Creativity is in greater demand than ever. With endless marketing channels, digital marketers are struggling to avoid content fatigue while upholding a strong omnichannel presence.

Brands can pare down their social presence by targeting the channels that their ideal customers are active on (i.e., looking at social media network demographics, behavior, etc.) Nonetheless, marketers are still struggling to keep creative production costs down while producing enough relevant and timely content to cut through the social clutter.

While the popularity of emerging social networks is putting more pressure on marketers to develop content, social media can also help solve for the disparity it’s created between creative supply and demand.

How does social media help you scale content creation at a lower cost? Here are three ways to save on creative production costs by using social media effectively.

1. Tap Your Brand Advocates

Whether you’ve identified your brand advocates or not, it’s likely that you have more than a few in your midst. Brand advocates are real customers who serve as your social media cheerleaders. They are posting photos of your products and writing about your brand. They serve as your word-of-mouth megaphones, helping you to generate more trust and social proof among their peers. If you haven’t already, it’s time to start collaborating with them on content creation. Send them free products and discounts and ask them to share with their social following.

2. Re-post Real Customer Content on Social

Repost and re-tweet social media content to show how customers are using your products post-purchase. Instagram is a good place to get started. Brands can use it as an online catalog of how current customers stylize products to inspire new customers to buy. Reposts are an easy way to generate brand awareness, expand your reach, and to make sure that your branded hashtag is seen on social. Customer photos of your products are the purest form of earned media, just be sure to give attribution to your customers when you choose to share.

3. Permission Fan Content for Future Marketing Initiatives

If you want to start collecting fan content to use on your other marketing channels (which is likely once you see some of the fantastic photos that your customers are posting about you), you’ll need to adopt a customer-centric mentality of photo rights management. This means getting explicit permission from customers if you want to use their photos in your marketing. The process of obtaining photo rights serves a dual purpose. In addition to securing photo rights, it allows brands to engage directly with their customers. These conversations might help you formalize a social influencer relationship or just serve as a personalized customer touch-point.

Creative production doesn’t have to cost you an arm and a leg (and a nervous breakdown.) Customers are already posting high-quality photos about the brands and products that they love. With their permission, you can unlock a giant pool of crowd-sourced, authentic content to meet your content needs and to re-use across future marketing initiatives.