Local search has become a battlefield of businesses where they compete for customer attention. And this competition grows fiercer every day because nearly half of all Google searches include local intent.
User-generated content (UGC) can help you get ahead of your competition. It represents authentic customer voices that cut through artificial marketing noise.
At MatterSolutions, we know how to use your customer experiences to improve your search visibility. Our strategies have helped many clients collect UGC like reviews and real customer photos systematically.
In this guide, we’ll cover some practical review collection methods, photo submission systems, and response strategies. You’ll also learn how to encourage honest feedback from your users without appearing pushy or desperate.
Read on to learn more about utilising your customers’ feedback as a unique marketing tool.
Boost Your Local Business’ Online Reputation
User-generated content is a great reputation tool for local businesses because it provides objective social proof. Research shows 93% of marketers find UGC performs better than typical brand content.
When your customers share their actual experience with others, it means they trust you and your service. That’s why well-informed businesses use their customer voices effectively to increase their reputation.
Let’s find out how UGC works in practice:
- Demonstrates Approval: Your customer testimonials outperform refined promotional copy because potential buyers can recognise authentic voices. For instance, if a visitor at your restaurant posts a photo of your meal, it’ll attract a lot more visitors since it’s a real picture.
- Builds Authentic Brand Loyalty: People sense that you recognise and value them when you use their content. It strengthens their emotional connection to your business and increases brand loyalty. You wouldn’t get that with professional content.
- Provides Unbiased Social Proof: Based on our experience, if your potential prospects go through your recorded customers’ experiences, their purchase anxiety reduces massively. These people need reassurance before committing.
Put yourself in the shoes of a nervous patient and think… Wouldn’t you feel confident about setting an appointment with a dentist who has authentic reviews on how gentle they are with their approach? Yeah, that’s the impact of user-generated content.
How to Get Local Reviews and Customer Photos
You now know the way UGC works. That’s great. But how do you collect it from your customers? You have two approaches here for that. The first one is to increase your customer engagement, and the second one involves running regular UGC campaigns.
We’ll now dive deeper into these approaches.
Increase Customer Engagement to Get User-Generated Content
If you can manage to increase your customer engagement, you’ll get many opportunities to gather content from your users. Some types of content may include reviews, which help you build trust in your business.
But here’s the thing… it all depends on your understanding of proper timing and method choice based on your customer preferences. So let’s see a few approaches here.
Systemise Post-Purchase Requests for More Reviews
You can send automated emails to your buyers 2-3 days after purchase. That’s when their satisfaction peaks, but experiences remain fresh.
Take dental practices, for example. They could request feedback after routine cleanings. And restaurants might follow up after weekend dinners when diners feel most positive about their experience.
Monitor and Respond to All Mentions
Monitoring your consumers’ responses all over social media is important. So, set up alerts for your brand mentions across social platforms and respond within hours.
The moment customers tag your business in Instagram stories, you should acknowledge them immediately and ask permission to repost. An action like this will encourage similar behaviour from other followers of your business.
Request to Re-share Customer Posts
Don’t forget to contact your customers directly when they share excellent content about your business. Say, as a fitness studio, you might reach out to members who post workout videos and request permission to feature them in your newsletters or social media.
This approach will make your customers feel valued. Plus, you get to build your content library at the same time.
Proactively Create UGC Campaigns
We get it if you feel satisfied when looking at your daily interactions data. However, you can increase them further with structured user-generated content campaigns. A recent study showed that UGC campaigns give you 29% higher conversions than standard marketing.
Here’s how you can create and run your UGC campaigns.
Run a Hashtag Contest or Giveaway
You may organise photo contests where participants share images with your branded hashtags for prize entry. Like, a local coffee shop could run #MorningRitualCafe and ask customers to photograph their coffee moments. They can then announce weekly winners who receive free beverages for a month.
Design an In-Store “Photo Moment”
When you install eye-catching displays or murals in your store, they naturally encourage your customers to take photos and share them.
For instance, barbershops could create vintage-styled chairs with interesting backdrops. It’ll give the customers a good photo opportunity.
Pose a Themed Question to Your Audience
Ask specific questions that invite photo responses across social platforms. Consider pet groomers. They might ask, “Show us your dog’s transformation!” And landscape gardeners could request, “Share your favourite garden corner!”
These questions can produce natural content and build community engagement for you.
Systematic approaches like the ones above will help you generate actual customer content. And guess what, search engines recognise that content as valuable social proof.
Improve Local Search Results with UGC
Once you collect customer content, the next step involves using this material as part of your content marketing strategy. And if you want to maximise UGC’s impact on your search performance, you should know where to place that content, as well as how to deal with the copyright issues.
Let’s have a look at these important UGC practices.
Display UGC with Your Business Information
When you integrate UGC with your core business information, you keep your online presence fresh and relevant. This is because search engines favour websites that receive regular content updates, and customer reviews and photos provide precisely this type of dynamic material.
But where do you place those materials for the best impact?
We’ll start with reviews and photos. You have to embed them on the main landing pages near your contact details. They’ll provide immediate social proof.
As for customer testimonials, place them on your “About Us” page and service descriptions to build trust throughout your customer journey.
You probably didn’t know this: Google constantly rewards websites that demonstrate their expertise and trustworthiness. Can you think of anything better than your real customer experiences, which provide both of these signals effectively? Please let us know if you do.
Copyright Law: A Vital Local SEO Tip
Here’s an important local SEO tip to protect your business: you do not own your customer photos. Rather, copyright law grants automatic ownership to the photographer irrespective of what appears in the image.
When businesses ignore these copyright laws, they create unnecessary legal and financial risks. Even using customer photos without permission can result in costly infringement claims and damage your reputation.
The solution is simple: always request written permission from your customers before you use any of their content. You can do it in two easy steps:
- Create a standard permission form that specifies how you’ll use their photos and for how long.
- After customers share their content with you, send this form via email. It’ll make the process quick and professional.
Pro-Tip: Include permission language on photo contest entry forms and social media campaigns upfront. This approach will cover your legal interests while you build a valuable content library you can use confidently across all your marketing channels.
Make Customer Voices Your Competitive Advantage
Customers nowadays simply ignore traditional advertising. However, with user-generated content, you get authentic social proof that both search engines and potential customers trust most.
In today’s article, we’ve explored systematic methods for review and customer photo collection and proper placement strategies for maximum search impact. We also talked about important copyright protections that’ll keep your business legally safe.
At MatterSolutions, we have converted customer experiences into measurable local SEO results for many clients. Contact us today to develop your UGC strategy and watch satisfied customers become your most powerful marketing asset.
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