Welcome to Day 19 of the Best of YAP 2024!

Our team’s taking a little holiday break, but don’t worry—we aren’t going anywhere.

Because over this holiday period, you’ll be treated to one of our fave articles in your inbox each day.

So whether you’re sitting by the fire with a warm cup of cocoa (lookin’ at you, Northern hemi folks), or hitting the beach (for those of us having a summer Christmas), you can catch up on some reading and remind yourself of what a wild year 2024 was.

Catch ya in 2025!

- Charlotte, Editor ♡

How to Get Your Customers to Build Your Brand (for free!)

Some things in life are just better when you don’t have to make them yourself.

A cup of tea from a loved one. A home cooked meal.

Maybe that’s also why the best content is content not made by you. It’s made by your customers.

User-generated content doesn't just build trust and foster organic relationships with your audience. It’s also an authentic snapshot of everyday love for your brand.

Seeing our customers happily engaging with our product or service is the crème de la crème for business owners. And if they are willingly sharing that excitement, even better.

This is why UGC can be such a powerful tool for your brand—someone else is building your brand for you.

I mean, let’s be real, it’s easier for someone who has no experience with your product or service to trust a recommendation over a curated advert. The challenge, however, is getting your customers to actually make the content.

So how do you get your customers to create UGC for your brand?

The reality is, closed mouths don't get fed. In other words, if you don’t ask, you don’t get.

And asking for feedback from your customers is one of the easiest ways to get UGC.

Sending a follow-up email post purchase with a CTA to leave a review? Simple.

Adding a form right below your content for customers to fill out and review? Also, super simple, costs you next to nothing and takes no time at all to set up.

But beyond the basics, encouraging customers to create UGC comes down to understanding them.

More than anyone else, your customers know what they want. So, analysing customer trends is a great way to gain insight into what types of UGC content they’re engaging with related to other brands.

Once you see what topics, themes or formats are working for other brands your audience likes, you can apply those insights as you encourage customers to create and share UGC for your own brand.

So, here are some questions to investigate…

[Keep reading]

-Sophie, Writer