Pointers on how to start and grow a UGC site?

[Krass]

Hi, it's been quite an adventure these 2 months. I have started an online business selling beauty products, when that didn't do well I transitioned to selling dresses for women (i know) with a girl partner and now making some cash.

Met a few contacts along the way (interesting how often this happens), and we've partnered up to build an ecomm site targeting beauty and fashion. They put me in charge of marketing, so I've been busy doing the usual stuff ie SEO, FB post bots, IG follower bots, etc. Things are taking off, managed to get some people to invest. Small sums so far, $10k and $30k.

I've been thinking about creating a user-generated content site. I saw an article the other day about fashion sites getting their users to submit photos of themselves showcasing their style. anyone have any experience with this? What scripts to use, how to get the ball rolling, etc?

 

[Ryuzaki]

I'd try to purchase a powerful domain from auction or a full site that's already completed from someone. I'd then start reaching out to every fashion blogger ever and tell them that they can submit content to it for a backlink and traffic or whatever the draw is. That'll spread. Make pages that say "write for us" "guest post" etc, so that footprint appears in google. Lots of people should start reaching out for that. You'll want to moderate it all and make sure you're not letting links go out to sites that will get you in trouble, plus you'll want to make sure the posts are quality.

You could allow people to register and post it themselves, and set it all to go into moderation, that way they are doing all of the formatting of the posts. Or you can just accept emails and format them yourself. I'm not sure of any way you'll be able to automate the whole process without human intervention.

Other options are discussion forums, such as this one.

 

[mind_dust]

Ryuzaki's instructions would be great for a fashion information site, but it sounds like you want users to submit photos.

I use something similar to what you're thinking of, built from what I saw UO use.

Basically you ask users to submit photos to IG using your tags and then pull that feed into a page on your site.

Users are awarded discounts for submittals, which are then applied after proof of the post is submitted in store. That works for me since I have a brick and mortar, but I really can't offer any advice as to how to track customer/ugc post.

 

[Krass]

I'd try to purchase a powerful domain from auction or a full site that's already completed from someone. I'd then start reaching out to every fashion blogger ever and tell them that they can submit content to it for a backlink and traffic or whatever the draw is. That'll spread. Make pages that say "write for us" "guest post" etc, so that footprint appears in google. Lots of people should start reaching out for that. You'll want to moderate it all and make sure you're not letting links go out to sites that will get you in trouble, plus you'll want to make sure the posts are quality.

You could allow people to register and post it themselves, and set it all to go into moderation, that way they are doing all of the formatting of the posts. Or you can just accept emails and format them yourself. I'm not sure of any way you'll be able to automate the whole process without human intervention.

Other options are discussion forums, such as this one.

Great suggestions. I'm already on it. Built a site just using a wordpress install with a reddit-like script. I'm using FB post scheduler script to post on all FB groups with "blogger" in the title. The carrot in this case is just to "ping" their blog for search engines. You won't believe how many bloggers think this helps them get ranked.

Ryuzaki's instructions would be great for a fashion information site, but it sounds like you want users to submit photos.

I use something similar to what you're thinking of, built from what I saw UO use.

Basically you ask users to submit photos to IG using your tags and then pull that feed into a page on your site.

Users are awarded discounts for submittals, which are then applied after proof of the post is submitted in store. That works for me since I have a brick and mortar, but I really can't offer any advice as to how to track customer/ugc post.

this is perfect. I do have a photo competition planned for later. Just for wannabe models to get exposure. Again, perfect. Thanks!

 

[Krass]

Update:
So far only 1 blogger submitted a post on my reddit clone site. Hmm i expected bloggers to jump on this, seeing that most of them are hungry for traffic and backlinks.

I'll try to reach out to them personally and see how that goes.

 

[Flex]

Do you have a bot or anything automating posting of seed content and user activity? That's a key point for initial traction with these types of things.

 

[algospider]

Do you have a bot or anything automating posting of seed content and user activity? That's a key point for initial traction with these types of things.

Any plugins for wordpress or software, which you could recommend?

 

[Ryuzaki]

Any plugins for wordpress or software, which you could recommend?

I have seen Wordpress plugins that you can load with spintax comments and it'll post them across your various posts. I doubt that's really going to help though, as they won't be very targeted. Same concept goes for submitting posts to the reddit clone site, etc.

What I'd do is hire a VA to submit posts and create various accounts, or I'd go to Microworkers and have each knucklehead sign up and make a post. Possibly allow each person to do it 3 to 5 times. That'd be cheapest, and you could enforce a level of quality this way.

