Got some absurd new clothes that you lot're ready to evidence off to the world? Chances are you'll snap a pic and post it on your social profiles. Or maybe yous've received a fancy new product, and you lot post an unboxing video to your YouTube aqueduct? Whether you know it or not, both of these examples are user-generated content (UGC).

Not clued in just still? Don't worry, we've got you lot covered.

In this commodity, yous'll acquire what user-generated content is, plus a few other things:

  • sympathize the benefits of using UGC in your campaigns,
  • run across how big and small brands execute UGC,
  • Become actionable tips to help transform your user-generated content into more engagement and conversions for your brand.

Bonus: Read the step-by-step social media strategy guide with pro tips on how to grow your social media presence.

What is user-generated content?

User-generated content (also known as UGC or consumer-generated content) is original, brand-specific content created by customers and published on social media or other channels. UGC comes in many forms, including images, videos, reviews, a testimonial, or even a podcast.

An case of user-generated content from Calvin Klein.

Where does UGC content come up from?

Customers

Call back unboxing videos shared on TikTok or praise-filled posts on Instagram. Your customers are usually the most prominent cohort you'll look to gain UGC from, either because you lot've asked for information technology or because they've organically decided to share content about your brand.

Brand loyalists

Loyalists, advocates, or fans. However you label your most dedicated customers, they're typically the grouping that's most enthusiastic about your business. Since loyalists are and then passionate nearly worshiping at the modify of the brand, this audience segment is ripe to attain out to and inquire for specific UGC content.

Employees

Employee-generated content (EGC) shows the value and story behind your brand. For example, photos of employees packing or making up orders or a video of your squad talking about why they love working for your company. This behind-the-scenes content helps found brand identity and works across social and ads to showcase actuality.

Why is user-generated content of import?

UGC is used across all stages of the buyer's journey to help influence date and increase conversions. The customer-centric content can be used on social media and other channels, such as email, landing pages, or checkout pages.

Takes authenticity to the next level

Nowadays, brands have to fight to be seen online, and competition is violent for audience attention. Equally a result, buyers are more selective about the brands they interact with and purchase from, specially the notoriously fickle Gen-Z.

And information technology's not just consumers who are passionate about authentic content. lx% of marketers concur that authenticity and quality are equally important elements of successful content. And there'southward no other content type that's more authentic than UGC from your customers.

Don't exist tempted to imitation your user-generated posts or campaign. Audiences will apace sniff out the false sentiment, which could seriously damage your brand reputation. Instead, always ensure that your UGC comes from one of three cohorts: your customers, brand loyalists, or employees.

People ultimately trust other people, so it'south essential to think of UGC as the mod-day word of mouth.

And with consumers 2.4 times more likely to view user-generated content as accurate compared to content created by brands, the time to invest in an authenticity-driven social marketing strategy is now.

statistics on authenticity of user-generated content

Source: Business Wire

Helps establish brand loyalty and grows community

UGC gives customers a unique opportunity to participate in a brand's growth instead of beingness a spectator. This influences brand loyalty and analogousness in a big manner because people thrive off existence office of something greater than themselves, and creating UGC allows them to be part of a brand's community.

UGC also opens upwardly conversations between a make and consumer, and this level of brand interaction helps build and grow an engaged community.

Sharing audience content also works to develop and deepen audience/business concern relationships, driving more brand loyalty.

Acts as a trust indicate

Call back when Fyre Festival was marketed every bit an "immersive music festival over two transformative weekends," just the event was actually rain-soaked tents in a field with no electricity or food? This is why people don't trust marketers or advertisers.

In fact, just 9% of Americans trust mass media "a dandy deal," which is no surprise given the influx of fake news since the 2020 global pandemic.

Brands demand to work harder than ever to institute themselves equally trustworthy. And with 93% of marketers like-minded that consumers trust content created by customers more than content created past brands, this signals that UGC is the perfect format for businesses to level upward their trust score.

Audiences turn to UGC as a trust signal in the same way they'd ask their friends, family, or professional network for an opinion. Over 50% of millennials base of operations their decision to buy a product on recommendations from their family and friends, then this is where UGC can shine since it is precisely that: a personal recommendation.

