Advertisers are missing the biggest opportunity associated with user-generated content. Here's how to tap into what really matters to consumers.

I want what I want when and where I want it. That's the common refrain among the user-generated content (UGC) crowd and those that service it.

The sentiment was -- and still is, to a large degree -- that the media landscape is evolving into a place where individuals are empowered to create whatever content they want for consumption by themselves, their peers and potentially the masses. One can have what he wants, where he wants it, when he wants it.

But creating content is not the same thing as having a desire for content unfettered by time and space. Creating content -- real content that is of a quality or kind that attracts more than just you and your friends -- requires a level of commitment and discipline that most people simply are not prepared to practice. It's one thing to catch your friend getting hit in the groin by a football using your mobile phone's video tool and post it to your Facebook page; it's quite another to develop Lonelygirl15 segments.

Content that is popular enough to attract attention from those who are not part of the audience -- namely, advertisers -- has a kind of structure and form that indicates intention. Whether a tool or content, what typically draws people is produced content.

Most people don't want to make content -- they want to control it. While there are probably more people who want to star in content than there are people willing to produce it, most people are satisfied being able to take the content they want and do with it what they like, where they like and when they like. In short, by focusing on the content the UGC crowd is generating, we are missing the real opportunity that the democratization of media production offers. Advertisers need to start taking a look at where the content is being taken and with what it is being taken.

Where the content is being taken is ultimately anybody's guess, but early signs indicate it is being taken to social networking sites and mobile devices -- and it is being taken via widgets of all types.

Social networking
Advertisers are paying attention to the social network space. But the way in which they are doing so is simplistic and relatively boring. On MySpace, many are simply buying low-CPM banners. Others are spending a more sizeable sum of money on low-CPM banners in order to buy MySpace's permission for a "branded community" site that features the brand as the hero of whatever promotion or narrative is set there.

These strategies are really no different than building a microsite on a publisher's site. But why do this if you already have a site? If you don't, then I suppose it's OK. But most major advertisers do have a site of their own. So what's the point? It's like buying a dog and doing your own barking.

The notion of the branded community lacks authenticity -- something that, while often spoken of and poorly defined, remains the motive of good advertising everywhere. Authenticity can be defined much in the same way that Justice Potter Stewart defined obscenity in 1964's Jacobellis v. Ohio Supreme Court decision: "I know it when I see it."

On Facebook, virtual word-of-mouth, along with ads on an individual's homepage, is what advertisers have at their disposal. There is user control over some advertising, but the opportunities for advertisers are fairly basic and "user friendly" for agencies. But advertisers need to go beyond these basic opportunities. They need to become part of what their audiences are doing with the content they make, manipulate or take ownership of. They need to blend themselves into a person's "flow experience" -- not interrupt it in the same way it's been interrupted by advertisers for decades.

As an advertiser, you should let people choose to have you be part of their content experience. For example, SocialVibe lets people take ads they like with them and embed them on their websites or social networking pages. Advertisers need to be part of a person's living engagement, not a distraction from it. If becoming a part of the content isn't appropriate, being what facilitates that content and its motion might be.

Widgets
Facilitating content is where being a widget sponsor -- or widget provider -- comes in. Sites like Gigya or Appsavvy can either facilitate the distribution of an advertiser's tool, or they can put advertisers in touch with a vast marketplace of tools that might be appropriate for a brand's objectives.

Widget makers are the ones that bring forth the commitment and discipline to create forums large enough to potentially register with audiences. After all, the bulk of a target audience's members are not making content -- they are taking content and bringing it with them wherever they go.

Media strategies editor Jim Meskauskas is vice president and director of online media for ICON International Inc., an Omnicom company.