Persuading a prospective customer to choose your business over a competitor’s is not as simple as telling them, “Hey, we’re the best!” You need them to hear those accolades from people other than your marketing team.
That’s why getting existing customers to echo the value of your product or service makes your marketing messages more believable and the primary way to acquire that “proof” is through user-generated content (UGC).
UGC—such as product reviews, unboxing videos, comparison posts, and how-to tutorials—that showcase positive experiences contribute significantly to spreading the good word about your brand and legitimizing your name in the social media space. If you’re looking to visualize your product development plans, you can also use a product roadmap template.
To learn more about how to solicit for UGC and encourage users or customers to share often, read all the way through this guide.
What is User-Generated Content?
If you have ever posted a picture of a product you bought on Instagram or left a positive review on a site like G2, then you have shared user-generated content.
UGC, aka customer-generated content, refers to photos, videos, or text featuring a brand’s product or service created and shared by people who use it. These people could either be loyal customers of the brand, in-house employees, or paid digital creators who offer to produce customer-like content in exchange for an agreed compensation.
UGC is ubiquitous on social media platforms like Instagram, X (Twitter), YouTube, and TikTok. It showcases how products and services work in real-world situations and can affirm a prospective customer’s decision to choose your products.
UGC shared on Instagram, YouTube, X (Twitter), and TikTok
UGC Value: How Does User-Generated Content Benefit Brands?
Since UGC is essentially a genuine and positive review by someone who enjoys using your product and is happy with the experience, it is an incredibly effective way to boost credibility and persuade prospective customers to trust your brand.
By showcasing the product in the hands of everyday people, UGC offers an honest and diverse perspective that a brand’s regular advertising cannot deliver. It creates a positive association with the brand and acts as a powerful endorsement when consumers are ready to buy.
Source: Stackla
Let’s explore these benefits:
- Reinforce credibility and build trust. UGC ranks the highest in trustworthiness, according to a 2023 report by TINT. Consumers perceive it to be more honest than brand-produced or influencer-sponsored content. It also doubles as positive word of mouth and social proof that increases people’s confidence in the value or effectiveness of your product.
- Grow your online community. Brands like Glossier, GoPro, and Traeger have built strong online communities by encouraging UGC. These brands created hashtag campaigns tied to specific brand values and frequently reshared customers’ content. By doing this, you too can establish an authentic connection with your audience, inspire them to participate, and connect with a larger community of advocates who will preach about your brand online.
- Increase product visibility. Through the participation and engagement that UGC drives, you can tremendously increase visibility on social media and beyond. Your product will show up in people’s feeds on multiple platforms even if you’re not active on those platforms.
- Drive sales with low-cost promotion. The founder of the DTC brand, Oklahoma Smokes, reported $14,000 in sales (in one day) from a single video posted by a customer that hit half a million views. In other words, a satisfied customer is your best marketer because they’ll sing your praises free of charge. UGC is also 8.7x more impactful in influencing purchasing decisions than the standard influencer content. So, when considering where to invest your marketing dollars, UGC should be at the top of your list.
- Save time on content production. With UGC, you get to spend fewer resources on producing content and let customers and fans create content for your brand. This is an excellent benefit, especially if you don’t have the capacity for in-house content creation. UGC can cut out the time spent during on-site shoots, conserve your budget, and still deliver highly engaging content.
How To: 6 Ways To Cultivate User-Generated Content Online
You already know that cultivating user-generated content can be beneficial for building brand credibility, driving sales, and reaching a wider audience on social media. But, getting customers to create and share content that will be used to market your brand comes with challenges.
Sometimes, the quality of content that customers share might not meet your standards. Other times, you have to deal with copyright issues. There’s also the possibility that customers are not even motivated to share content or you cannot effectively manage and moderate the content shared.
Here’s how to overcome these challenges and develop an effective user-generated content strategy.
- Ask customers to share how they use your product
The easiest way to legitimately gather user-generated content is to ask for it. You can send an outreach email to existing customers asking them to share their experience with your product, how it has helped them, and why they like using it.
Here’s one example of an email from a DTC brand, Bushbalm, requesting content a few days after the product was delivered.
You can also create an online catalog to showcase projects made by users and encourage them to tag you for a chance to be featured. Take a look at Squarespace’s Instagram Guide showcasing websites made by customers.
The prompt was simple: “Tag #MadeWithSquarespace or @Squarespace on content you create and we will share our favorites here on our page!”
As a reward for sharing, you can offer discounts, send free gifts, repost their content, and tag them. Showing appreciation to customers who contribute will encourage them to share more and you will gradually build a consistent stream of user-generated content.
- Launch a branded hashtag campaign
The reason why marketing experts talk a lot about Apple’s #shotoniphone campaign is that it set a legendary track record for accruing outstanding user-generated content. It employed elements that resembled gamification concepts, such as competition and recognition. This harnessed the intrinsic motivations of users to amplify its success.
If you want to run a hashtag campaign, here are our recommendations for successfully planning and executing it.
- Create a unique and relatable hashtag to encourage participation. Make sure your hashtag includes your brand name (e.g., #GoProAwards)
- Get your users inspired by kicking off with sample content that aligns with the campaign’s theme. This shows participants the acceptable standard for their own UGC
- Launch on platforms where your audience is most active and make sure your campaign is tailored to each platform
- Encourage people to participate by offering great incentives. Branded merch, gift vouchers, or cash rewards are some of the most popular incentives brands offer
- Regularly showcase the best UGC on your official social media accounts or a dedicated user-generated content hub
- Regularly interact with participants to establish a sense of community around the campaign
Here’s an example of how Notion launched a successful branded hashtag campaign:
The Notion team wanted to showcase projects built with their software. The main goal was to spark inspiration by creating a gallery to showcase how people use Notion Projects to turn ideas into reality.
