Purpose Driven UGC

Over the past few months, some of our clients have had some great success stories with purpose driven UGC. Purpose driven UGC is when the station makes a call to action to the audience, asking them to submit images/videos related to a particular topic. WGCL, in Atlanta, asked people to send in content related to a story on jet chemtrails. The result was simply amazing, over 1500 images/videos came into the station in less than 24 hours. Check out more on the chemtrail story here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o4NNLN_BpU

Here are a few best practices for purpose driven UGC:

• Be specific: When asking your audience to share their images/videos, make sure to tell them exactly what you are looking for.
• Make it easy: Allow the audience to send in content from their mobile devices or through email.
• Create a channel: Put all of the content in a specific channel, so the audience can find it easily.

CNN iReport has created an assignment desk, where they are looking for topics from all over the world. Currently they want to know more about the unrest in Libya and upcoming hurricane Irene. Local stations can do the same thing, just make sure to keep the topics broad and pick stories that would lend themselves to photos and videos from your audience. For more ideas head over to the Assignment desk: http://ireport.cnn.com/community/assignment