How to get viral on International Photo Day

Once upon a time, content marketing was mostly about blog posts, but fortunately things have changed. Today, visual content is the center of the digital marketing strategy for many brands. August 19 it’s International Photo Day, and of course you should celebrate. 🎉 Involve your customers and let them know how they can be a part of your community. Here is how you can leverage on this special occasion with a viral campaign.

1. Decide on a theme 🎨

Brainstorm different themes, suitable to your customers and your products. This is the fun part, think outside the box! Setting a specific content theme could make it easier for your customers to be creative and participate. It’s also an opportunity to collect content out of the ordinary.

Examples of themes:

• Ask your customers to post a photo in their Instagram Stories about their latest purchase or favorite product. Let them post it from their own accounts, you can re-post it later from your main account. Double viral effect!
• Set a color theme and ask your customers to share their best photos of a product in the color you’ve chosen.
• Everyone loves selfies! Let your customers post a selfie of themselves and their favorite product, and choose the person who submits the best, funniest or most creative photo as the winner.
• Can your products be used in different ways? Involve your customers, let them come up with new and fun ways of using your products. Choose the most creative or unique idea as the winning submission.

2. Find a prize 🏆

A great UGC strategy is a strategy that makes your customers want to be part of your community by their own free will. Because they love your brand.

But a contest is not a contest without a prize. Make it a good one! If participating is complicated or requires several steps, the value of the prize will be even more important. The reward should outweigh the effort.

3. Share the instructions 📣

Let your customers know which hashtag or handle they should use to tag their photos and what kind of content they should post (depending on your theme in step 1) to be featured on your website or in your social media channels. Do this in several different places to make sure your contest won’t go unseen.

Write the instructions to participate in a simple manner. The fewer steps, the better. Create a banner with your campaign hashtag or handle or just write it as a short sentence and display it on your website or in emails. Be creative!

Include an example of what type of submissions you’re looking for, so your customers know they’re on the right track.

Some different places where you can include your instructions:

Your Instagram biography
Your website
Order confirmations
Delivery confirmations
Online receipts
Emails and newsletters
Stickers or leaflets
On the outside of the package
“Thank you page” after a purchase

Encourage submissions often and continuously:

Make sure you tell your community about your contest in different channels and not just on Instagram. There are different ways you can say it, some examples (replace with your own hashtag):

“Use @yourusername to be featured in our social channels and on our website”
“Tag your best photos with #yourhashtag to be featured on Instagram and on our website”
“Share your best moments with us and be a [your brand] star, use #yourhashtag”
“Use @yourusername and #yourhashtag on your photos to get featured in our channels!”

Don’t be afraid of using emojis, and remember to show your customers how important they are.

4. Stay engaged 💻

A campaign won’t become viral by itself. To boost your organic reach it’s vital to continuously reply to the comments and submissions for your contest. The more interactions, the better reach. This applies to most social media platforms, with some modification. Use a UGC tool like Flowbox to monitor the activity and collect the photos.

5. Choose a winner 🏅

A contest, opposed to your always-on UGC marketing, has a deadline. Be generous and give your customers enough time to create and share their content. Your objective is to create as much online engagement and collect as much content as possible.

Feature the winner on your social media accounts, and be sure to share the winning submission.

And now what?

It’s not over until it’s over. Now you’ve collected a lot of great user-generated photos so of course you want to make the most of it. Save the submitted photos and organize them neatly in your UGC platform. Make sure to ask the creators for permission to re-post their photos, if you didn’t do this in the submission phase. Share the content on your website or product pages to inspire other customers!

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