Notice how they applied the same tips we just mentioned? Well, now it’s your turn!
- Host user-led or customer-driven events
This approach is pretty straightforward. Simply organize online events, then invite your power users to share their tips and tricks.
First, identify your most enthusiastic users and set up an ambassador program to establish a level of commitment from them. Start running webinars, user meetups, or workshops, and make sure each event is recorded.
During the events, encourage users to share their experiences in the form of presentations, videos, or interactive demos. You can also encourage attendees to post content on social media using a specific hashtag. Utilize this content to fuel your video marketing strategy.
- Get your employees involved
Employees are people, just like your users and customers. So yes, the content they create can be classified as UGC.
Make sure they are aligned with the company’s vision and feel like active participants in reaching milestones. This will naturally inspire them to talk about the product—it also sets a positive tone for employee advocacy across your company.
Offer workshops on social media best practices and personal branding to equip them with both skills and the confidence to effectively promote your products. Then empower them to share their authentic stories. Lastly, create a platform where they can share tutorials, tips, and tricks related to the product. This showcases their expertise, your product benefits, and provides value to customers.
- Work with UGC creators
If you are just starting out and don’t have a lot of real users yet, you can leverage agencies that specialize in connecting brands with content creators. These platforms help you find and access a network of creators with various levels of expertise in different niches.
You can define your brand requirements, such as the type of content you are looking for, the target audience, and the budget. The platform then matches you with creators who align with your criteria.
Once the UGC creators are onboard and compensation is agreed upon, create a detailed guideline to ensure that the content aligns with your tone, values, and objectives. Work with moderation tools to manage content and encourage creators to share their honest experiences while using the product. This authenticity will resonate well with audiences and build trust.
- Give customers a reason to be genuinely excited about your brand
To cultivate user-generated content organically, create a brand your customers are excited to tell other people about. This includes having a great product, beautiful packaging, and a brand story that deeply resonates with your target audience.
Unboxing videos, for example, are one of the best-performing content on social media because they offer an immersive experience built around a product that the customer is excited about.
Leveraging User-Generated Content: Examples Across Social Media
Coach Employee UGC on TikTok
Coach Tok is an account run by Brandon Nguyen, a retail employee at the luxury fashion house. It has amassed over 64,000 followers and 3.7m likes.
Nguyen, aka @branbran1997, dedicates all of his posts to reviewing and comparing all the luxury bags that the brand sells. Besides increasing the visibility of the brand’s range of products, this content goes in-depth on what makes each product stand out from the perspective of a luxury expert.
UGC for Canva on Reddit
A lot of people searching for software solutions turn to relevant subreddits for honest answers to their most pressing questions. As a result, discussion threads in these niche communities tend to organically promote products that the users consider to be effective.
For this user-generated feedback, a professional graphic designer shared his newfound love for Canva, particularly for creating social content.
Although he later added that he would stick to Adobe for all print designs and specific branding elements, other users in the thread emphasized that Canva works best for digital content creators and small business owners who just want to get their designs done without learning software as complex as Adobe. This clearly echoed the benefits Canva offers its target audience.
Spotify Wrapped dominates on Instagram Stories
Spotify knows how to deeply resonate with audiences and inspire users to share their stories across multiple channels.
Source: The Quint
To mark the end of the year, Spotify users take to Instagram Stories to share the top songs and artists they listened to during the year. In 2022, the campaign engaged more than 100 million people using the #spotifywrapped tag and was one of the most remarkable user-generated campaigns of all time.
User-Generated Content Risks: How To Avoid Blowback
Without a shred of doubt, UGC marketing delivers incredible results and is currently more impactful than influencer marketing, especially when executed properly.
To reap the full benefits, you need to avoid some of the common mistakes that other brands make when executing their user-generated content strategy. These are the major ones and what to do instead:
- Neglecting proper attribution. Give proper credit to the creator when you reshare their content. Tag their account and include their name in your caption. This not only shows appreciation but also makes the creator feel valued.
- Not asking for usage rights and permissions. Ask for explicit permission to use the creator’s content and specify how and where it will be used.
- Failing to moderate content. Set clear guidelines for the kind of content that is acceptable and use moderation tools to manage content submissions.
- Not engaging with contributors. Try to acknowledge content contributions even when you’re unable to feature or reshare the content. Leave comments or drop a like to let them know you see and appreciate their content.
- Failing to adequately measure impact. Set clear goals for your UGC campaign and focus on tracking KPIs that define success. Adjust your strategy based on the data and insights you gather.
Build Brand Visibility Beyond Traditional Advertising
We’re in an age of authenticity and UGC offers a real and relatable view of products through everyday people. It showcases genuine interactions with your brand and speaks directly to the audience. As an emerging or established brand, UGC can help build trust with potential customers while keeping existing customers engaged and loyal.
If you’re ready to build a booming online brand, Violet Deer is a small but powerful team that will drive growth for your brand through link-building, content creation, and PR.
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Kachi Eloka is a freelance SaaS writer for B2B MarTech companies and an excellent researcher who specializes in human-centered SEO content. She writes about search engine optimization, content operations, e-commerce, and social media marketing. In her free time, you’ll catch her watching films or reading fiction.