Increase conversions and influence purchasing decisions

User-generated content is incredibly influential in the final stages of the buyer'southward journey, where you're looking to convert your audience and influence them into making a purchase.

UGC acts as accurate social proof that your product is worthy of buying. For example, your audience sees people just like them wearing or using your production, which influences them to decide to buy.

You can fifty-fifty show your non-homo customers using your product, as Casper does in this UGC postal service of Dean the Beagle.

Adaptable and flexible

UGC can be used off social in other marketing campaigns, making the strategy an omnichannel approach.

For example, you lot could add UGC images in an abandon cart email to assist nudge the prospective buyer to make a purchase or add user-generated content to key landing pages to assistance increase conversion rates.

Calvin Klein even created a landing page just for UGC content. By showing real examples of customers styling their Calvins, shoppers run into other consumers endorsing the make and showcasing how the products wait on actual humans instead of overly styled models.

More than cost-constructive than influencer marketing

The average price of hiring an influencer tin can see millions of dollars. The average cost of asking your customers to share posts of them enjoying your product? Side by side to nada.

UGC is a cost-constructive way to scale your business organisation and introduce a new marketing strategy to the mix. At that place's also no demand to invest dollars in hiring a flashy creative agency to produce make assets or content for your campaigns.

Simply connect with the most of import people in your business: your audience. Most will be excited to be featured on your aqueduct.

For smaller brands or those but starting out, UGC is cheaper and easier to manage than investing in larger-calibration brand awareness campaigns.

Works in harmony with social commerce

The time to come of online shopping is social commerce, a.k.a shopping direct on your favorite social channels. The main draw of social commerce is that it allows audiences to convert natively within a social media app, rather than going off-network to consummate a purchase.

Permit's say you're scrolling through Instagram and intermission on a cute new bathrobe. You tap to learn more about the product, decide to purchase, and complete the transaction in the app. That's social commerce in action.

UGC and social commerce work well together because UGC is influential in driving conversions. Near fourscore% of people say that UGC impacts their decision to purchase, making user-generated content and social commerce a lucifer fabricated in heaven.

Types of user-generated content

User-generated content is this season's must-accept strategy for social media marketers, and it comes in many styles and formats to assistance y'all observe the right fit for your brand.

  • Images
  • Videos
  • Social media content (e.thou., a Tweet most your brand)
  • Testimonials
  • Product reviews
  • Live streams
  • Blog posts
  • YouTube content

Best user-generated content examples

No matter their size, brands apply user-generated content to bulldoze awareness, increase conversions and social engagement, expand their reach, and cost-finer grow their business.

GoPro

Video equipment company GoPro uses UGC to sustain its YouTube channel, with its pinnacle three videos all originally filmed past customers. Equally of December 2021, those three videos have racked up over 400 million views combined.

Slap-up for content that cost GoPro goose egg to produce.

In fact, UGC for the company got then big, they now run their ain awards prove and promote daily photo challenges to inspire their consumers to go artistic.

Video UGC content for the GoPro YouTube channel.

LuluLemon

Not to exist confused with multi-level marketing visitor LuLaRoe, the Canadian athleisure brand LuluLemon is primarily known for its expensive leggings and yoga clothing. To increase company reach beyond social media, they asked followers and brand loyalists to share photos of themselves in LuluLemon garments using the #thesweatlife.

Not only did this result in a treasure-trove of hands searchable UGC content for LuLuLemon to repurpose, but it also organically expanded the visitor'due south make sensation and reach across social media every bit they shared content from brand ambassadors.

La Croix

In a similar strategy to LuluLemon, sparkling water make La Croix as well uses a hashtag (#LiveLaCroix) to mine for UGC on their social media channels. But, La Croix relies less on brand loyalists and shares content produced past anyone, no matter their follower count.

This makes their user-generated content hyper-relatable because audiences will see themselves reflected in these photos, rather than brand ambassadors or loyalists with higher follower counts.

