Snap’s Spectacles make it easier to grab content

Face it. User-generated content will be key going forward. We’re sure people will be producing more – and there are ways for brands to capitalise on it.

A helpful stat: user-generated content on YouTube gets up to 10 times more views than that which is brand generated.

If you’re not already focused on user-generated content, then what’s keeping you? But seriously, it is likely to be bigger for one reason: it is easier for individuals to engage and produce content than ever before.

An example of this is Snap’s (the company behind Snapchat) recent launch of Spectacles. In a nutshell, it’s a pair of glasses that allows you to take pictures and movies and post them directly to the site.

No more mobile

Once a picture is taken it can be uploaded via a bluetooth connection to your mobile. Effectively, this can be done without even taking your phone out of your pocket.

Everything is aimed at making it easier for users to create and distribute content. This is partly why mobile has hit desktop so hard. Yes, the glasses are $100-plus, but for many that is way cheaper than Google Glass while enabling them to do some of the same things. Expect Instagram to have to respond to Snapchat with something cheaper still.

The challenge of user-generated content marketing 

Let’s assume the aim is to have users writing and producing positive content about your company. Then the question for content marketers should be how they can help.

To focus the mind, look at the following statistic. According to this research in Adweek, more than 50 per cent of consumers want help from brands in producing user-generated content. However, only 16 per cent of firms respond.

So on the one side you have new technology coming on to the market allowing people to produce content. On the other, few firms are bothering to help those same people achieve their aim.

All this represents an opportunity. Get hold of the technology. Produce content showing what can be done with it in relation to your business. At the very least it will create some noise and if all goes well could bring about a free stream of brand endorsement.

Snap’s Spectacles make it easier to grab content is part of Content24, the blog for London content marketing agency FirstWord.