Why GoPro Is The King Of UGC

                                                                             Case Study: GoPro

UGC stands for User Generated Content.

Getting your users to feature your brand and/or products in their content comes with its own set of advantages. First, user-generated content campaigns can help you establish the trust of your target market through brand features in user content.

Brand features also help in increasing your brand exposure. The more exposure for your brand, the higher brand awareness and reach on the platform. User-generated content also adds to the diversity and variety of content on your feed.

Some brands are using hashtag-based user-generated content while other brands are posting users’ content that they were tagged in. Some brands populate their feed with users’ content only.

One of such brands is GoPro

- ORIGIN OF GoPro

In 2004, GoPro released its first camera. It is hard to believe but their first camera was sold for $30 a piece. Production costs around $3 each, made in China.

A 35mm camera is sold in surf shops and appearing on QVC. GoPro made close to $350,000 in sales.

- GoPro Marketing Strategy:

The brand posts high-quality photos and videos shared by users on social media platforms. Running the hashtag-based UGC campaign, #GoPro, the brand shows the use of the product through the pictures. In the process, the brand persuades the audience to invest in their products. Users become brand ambassadors by sharing their videos on the internet and after they got featured on the GoPro channel

GoPro consciously targeted certain niches of hobby filmers, extreme athletes, adventurers, adrenaline junkies. By offering special mounting packages for athletes, motorsports, outdoor enthusiasts, and surfers, they further sharpened their branding. GoPro customers are encouraged to share their videos on their social media channels and to tag Go Pro for a feature. It didn’t take long for the target group to leap at the chance.

Nowadays, GoPro went further by reaching other segments like music festivals or wildlife movies.

As of May 2021, GoPro has 17.9 million followers on Instagram, 2.1 million followers on Twitter, 10.4 million subscribers on YouTube.

- Secret Behind The Success

First, this strategy helps GoPro not spend an excessive amount of money on promotion. Saved money is also spent on new technologies to form new products.

Second, GoPro specializes in cameras for lovers of the utmost sport who always share their videos on different social media platforms. and when the audience interacts with the video, they get amazed by the video quality as well as the production.

What GoPro does the best is instead of approaching celebs and social media models they approach videographers and content creators who travel the world and risk it all for that "viral" photo that breaks the internet.

Soon, GoPro customers filled up the company’s social media channels with self-produced, GoPro branded videos, which the audience eagerly watched. They often went viral, then did the GoPro brand. Even the content that features and promotes GoPro products doesn’t feel promotional due to the passion of the creators.

While within the past days, the camera was only known to their core target groups, soon artists, both amateur and professional video producers, cyclists, and travelers came on board. GoPro further encouraged them on, actively developing their social media communities and Video of the Day promotions.

I think every company should consider UGC's form of promotions and maintain a socially good relation with its consumers. With the budget of regular promotions, they can get a very high return on their sale. 

- GoPro’s UGC advantage:

• The GoPro product is literally a content-creating machine. People of extreme sports use it mostly to showcase their skills.
• Their product is also designed to be used in the most mindblowing situations. Most often, extreme GoPro adventures take place in the most envy-inspiring locations of beauty around the world.
• A #GoPro hashtag to help users categorize their content so that GoPro’s social media team can find new videos uploaded to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube.

Nick Woodman, founder, and CEO of GoPro, to hear him explain the GoPro brand’s content marketing mission:

We believe the best stories are being lived by our customers. We want to help people self-document themselves engaged in their interests or passions

- Conclusion:

GoPro’s distribution strategy is its key to success in the field of content marketing. Every digital marketer knows that customers engage on different social media channels in different ways, but not every marketer tailors their distribution strategy to accommodate those differences. GoPro is a brand that has taken this to heart and distributes its content with the customer in mind. The brand’s campaigns include #GoProGirl, which features women using GoPro cameras, Family Time, which features images of kids and babies, and Love, which features images from GoPros used at weddings.

Make no mistake in building an audience of alluring fans that gets real business results.