User-generated content, integrated digital marketing are the future of marketing

Jason Kretchmer, Senior Director and GM, Livefyre, an Adobe company, speaks at a media lunch on the future of the social market.

Some content is better than other content, and user-generated content (UGC) has a lot of advantages, says Jordan Kretchmer, Senior Director and GM, Livefyre, the content marketing and engagement platform whose acquisition by Adobe closed in May 2016. Speaking at a media lunch during the Adobe Symposium 2016 in Singapore, Kretchmer said: "Customers trust UGC more than brand content. When you use UGC on your sites, in your mobile apps or in your marketing there is a 50% increase in time spent on the site."

Customers have better recall for UGC, and a sites see a 20% in increase in engagement, Kretchmer added. UGC and brand content combined can be the most effective way to tell the brand story, he said.

UGC and brand content combined can be the most effective way to tell the brand story, Kretchmer said. Ninety-two percent of consumers say they believe earned media, such as word-of-mouth (WOM).

UGC can also address the marketers' dilemma: 71% of marketers say they are under pressure to create 10x more content to support all of the different channels they maintain, while 85% are under pressure to create assets and deliver campaigns, more quickly, said Kretchmer, quoting IDC findings.

Livefyre technology in Adobe Experience Manager can analyse which UGC is performing best and connect that content with personalised advertising, Kretchmer said. "Livefyre accelerates content marketing with efficient workflows for leveraging UGC," he explained, emphasising that filtering ensures that pornography, swearing and negative sentiment are automatically weeded out, while rights management enables the brand to legally use the content.

An example of Livefyre in action will be seen during the upcoming Rio Olympics. Livefyre is developing a real-time asset manager for an Australian news organisation that complements its own reporting, Kretchmer shared. Its Rio Olympics Social Hub is built with Livefyre and surfaces curated UGC from social media by location. Clicking on a stadium would display all the content being generated from the stadium, for example.

Some digital software will be better than other digital software, Kretchmer added. Today's digital software landscape is complex, with social listening platforms, social reach platforms for gaining new followers, social depth platforms for creating engaging content, even social relationship platforms for managing and developing long-term relationships with customers. Similar software may be required for different channels such as Facebook against owned media or paid media.

Kretchmer said a more integrated approach would help digital marketing specialists. "It doesn't make sense for a brand to purchase so much software to basically manage the same thing," he said, pointing out that today's digital marketing software, irrespective of channels supported, doing one or more of the four pillars of digital marketing: creating content, publishing it, managing engagements, or measuring activity as outlined by Forrester.

Livefyre's proposed framework is channel-agnostic and focuses on content creation, publishing, engagement and measurement, managed from a single place, and supporting all channels, Kretchmer said. "The future is experience-led social, not social by channel," he said.

Hashtag: #AdobeSymp

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