From Control to Community: Why Big Brands Struggle with UGC

Welcome to UGC for b two b, the podcast where we explore how user generated content is transforming the way businesses connect, market, and grow. I'm Alice Iverson, and today's episode is all about navigating the shift from traditional marketing to a decentralized UGC driven approach. Joining me today is someone who knows this journey firsthand, a former Market Scale client turned strategist who navigated the shift so successfully that after retiring from her previous role, she joined Market Scale as a digital marketing strategist where she now helps major brands harness the power of user generated content. Bridget, you've had such a unique perspective on this transition, from being a client navigating these changes, to now actively helping brands make that same shift. And I know for you, you had kind of a unique perspective, being a market scale client during the time when the company was growing and shifting kind of towards their final form, the final UGC focused approach. How did you see that transition unfold? What changes stood out to you, and how did they impact the way you engage with Market Scale at the time? Well, early on, Market Scale was an extra part of my marketing team. That's how I looked at them. And, they were I simply engaged with them just to create more content. So I need a video. So the traditional on-site video was very attractive, and we even had blog writing back then and, maybe some few other offerings. And then a studio was created, much later toward the end of my career. So we were just rolling it out at market market scale, when I was at toward the end of my career. But it was a very interesting time because, people, in the field, we will say, not in the marketing team, but engineers and salespeople started creating their own videos and posting them on LinkedIn. And I was desperately trying to get some of that so I could grab it, brand it, properly for, the company, and then repost it and use it for myself. So I was very eager to do that. And studio was getting rolled out just as I was leaving that role, which was heartbreaking because I would have snapped up in a minute, and used it. Because salespeople and engineers, they were always seeing really cool things in action and frequently. So, that was my initial, experience with market scale. And then like you said, later on, I joined, on the other side of the desk, so to speak, trying to help marketing directors who were in who are in a role that I had previously. That's really neat. You were like, I'm gonna use studio, come heck or high water. Even if I have to join the company, studio is mine. That's amazing. Well, that's such a fascinating enjoy, kind of journey from, client to an employee. What other than studio, what motivated you to join the market scale community as a DMS, after retiring? Was there something about your experience as a client that really made this the next natural step? Were you curious about, you know, the growth they had with UGC? What was that like for you? I really loved the team, first and foremost. I worked with Matt Moss, who was my, main point of contact, my DMS. I'm not sure what his title was at the time. And he took really good care of me, but, I loved the culture of the team. I loved how everything was always growing and iterating and, trying new things and, you know, nine times out of ten, they worked. But if it didn't work, just put it aside and move on to something else. And so I always considered Market Scale, a very valuable partner and member of my marketing team, as I said earlier. So it was just a great vibe. And I also felt too if I worked with clients, I could gain their trust because I have sat in where they were sitting. I'm on the other side of the desk now, but I was on on their side at the time. So I thought that might make them feel good. I could understand the constraints of of big brands and the corporate marketing teams and things like that and many multiple stakeholders being involved in a project or creating assets for them. So I thought I could help and give back, and it it feels good at the end of your career when you still have a lot to give. We both know that especially large companies struggle to adopt this decentralized approach to media, or user generated content, because they are so large and they do feel like they lack a certain amount of control, with so many clients in such a large audience. From your experience, what are the biggest barriers that prevent these organizations from fully embracing UGC? Are there specific challenges like internal resistance or regulatory concerns or outdated marketing structures? What is it that's making this transition especially difficult? Well, I think it's multiple things. One is in larger companies, the value of their brand is very, very high. They work a lot of times a long time, I should say, on building the value of the brand, and it's hard to monetize. You know, sometimes you'll hear a stat about Coca Cola's brand and how much it's actually worth. And so they must protect it. They must protect the brand. And so I think there's a concern if, people who are not in the marketing team are creating content, something can make the brand look bad or or be against brand guidelines or not, aligned with the brand message. So I think there's a very protective sense there. And, also, I think sometimes people may consider UGC not polished if it's not controlled and and it's off the cuff and it's very casual and conversational like we're speaking here, and it's not highly it's not highly edited, then, their their concern is again, back to the brand. Oh, we may appear foolish or unprofessional to our our, communities. Our prospects, our clients, even our own employees may not approve of that. So it is a matter of, change, but you