How to Find Great User-Generated Content

Updated: July 21, 2021

User-Generated Content or UGC is a large part of tourism marketing. Users are consistently posting images from their trips, which is a great opportunity for a travel organization to use on their own channels to inspire tourism. UGC photos in your marketing efforts are the best way to give potential visitors a first-hand look into your destination. Since the creator owns these photos, it’s imperative to credit users properly, but that’s another topic. Read on to learn how to find great user-generated content and how to use it.

1.) Tagged Photos

Ideally, your followers and visitors tag you in the photos they post of your destination – this is the first place to start looking for UGC photos! On Instagram, navigate to the “tagged photos” part of your profile to see photos you’ve been tagged in. If you lack tagged photos, this is a great opportunity to encourage users to tag you in photos in the future. Add this verbiage into your social media bios, monthly newsletters, and your blogs.

For Example:

On your next visit, be sure to tag @TwoSixDigital in your photos for a chance to be featured on our social channels, monthly newsletter, or blog!

Check Your Hashtag

As of 2019, there were on average 95 Million videos and photos posted per day on Instagram – totaling in billions of posts on the platform. With the sea of content already on the platform, new content can easily get lost in shuffle making hashtags an important aspect of your marketing strategy. Ideally, your hashtag is prominently placed in your social media bios, making it visible to your followers. To find photos used that include your hashtag, simply click on your hashtag. This will show you both popular and recent posts using your hashtag!

5 Ways to Increase Visitor Usage of Your Hashtag

Location Tags

Locations tags are a way for users to post about the places these photos or videos were taken. To find a specific location tag, navigate the search bar and start typing in the location. You should see the location pop up in the search results. Remember, don’t just check city tags, but also local attractions, restaurants, and more! If you see a location-tagged that you want to look at in your feed, you can also click on the tag above the image, and it will navigate you to a page displaying both popular and recent posts at that location.

What to Do When You Find User-Generated Content

Now that you’ve found the perfect image for your feed or marketing efforts, it’s time to save the user-generated content to your collection and get approval from the creator to be able to use the photo in your feed. Ensure you get proper credit from the creator before posting.

Finally, make sure that when you post the image on your own social feeds, you tag the user in the image and/or put their handle in the caption of your photo. If you’re putting it in your blog, be sure to give them image credit. If you’re embedding the photo into your blog, the photo will credit itself.

Following this quick approach is an integral step in giving your brand a voice. You also show your visitors appreciation for posting their images of your location. Integrating user-generated content in your blogs and social media feeds will allow future visitors to see others experiencing your destination and can inspire them to do so as well. For more new and exciting ways to use digital marketing to enhance your destination marketing organization, be sure to subscribe to our e-newsletter and follow us across social media at the links below.