With the onset of social media and the prevalence of the camera-embedded smartphone, everyone’s an influencer, which means that you can’t escape user-generated content. There are 55.5 million smartphone owners in the UK: that’s 87% of all adults. Those cameras are everywhere, and so are the posts to Instagram.
As a professional photographer, whether you’re attending a wedding or a corporate event, you can be sure that a whole host of attendees will be taking their own photographs of the event at the same time. But what are the pros and cons of this user-generated content? Could it be beneficial to professional photographers to have so much user-generated content from an event? Let’s decide:
Pro: An Excellent Marketing Strategy
From the point of view of the event host and the marketeer, user-generated content is an excellent tool. It captures the fun of the event from the attendee's perspective, invoking positive emotions, instilling social proof, and creating a social media buzz around the event. The more unique users that share their user-generated content of your event, the bigger the buzz surrounding it and the greater the likelihood of it trending. From a marketeer's point of view then, user-generated content is a dream come true.
Con: Do Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth?
From a professional photographer's perspective, this enthusiasm is likely to be a little more tempered. It can be hard to get the shot you want when you have event attendees taking their own photos and creating their own content at the same time. This can be particularly difficult for wedding photographers that have a set list of images they need to secure, but they can’t get the shot because of the sea of other cameras (and camera phones) in the way.
Pro: Platforms to share photos are a Great Way to Capture Intimate Moments and a New Perspective
Even the very best photographer can’t be everywhere. If you’re busy capturing photos of the bride and groom with their families, then who is getting those shots of the groomsmen taking shots? User-generated content is a great way to get a new perspective on events. Even the most formal corporate events have moments of fun and joviality that the event organiser is going to want to see! This is one of the main benefits of user-generated content: it ensures that the event is caught on camera from every angle!
Con: Too Much Can Be Shared
Many private event hosts (such as a bride and groom) are reluctant to allow their guests to share their own user-generated content from the event, preferring to control which images are released and when. They don’t want to create a social media buzz around their wedding. And they don’t want their colleagues to see those photos of Auntie Beryl falling over after she’s had one too many! One way to avoid this, whilst still enabling guests to take their own photos, is to have an EventsAlbum for the event. This is a QR code-generated album that allows guests to easily and simply share their photos with the event host. That way, the host can see all those great photos, but the rest of the world doesn’t have to.
User-generated content can be massively beneficial for corporate and public events: It creates a social buzz that can increase brand awareness, ticket sales, and overall event enthusiasm. And the content can raise a smile no matter the event: what bride and groom don’t want to see their flower girls and page boys sneaking a cake under the table? Whilst user-generated content is almost always a good thing, it is the way it is shared and distributed that often needs greater control. As a photographer, finding a way to implement this control could result in happier customers, which means great reviews and more business.