really need to stay with the times. And and you and I had spoken earlier about generational, differences with perspectives on on UGC. People in my generation didn't grow up with the Internet or social media. We know it, adapt it, we use it as a tool, and then we may not be comfortable using it as a communication channel or, you know, or part of our everyday work. You know? So that's probably a hesitation there too where, but I say if something making me uncomfortable at at in at my age, if I'm a little uncomfortable, then I need to pay attention to that and I need to really, you know, value it and look and consider it as something new and something we need to keep trying and adopting. Like new technology, new hardware. It's just a new channel really. So Definitely. And as I was speaking about earlier, you know, that concept of needing so much control over marketing, coming from a background where I worked marketing for, you know, legal like, in the legal industry and then also for nonprofits that were affiliated with political organizations. You know, they have a very tight hold on what people can and cannot post. Everything needs to be meted out. Every single post needs to be approved for language and context and, you know, making sure that, you know, it aligns with their brand values. And I'm sure this is probably something else that goes into it as well is that they they see this as sort of maybe setting themselves up for a huge mistake or a huge oopsie. And I know you've worked in some very technical industries yourself, and I would love to hear, you know, how did you overcome that when you did try to start implementing some UGC, before you retired or even now with some of your clients here at Market Scale? How how do you navigate that conversation? Well, there are a couple of ways you can get, a new client or a new company used to it. And and, you know, you would need to acknowledge and be respectful of their constraints. There's compliance issues and legal issues like you said, and sometimes it's proprietary. Government is another area where some people simply, you know, if you join, visit a a government customer, you need to leave your cell phone in the car. So how do you how do you get over those barriers? And I would I've seen a couple of ways companies have done it. And one is start with internal communications. Some executives consider that far less risky, and so they may be willing to try something new with their internal crowd first. So an employee address or, you know, town hall meeting or something like that or or or a congratulatory message from a CEO to a salesperson who just finally got a great contract signed. So that that of, baby steps is a good way to get started to, show show a company may be resistant. UGC is is can is very authentic and can be very powerful. And then I think from there, another technique I've seen is find someone in your community, whether it's a vendor partner or a reseller or, even your a client who's willing to take it on and show you that this can be done right and just just jump in and and try it. And it's not gonna be perfect. It's gonna be authentic, though. So if a marketing person wants to really get the, approval from executives to use UGC, those are a couple of techniques where they can just really get started. I absolutely love that. And one of the things that I forget who told this to me, but they said, you know, UGC isn't about replacing the traditional content. It's about amplifying what they already have with the voices of people around them, the experts, their audience, and really build that trust with their communities. And I think that it's cool because traditional marketing still does have its place, especially with, you know, more technical or industries or industries in the legal field or in the medical field. And and I think that its effectiveness just skyrockets when paired with, you know, authentic user driven content, you know, because a high production brand video can, you know, introduce your product, but a customer review or a testimonial is what's gonna give it that credibility or that oomph. And a social media campaign, it's the same thing. It can build awareness, but real user stories are gonna create that connection that's gonna give them a little something extra that maybe other people in that field that aren't willing to step outside. Those very legalistic boundaries, you know, might not have. It puts them a foot ahead of everyone else is what I've seen. Absolutely. You're right. Spot on, Alice. It's, the authenticity and the credibility of someone else speaking for you. And let's not overlook the employee community. Right? There's a direct correlation between employee engagement and profitability of a company. And so if employees feel like they can have a voice in in, in marketing or in any way with the company, that they all embrace it and that will really help. So yeah. Another thing too is look at your competitors. Even if you think, oh, my industry is way too buttoned up and we can't do that because of our industry, our industry, our industry. That's not true. There are there are companies out there that have found a way to balance it. But, back to what you said about, high production videos too. I agree. They they will always have a a spot and people enjoy those as well. And sometimes it'll it'll it's just nice tight message, but, yeah, UGC is is meant to supplement your marketing program. The ultimate question in all of that is how do we help brands balance that control, which, you know, traditional marketing give or take, with that authenticity in their marketing strategies? I mean, when you're first introducing someone to UGC, you know, is it more of a baby step thing? As you said, kind of like, hey. Let's go and make sure this town hall is recorded because you guys are gonna