Where Does UGC Come From?
On StockRepublic-powered social trading platforms, users in the community actively engage around the stock market by creating forum posts, commenting on news, and sharing investment insights. This content is authentic and can influence an audience that relies on peer recommendations over traditional financial advisories. With every new discussion and post, StockRepublic clients can leverage a powerful tool for page indexing and organic content creation.
How to Share UGC
Via Social Media
The easiest way to amplify UGC is by using native tools such as retweets, reposts, or shares across the social media accounts of your community. Excited by their own performance and experience on the social trading app, users feel motivated to share their portfolio progress, including snapshots of their holdings, diversification strategies, and even their climate impact ratings.
Via Widgets
Widgets, a key feature in StockRepublic's toolkit, offer an innovative way to harness UGC. These dynamic widgets serve as bridges, linking your website audience directly to the vibrant, real-time activity of your StockRepublic-powered investment community.
Via Micro-Influencers
Micro-influencers are individuals typically with fewer than 5,000 followers. Hi!stocks, powered by StockRepublic, demonstrated the value of micro-influencers with its 'hi!stocks heroes' loyalty program. This initiative celebrates and incentivizes top users for their active participation in the community. Recognized with a blue checkmark, these heroes become brand ambassadors and strengthen the platform's credibility and reach. In addition to recognition, hi!stocks also rewards its heroes with tangible tokens of appreciation to further encourage their involvement.
Via Your Employees
Your employees are also a significant source of influence in your social trading community. Take hi!stocks for example – its employees have been actively involved in the investment community from the outset, consistently answering questions, addressing improvement suggestions during 'Feedback Fridays,' and regularly updating the community about new features and functionalities. This level of engagement not only aids in community growth, but also builds a foundation of trust and reliability, proving that your team is not just running the platform, but also an active participant in its evolution.
What is the Power of UGC?
Sharing UGC via the methods above does more than just reflect individual activities – it generates reach, engagement, and conversion. This all contributes to cost-effective growth.
Reach
UGC’s network effect can increase the size of the audience that sees your business. UGC can uncover long-tail keywords, which often have a lower search volume and competition rate, leading to boosted SEO success. Additionally, social sharing across channels brings in visitors from trusted domains, exposing your company's content to new people.
GoPro is a prime example of leveraging UGC to drive significant reach. By allowing customers to create content, GoPro achieved remarkable results, with its top three customer-filmed videos accumulating over 400 million views combined as of December 2021.
Engagement
Sharing UGC can create meaningful customer interactions. A prime example of UGC driving engagement is the Placera Forum, powered by StockRepublic. Sharing content from the forum led to a dramatic increase in organic online engagement, evidenced by a 266.7% increase in clicks and a 901.3% rise in impressions within the first 150 days.
Conversion
Lastly, UGC can ultimately increase customer conversion. In fact, the StockRepublic-powered Placera Forum achieved a +15% increase in new users from organic search and +24% increase in new users from referral traffic.
How does this work in practice? When a user shares a snapshot of his or her portfolio, it naturally piques the curiosity of viewers. Intrigued by the social trading app or impressed by the portfolio's composition, these viewers are often motivated to click and explore the app further. Upon entering the app, new visitors encounter a limited view until they connect their bank account. This step, essential for full participation and access to detailed views, turns a curious onlooker into an active user – and potentially, a new creator of UGC.
increase in new users from organic search
increase in new users from referral traffic
In Conclusion
UGC doesn't just cut costs – it enriches your brand with credibility and fosters community growth, leading to organic and sustainable growth. StockRepublic equips you with the social trading tools and your users provide the content. It's growth, democratized.