If you've got the cash, you can always hit up a team like Word Agents to pre-populate it.

A third option is to go get a six-pack, put on a movie or your favorite album, and just go at it.

The main point is, spintax or barely legible English may work against you.

 

[Krass]

i'm not building the site on wordpress. I'm using a different cms. hotaru, if anyone's familiar with it. I guess I'll just have to do it manually. I need to get the votes up to at least the hundreds for people to take notice.

 

[algospider]

I have seen Wordpress plugins that you can load with spintax comments and it'll post them across your various posts. I doubt that's really going to help though, as they won't be very targeted. Same concept goes for submitting posts to the reddit clone site, etc.

What I'd do is hire a VA to submit posts and create various accounts, or I'd go to Microworkers and have each knucklehead sign up and make a post. Possibly allow each person to do it 3 to 5 times. That'd be cheapest, and you could enforce a level of quality this way.

If you've got the cash, you can always hit up a team like Word Agents to pre-populate it.

A third option is to go get a six-pack, put on a movie or your favorite album, and just go at it.

The main point is, spintax or barely legible English may work against you.

Thx for your answer @Ryuzaki!
Are there any CMS out there, which target the creation of UG content sites?
Is there a specific wordpress plugin that you recommend?

 

[juliantrueflynn]

I'm working on a better version but WordPress Hype Generator works/helps a lot to get the conversation started. All you do is load up your comments and it will spread them across all the posts.

 

[HernanCrespo]

UGC is very tough, people are not just going to create an account at your site and share their styles in my experience. Focus your time on other things. Better to leverage big Pinterest accounts/boards and also have a look at sites like weheartit.com, wanelo.com, fancy.com.

I have a strong fashion account on Pinterest (26K followers and pretty active). If you want me to repin some stuff, just send me a message.

 

[MetaData]

So you just need to crack the "why" of people who post or share anything online.

Imgur is a good example. Initially, just a place to host photos for convenience. Now, people spend thousands of man hours a day creating content for magical internet points. It started as a handy little service then took a life of it's own. Flickr, too. Is there a way you can provide a service to your users that benefits them, as well as you? How can you encourage them to WANT to upload content to your site?

Is there a way that you can gamify the whole process of people creating content for you?

It all comes back to ego. If you can reward the ego of your users in a meaningful way, they'll be the best content team you'll ever find.

Buzzfeed is a good example of a site that slaughters with user created content. There are tons of them. Study them, especially the ones in your niche. Why do people submit to them? What do these people gain? How can you try to emulate that experience?

Contrary to what @Ryuzaki suggested, I think you should take yourself out of the whole IM mindset of people submitting content in exchange for backlinks, and look at the people who create and submit content to all of these huge properties that don't even their own site to link to. You need to think beyond just people scraping the web for guest post opportunities and create a real sense of community.

 

[Krass]

So you just need to crack the "why" of people who post or share anything online.

Imgur is a good example. Initially, just a place to host photos for convenience. Now, people spend thousands of man hours a day creating content for magical internet points. It started as a handy little service then took a life of it's own. Flickr, too. Is there a way you can provide a service to your users that benefits them, as well as you? How can you encourage them to WANT to upload content to your site?

Is there a way that you can gamify the whole process of people creating content for you?

It all comes back to ego. If you can reward the ego of your users in a meaningful way, they'll be the best content team you'll ever find.

Buzzfeed is a good example of a site that slaughters with user created content. There are tons of them. Study them, especially the ones in your niche. Why do people submit to them? What do these people gain? How can you try to emulate that experience?

Contrary to what @Ryuzaki suggested, I think you should take yourself out of the whole IM mindset of people submitting content in exchange for backlinks, and look at the people who create and submit content to all of these huge properties that don't even their own site to link to. You need to think beyond just people scraping the web for guest post opportunities and create a real sense of community.

Yep, I've been cracking my head trying to figure this out too. The latest development of this is when I met a dude who's into rare books. They have a small, tight-knit community, very passionate about the subject. But then the niche is too small.

The opportunity is that they're not tech-savvy, so maybe I can make a reddit-like voting website for them to vote and comment on rare books. They're mostly active on FB groups, but it's very limited in terms of functionality.

I've read how etsy appealed to the feminist, anti-consumerism crowd and made it easier for them to sell their home-made wares. That took off like a beast.

Or maybe go broader? Religion? Politics? Sexual orientation? Gender equality? I don't know. Still trying to crack this nut..