be here, and it's not gonna be high stakes. It'll just be nice to share internally if nothing else. Or with some clients, are you more aggressive with that approach where you see that there's a lot of potential, for UGC use and you just gotta make them dive in? What's your approach with that? Well, I know we're not talking about we're talking about the power of UGC, but we're also talking about market scale. And one of the big, the biggest best features of working with market scale is as a marketing director, I was fiercely protective of my brand. And with market scale, you don't lose control of the brand in that way. You get to review, and in one place, you and all the stakeholders can look at the same material at the same time and comment and enter and then comes just to some decisions. So I felt that was huge for me, because you're still using the UGC with your brand and saying, oh, this is, you know, what our employees or our resellers or our clients are saying about us. It's still coming from me as a marketing director. So that that's a a really strong, point about what we do here at Market Scale. Yeah. And speaking of leadership, I feel like many executives are used to that top down marketing model where, again, the content's going to be meticulously crafted. The idea of UGC can feel a little at odds with the structure, and I feel like make it hard for them to see how it fits in their existing workflows. So from your experience as someone in leadership, what would you say how do you get that executive buy in for UGC? From the my point of view, a marketing director will never tell you that they have a big enough budget. And so working with market scale and being able to empower multiple people to create content for you, is incredible because you just always need more and more and more. And we were talking about the traditional on-site video shoot. It's fabulous, but it takes a lot of, a lot of hours of planning and execution and then post production and things like that. Those are very big projects. And piece by piece, they're a little bit more not a little bit more. They're a lot more expensive than UGC. So being able to produce more content that will drive more leads, more brand awareness, whatever your goals are with your content, that's all you have to do is just show dollars per per views and and per leads and and, you know, all the other metrics that you have as a marketing director. It's really, really you can't really afford not to do this. Looking at the data alone that we have or even the outcomes we've seen with their clients that they've shared with us, occasionally, I get lucky enough that one of the clients that I work with will, you know, will be on a call and they'll go, hey. Did you know that, you know, folks in our sales pipeline are talking about the podcast that we've recently released, or this serial content we were putting. One of my clients literally told me they work in, medical industry, in surgical AI, and they told me that from posting to YouTube shorts, they made sales with a huge organization that they had been hoping to connect with eventually. Apparently, they had seen these YouTube shorts that they had made with their team, their clinical team while they were on the road just from the cars taking a video, and apparently that somehow reached their target audience which was the company they wanted to the organization they want to partner with, which then ended up resulting in a partnership. So it shows you that, quick sixty second video on your phone, in your car, on the way to work can be the difference between your company, you know, remaining where they are or taking the next step forward into where you want to be. Oh, it's incredible. It really is. And think about where people consume their information. You just mentioned YouTube. And a lot of generations aren't going to look for a television show and a television ad to get information about a product. And Mhmm. YouTube. I could stay on YouTube all day long and watch videos. So It's a dangerous place to be. I'll be like, I'm on my third podcast. It's fine. I'm I'm clicking while I listen. It's good. You know, we have clients. We have all worked with clients that are resistant to UGC, and that could be for a variety of reasons. One, obviously, like, the number one reason that comes to mind is, hey. You know, they just this isn't for them. They don't like it. But for a lot of clients, they want to take this step, but they feel constrained by the corporate structures. So say, hey. You know, we don't wanna say anything wrong on this podcast. We don't wanna say anything that might get us into trouble. They really, push back on, say, round tables or partnership content or collaborative content because they're worried about, again, the lack of control in these environments. When you look at that from, you know, your expertise and experience, what would you tell clients that they want to take that step, but but they're hesitant? They're not sure how they're gonna work around all the red tape. Again, I would say a test. Do something with lower risk. Maybe not engage with outside communities. Make it all your inside communities first. And I always tell people when they're brand new to to market scale, get in studio and make a video and you can get rid of it later. But as long as you get in there and you realize how easy it is and how wonderful it can be after we edit it in two business days or less, that to me is really proof just getting over that hump, practicing. You know? It's like almost the first time you do anything. Oh, I'm gonna cook a pizza or I'm gonna, I don't know, you know, ski or I wanna try wallpapering, things like that. You you're never gonna be your best the first time you do it. Some clients that they are some clients that are less comfortable with creating