forms like Insta­gram.

By cre­at­ing an emo­tion­al appeal to stu­dents, alum­ni and fans, UF inspired peo­ple to respond to the university’s mes­sage by uti­liz­ing the Gator Good hash­tag on mul­ti­ple social media plat­forms. It result­ed in its largest year of pledged ser­vice hours from stu­dents after the launch of the cam­paign.

Strat­e­gy win: If you have a high­ly loy­al audi­ence that per­son­al­ly iden­ti­fies with your brand, appeal to their val­ues and achieve­ments. Think about how you can get them to share their sto­ry, then cre­ate a theme that res­onates and is easy to share via social media.

#NeverStopExploring

Before REI announced that it would shut down its stores on Black Fri­day in an effort to hon­or its mis­sion of explo­ration, The North Face was encour­ag­ing its cus­tomers to live its val­ues by push­ing the lim­its and explor­ing the world around them.

The North Face built an entire microsite ded­i­cat­ed to the idea of explo­ration. Here, they post a vari­ety of explo­ration-themed con­tent and give cus­tomers oppor­tu­ni­ties to upload pho­tos to win their week­ly con­test for a $100 gift card. Now, it has expand­ed the Nev­er Stop Explor­ing idea into a “Nev­er Stop” cam­paign that builds upon the mes­sage.

Strat­e­gy win: When you can afford to incen­tivize your cus­tomers into cre­at­ing con­tent that you can reuse on Insta­gram, go for it. Just be sure that your mis­sion aligns with your brand and real­ly does show­case the cus­tomers that are tru­ly liv­ing your val­ues.

Mul­ti-bil­lion dol­lar com­pa­nies aren’t the only brands that can launch smart user-gen­er­at­ed cam­paigns. All four of these brands share a cou­ple of impor­tant traits: they’re will­ing to give cus­tomers a voice in their mar­ket­ing efforts, and they use tech­nol­o­gy to cre­ate emo­tion­al and finan­cial incen­tives for users to join the con­ver­sa­tion.

Your top cus­tomers talk about you con­stant­ly. It’s easy to give them a plat­form to speak.

Has your com­pa­ny found suc­cess by lever­ag­ing user con­tent?