In the age of social media, people are demanding more from brands they are affiliated with. They want to see their favorite content, whether that be a blog post, an article, or a gallery image, and have it delivered to them in a timely manner. This is where user-generated content (UGC) comes in.
But what exactly is UGC?
Well, it’s the content that you and your team create but that users actively engage with, share, and contribute to online.
In other words, it’s content that the average person comes up with, but that brands can take credit for because it’s brand-approved content.
Consider that copywriting is part of the media mix that makes up a successful brand’s content marketing plan. When you write blog posts and product descriptions, you’re essentially marketing a business. However, you’re not writing for a selected group of people — you’re writing for an audience that may or may not be familiar with the brand. Therefore, your goal as a copywriter is to make sure that the reader understands what the brand is, what it does, and–perhaps most importantly–why they need it. In the case of User Generated Content, the person reading your blog post or following your instruction is the user. This is why we need to pay extra attention to the way we present our content to be understood by as many people as possible.
Why Should I care about Avatars in Copywriting?
Have you ever shopped at Forever 21? If so, then you may have noticed that the clothing store’s website is extremely easy to navigate. In fact, it’s almost too easy. When you click on an item of clothing, a larger photo pops up and allows you to easily see the size and colors.
This is because Forever 21 has created a virtual store in which photos of the items on display are represented by tiny, 2D avatars. Thanks to a team of copywriters and designers who worked together to make this happen. Once you’ve landed on the Forever 21 website, you don’t feel like you’ve truly landed on a website at all. Instead, you feel like you’ve fallen into a virtual shop where you can literally click on anything and get what you want instantly.
In the same way, when shoppers visit a website that uses avatars, they don’t feel like they’ve actually landed on a website. They feel like they’ve fallen into a magical land of clickable products that they can navigate simply by moving their mouse around.
How can I create an avatar-friendly experience for my users?
Forever 21’s website is a great example of an avatar-friendly experience. As a copywriter, how can you ensure that your own website offers a similar experience to your users?
The answer lies in user testing.
When you’re working on a new project and need a fresh set of eyes to give you feedback, turn to your users for help. Ask them to visit your site and give you feedback about how they find the experience. By listening to, and acting on, these user’s comments and suggestions, you can ensure that your own site offers an optimal experience to future visitors.
For example, if you notice that a lot of your users are having trouble finding your products, especially if they’re not easily identifiable as being from your brand, you may want to consider changing the way you display your products. Make them more discoverable by using SEO to gain a higher ranking for product searches. You can also experiment with the format of your page to see if there’s a better way to display your products that’ll make them more accessible to your audience.
What should I keep in mind while creating an avatar-friendly experience?
While it’s great to give your users an incredible experience when they visit your site, you don’t want to lose track of why they’re there in the first place. Your avatar-friendly experience shouldn’t be a complete free-for-all. If you want to retain your users, you need to keep some of the barriers between them and the products they’re looking for. This means keeping some of the navigation bars on your site or adding a shopping cart to your page. In doing so, you can reduce the amount of time and effort your users need to spend in order to complete a purchase. This will increase your user’s engagement with your website and increase the likelihood of them coming back for more.
If you want to become the go-to source for your industry, you need to take the time to understand your customers’ needs, wants, and motivations. At the end of the day, your users will always come back to you because you provide them with value. So, how are you adding value to their lives? How are you making their experience better? To answer these questions, you must understand context. What’s the background of my user? Where do they come from? What do they want? How can I best satisfy their needs?
With these questions in mind, you can craft a compelling narrative that’ll keep your users coming back for more. The key to effective copywriting isn’t just putting words in your readers’ mouths; it’s making sure that your words make sense in the context of the storyline you’re trying to tell. This is the golden rule of copywriting;
If you want to create an avatar-friendly experience on your site, keep the following in mind:
1. Make It Easy To Navigate.
While it’s great that you want to provide your users with the best possible experience when they visit your website, you must remember that they’re still users and are therefore not as familiar with your website as you are. This is why it’s important to make navigation as clear and easy as possible. If you can get to the point of purchasing products simply by clicking or tapping on items, without ever feeling lost or confused by overly complicated navigation, you’ll create an outstanding experience for your users.
Another important thing to keep in mind is that your users will likely be using an iPad or similar tablet device to view your website. If you’ve never designed for mobile phones, you may struggle with how to make your website look good on small screens. Luckily, there are a few tips and tricks you can use to ensure that your website looks the same no matter what screen your user is on.
Firstly, use a responsive web design. This means that the website will automatically resize itself to fit any screen size. Whenever you make modifications to your site’s copy, test out the changes on different devices to see how they look.
2. Keep Them Interested.
When users click on an item of clothing or similar item in your website’s navigation, they should not feel like they’ve wandered into a random shop. Instead, they should feel like they’ve accidentally stumbled upon a virtual boutique that they can navigate with ease. To achieve this, keep your product descriptions up-to-date, add videos or other images that relate to what they’re reading, and use hyperlinks to easily move around your website pages. By adding a bit of adventure to the process, you’ll keep your users interested and coming back for more.
3. Make It Social.
With the rise of social media, users expect to see a personal touch in everything they do. When users come across a business account on social media that isn’t followed by a human, they assume that the account is fake. Since nobody wants to deal with spam anymore, you can bet that your business will get more engagement on social media than on a plain old website.
To create an avatar-friendly experience, you can design your website’s social media profiles to look like everyday, real-life Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts. Designing avatar-friendly social media profiles ensures that your business’ Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts appear as realistic as possible, even when viewed through a tiny 2D avatar.
Although your website is your marketing and sales tool, social media is the best way to engage with your future customers. Designing realistic social media profiles means that you’re setting the right tone from the start and can ensure that you convey the right message to the right person at the right time.
But don’t just use social media to promote your products. Use the accounts you design to engage with your users about topics that are valuable to them. Whether you offer technical support or customer service or you just want to engage with your audience about a specific topic, design a Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram account for this specific purpose.