external content, they usually perform very well with internal content once they're pushed a bit. As you said, education, you know, doing creating videos for their internal teams, especially when you get into more technical industries. They constantly need, updates to their educational credits. They're constantly, creating updates internally to make sure everyone is aligned so there's no errors. And so they tend to perform very well in internal content even if they're not performing as well with, hey, look at this podcast, and we just went on with this person and talked about all the secrets of the industry, like everything they would hope doesn't happen. The focus on education can be really really good for them. And speaking of education though, you know, what role does internal education play in shifting a company's mindset? And then we realized, hey. You know, that's not where it ends. Market scale the role of the DMS is to constantly educate and to constantly provide strategy for our clients. How have you seen clients maybe become a little more flexible, as you've chatted with them on calls, as you've talked with them? They may not be taking any steps yet, but they're definitely warming up to the idea. I've had this feedback from multiple clients where I will cite some successes of our other clients. So I said, hey. Watch look. I'm sending you a link, and this company x did this cool video or they did a podcast or they used studio in this way for their internal communications. And the feedback I always get is, oh, I love that idea. Keep the ideas coming. I might not be able to do all of them, but, you know, just keep keep sending me the ideas. Because sometimes you don't hear back from them until you're in person, and they bring they'll bring it up. Oh, I love that idea you sent me, by the way. So people are getting a little bit out of their creative space. And then sometimes, they I had a client. They'd submitted some some, material for us, and our editing team was complete magic and really turned it into a remarkable piece. And so it was even better than the client expected. And then it was multiple people from their company just using I I talk with my hands. Just using their cell phone to record some video. So it it was that was a really cool thing too, but there's nothing like a case study that proves to a client what they are capable of. Definitely. And that actually leads into my next question I was gonna ask you. How do you see UGC evolving in the b to b market over the next couple of years? And as you said, data is such a huge player in that evolution because when you talk to someone who's used to an agency style of marketing, you know, they come from a background where everything you have data for everything. There's a spreadsheet for everything. There's an Excel document for everything you do from the budgets to how well post perform. And so I know that's one element of it, but are there other ways that you see that evolution occurring in the b to b market? How will that be how are we gonna make that a successful, leap? Well, what we're doing now at market scale is we're looking at our client's successes with metrics. So some of them have, increased their LinkedIn followership or they've shared, pipeline successes with us. So that information needs to become more of a mindset. We need to shift the mindset from, oh, UGC is good for b to c, but I'm a manufacturing company and I sell to other manufacturers. Why would I do that? Well, you should because it's just going to be that much more effective, and different people consume information in different ways. We talked about YouTube. Different younger generations are used to getting their information that way, and the younger generation is getting older, and they're getting more and more responsibility in in the world and in business. So we need to take a look at that, how they consume their information. Definitely. And I feel like for as long as, you know, marketing has been around, it was a one way street. Brands really controlled the message, the narrative, and that's just not how people engage anymore. As you said, with the advent of social media, you know, customers now shape the conversation in brands that this shift are the ones that are really thriving. And, again, it goes back to, you know, real people when they share their experiences, their voices are care going to carry a lot more weight than, you know, a brand kind of telling their audience, hey. This is what's good for you. And consumers, you know, there's been data that shows that consumers trust each other a lot more than they trust brands. And so customers are companies that embrace that reality. They don't just they stay relevant, but they're also building a stronger and more loyal community. They're growing from that. So I think the advent of social media also really changed the game for b to b markets, b to b marketing. A hundred percent. And it's it's almost a why not. It's a logical leap that if it's working for b to c, it can work for b to b. Definitely. And I guess my last question for you, and I know we touched on this here and there. So, it might be more of a summary at this point, but what advice would you give to a brand that would be hesitant to take the leap? I'd say look at the examples of people who have done it successfully. You can't afford not to do this anymore. Let's all adapt with change. There's change everywhere, our whole lives. Just try it. I love that. Just do it, Nike. Speaking of strong branding. Right. And that's a wrap for today's episode. Thanks so much for tuning in. We appreciate you spending your time with us. If you enjoyed the show, don't forget to share it with your friends. We'll be back next time with more great content. So until then, take care, stay curious, and we'll see you soon. Bye for now.