Utilize User-Generated Content to Boost Facebook Community Engagement

On October 28th, 2020 I launched my Facebook community, Dog Lovers of Vero Beach, FL. As the community administrator and moderator, I have had a blast developing our group and watching it grow. Our community has now accumulated 420 members who genuinely LOVE dogs and our little sandy town. As a community, we enjoy posting pictures and videos of our dogs (usually up to no good!), funny dog-related memes, vet and grooming recommendations, local advisories, and general dog / Vero Beach related content. Recently I have began to worry about engagement because even though the number of members has continually increased, our group’s engagement has not. I have also noticed that many of the posts within our community are individualized, meaning individual members (including myself) post frequently but those posts are not bringing us together as a collective group. So, about 2 weeks ago I started doing research on user-generated content (UGC) and learning how I could utilize the information and techniques to boost engagement within my community.

Since I am dog-obsessed myself, I had so much fun researching topics and turning to other dog-related digital communities to find unique content that I could bring back to Dog Lovers of Vero Beach and hopefully invigorate our community engagement. I first utilized Instagram to conduct some research, I came across a dog’s Instagram account that had recently posted using the hashtag #MeetMyDogChallenge. The post included a photo of the dog and a caption where the dog (I am guessing their human helped them type) answered questions about themselves like their nickname, age, favorite snack, etc. I searched Instagram for the hashtag and found it been used on 1,900 posts, which I thought was impressive! Then I turned to Facebook, I searched the hashtag and found that it was even more popular with 200,000 posts about the #MeetMyDogChallenge. I looked through quite a few of the hashtagged posts on Facebook so I could learn more about the challenge and how people are responding. I decided this challenge was perfect for my community because it would encourage engagement and it would bring members together on one collective post! On November 28th, 2020 I posted the following to my community and I was shocked by the response.

Within a few hours, 44 members participated in the challenge and commented directly on the post! Overall, 68 members engaged with the post and we all had a lot of fun answering the questions about our fur babes and sharing pictures. This UGC challenge helped community members break out of their comfort zone and contribute to the group’s conversation in a relaxed setting and manner.

I believe there are a few techniques to successfully using UGC within a digital community to boost engagement. First, it is extremely important to conduct some research. Search for topics that will interest your community members using other platforms and groups. This is a great way to find unique content that will grab member’s attention and learn more about how others are responding to the content before posting it in your community! Another crucial aspect of utilizing UCG within a digital community is allowing members to be creative. It is important members feel empowered and free to discuss / post about what they think is interesting. As a new community administrator, I am still learning to be more flexible and patient. Another technique to implementing UGC within a Facebook community is to encourage member engagement but in a casual, relaxed fashion. Members should not feel pressured or obligated to engage with every post! Finally, I believe the most important technique to successfully utilizing UGC in a Facebook community is to participate yourself. Community administrators and moderators should lead by example! Participating in UGC including challenges, posts, games, etc. is extremely important because it shows community members you’re involved and the group is a safe & fun place to contribute. I have noticed that my participation as the community manager directly sparks member participation, so every act of engagement is important. Utilizing user-generated content is a fantastic way to boost engagement within a Facebook community and it provides a great opportunity for community managers to better connect with members.