5 Guys didn't use to do any advertising at all.

David Griner of Adweek interviewed Marketing VP Molly Catalano on how the burger-chain went from word-of-mouth only marketing strategy to embracing online platforms for promotion.

The most interesting thing we thought, was that a big part of their Instagram success was user-generated content – that means, using photos from their visitors.

It's easy to imagine in this new era of Instagram glamour that to do well on Instagram one needs professional photographers, polished photos, and pretty people.

It's not true actually. This is what Catalano had to say about it

But now people take pictures of every single meal. And amazingly, people take good photos of our burgers. In social, we use mostly user-generated content.

People do a good job. It looks real, because it is. We didn’t stage it. It’s not perfectly placed. So it’s actually been really good for us.

This is also true for music and selling tickets. While sure we might all like the latest hot glamour shot of our icon, as in the perfect burger, somehow it's much more relatable when we see a photo from someone we could have just as well taken ourselves which also has a much more powerful effect of "dang. I could really go for a giant messy burger right about now".

We've found the same is true when pushing for ticket sales. The glamour shot of the icon, this time the actual music icon, certainly is more polished than the sweaty selfies from the masses. But as someone who may want to become said dishevelled audience member – it's not only more relatable to see everybody else having a great time at a show, it´s also massively more persuasive.

So gogoTip of the week for those selling tickets → is there a way for you to incorporate audience or fan photos in your social media strategy?