Five forms of user-generated content

Charities’ best advocates are often the beneficiaries and supporters who have witnessed the good work the organisation carries out first hand.

 

Such cheerleaders can also be staff and volunteers, who are working on the frontline of charities’ work.

 

Their storytelling of how charities have personally helped them adds authenticity and emotional clout to charity promotion.

 

This emotional connection can be deployed in several ways and across a variety of mediums, from social media and TV advertising to video diaries and social media takeovers.

 

Here we look at five of the most successful forms of user-generated content to help charities better connect with their audiences.

 

 

Social media takeovers

 

An increasingly popular form of user-generated content is for charities and their leaders to give over their social media accounts to users for a day or sometimes an entire week. Users then curate the content, to generate engaging storytelling and give their personal touch to posts.

 

This can be to share clips of their favourite music and celebrities as well as revealing how the charity has impacted on their lives.

 

One of the most high-profile examples was when female charity leaders handed over their social media accounts to Black and ethnic minority supporters and staff through the ‘Share the Mic’ anti-racism campaign in 2020.

 

This saw Black women taking over the running of the social media accounts of White female charity leaders, including Macmillan Cancer Support Chief Executive Lynda Thomas who handed her Twitter account to breast cancer survivor Sophia Jones.

 

Sophia successfully told the story of how Macmillan helped and counselled her as well as showing specific support from the charity’s helpline. This powerful storytelling offered social media users an emotional connection to Macmillan’s work that can arguably only be achieved through a first-hand account, such as Sophia’s.

 

 

Video diaries

 

Another key aspect of storytelling is the use of a video diaries, often filmed by a user on their phone over a week, months or years. This keeps charity supporters updated on how one user is being supported over time and in a variety of ways. The technique is often used by those being supported to overcome a medical issue, such as treatment for cancer, or recovering from a brain injury.

 

Among charities to successful deploy this technique is BBC Children in Need. An example is its serialisation of how the pandemic impacted on 9-year-old Barney, who has Tourette’s Syndrome.

 

Barney’s video diaries include chatting about his feelings about the health crisis and how BBC Children in Need, as well as the charity Tourette’s Action, are supporting him.

 

 

 

Case studies

 

One-off videos, as well as standalone blogs, featuring those helped by charities are another useful way to convey emotive story telling. This is a hugely popular technique among charities, with many also including video case studies to showcase on their websites and social media.

 

Charities adopting this approach include working age stroke survivors’ charity Different Strokes.

 

In keeping with the spirit of user generated content this author has been the subject of one of Different Strokes’ case study videos, after surviving a stroke three years ago.

 

In this video the charity’s interviewer simply asks me to explain my story and speaks rarely to steer the conversation. This is a technique she regularly employs to give space to the subjects to tell their story and deploy user generated content techniques into this piece of promotion for the charity.

 

 

 

Making user-generated content more than an add-on

 

Instead of including user-generated content within broader fundraising and marketing campaigning, charities can go one step further and make users and their storytelling the central focus.

 

This can be particularly effective in looking at the personal reasons why fundraisers want to raise money for good causes.

 

Cancer Research UK deployed this technique in promotion for its flagship fundraising event Race for Life in 2022. Promotion for this focused on the strapline “who will you race for?”, which focuses on the personal reasons for competitors to take part.

 

Promotion featuring their stories has been used across TV advertising, social media, radio, digital and billboard adverts.

 

“The vast majority of people who take part in Race For Life have a specific person in mind," said Creatives Jack Denyer and Niall Kerry from agency Anomaly, which devised the campaign.

 

“The names of loved, lost and those we want to protect have always been written on every racer’s back sign. But this year, we wanted to push that to the forefront.”

 

 

Hashtags

 

Hashtags are a great way for fundraisers and charity supporters to share their stories on social media and focuses on their shared experience of supporting a good cause. They can then engage with each other and push the charity’s messaging even further as they tell each other their stories.

 

Among successful charity campaigns to use hashtags to help users tell their stories is MacMillan Cancer Support’s annual #MacMillanCoffeeMorning fundraiser.