Well Traveled

UGC isn't simply for larger, well-established brands. Smaller companies also use UGC in their social campaigns. Well Traveled is a community-driven travel brand that uses member-generated content to highlight the perks of membership, the quality of property partners, and other exclusive offerings from brand partners.

Well Traveled'south Director of Partnerships & Brand Marketing, Laura DeGomez, says, "as a service in such a visual industry, the "proof" provided by member content is immeasurable. The cute trips discovered, planned, and booked on Well Traveled are a phenomenal marketing and retention tool."

DeGomez uses UGC to not only visually appoint members or prospective members, but too to increment brand awareness, aggrandize attain, and build community.

She goes on to say, "no one tells our story better than our members. The Well Traveled community is the key hither, whenever we can permit their experiences shine, we do."

Copa90

User-generated content isn't limited to Instagram. Soccer media company Copa90 used UGC across Snapchat to enhance awareness about the 2018 FIFA World Cup held in Russia.

To connect with younger soccer fans, the visitor connected direct with them on Snapchat by sharing relevant and exciting story-driven UGC that made the audience feel they were present in Russia. They also encouraged their audition to "swipe up," which drove traffic from Snapchat to other channels.

Copa90's UGC Snapchat campaign

The result? A massive 31 million unique users over the space of 45 days, with 40% of viewers swiping up to view more.

User-generated content tips

Always request permission

Consent to share content is mandatory. Always ask before republishing or using a customer's content.

People may utilise your branded hashtags without necessarily knowing you've tied them to a user-generated content campaign. Unfortunately, re-sharing that content without explicit permission is a surefire way to kill goodwill and annoy some of your best make advocates.

When you ask permission, y'all show the original poster that you capeesh their content and get them excited most sharing their postal service with your audience. You besides keep yourself out of hot water regarding copyright concerns.

Credit the original creator

When yous share user-generated content on your social media channels, make sure to give clear credit to the original creator. This includes tagging them directly in the mail service and indicating whether you're using their visuals, words, or both. Ever give credit where credit is due.

London way brand Lazy Oaf crediting the original poster of the image.

If you program to share user-generated content across social media platforms, cheque for how the creator wants to be credited on the various channels. For case, if y'all want to share a photo from Instagram on your Facebook page, inquire the original creator if they accept a Facebook page you could tag.

Providing proper credit is an important way to recognize the work of content creators and helps make sure they stay excited about using and posting about your brand.

It has the added benefit of making information technology easy for fans and followers to verify that the content truly was created by someone outside of your firm.

Exist clear nigh what kind of content yous're looking for

UGC creators desire you lot to share their content. That means they want you to tell them what kind of content yous're most likely to share.

Simply xvi%t of brands offer clear guidelines on what kind of user-generated content they desire fans to create and share, just more than one-half of consumers desire brands to tell them exactly what to do when it comes to UGC. So don't be agape to get specific and brand information technology easy for people to share content that fits your needs.

Be strategic and set goals

How will y'all know what type of UGC content to inquire for if you don't know how information technology fits in with your campaign strategy? Sure, it'southward nice when people tag you lot in pretty pictures, but how can you use that content to back up your marketing goals?

Firstly, sit with your social media strategy certificate and look for ways UGC aligns with your existing marketing goals. Then, create a elementary statement based on that information that tells users specifically what kind of content you lot're nearly likely to feature.

In one case y'all have a clear UGC inquire, share it anywhere people are likely to interact with your make:

  • your social channels bios,
  • in other user-generated content social media posts,
  • on your website,
  • in your physical location,
  • or even on your product packaging.

UGC strategy goes beyond agreement the types of content you need from your customers. You besides demand to align your UGC campaign with broader social media goals.

For example, are you looking to increase brand awareness or drive more than conversions (or both?)

Measure the success of your campaigns using a tool like Hootsuite Analytics or a social listening tool such as Hootsuite Insights to understand brand sentiment and trust.

The brusque video below shows how Hootsuite Insights can prove yous your brand sentiment, amongst other valuable metrics.

Become a Free Demo

If you lot're serious near scaling UGC, invest in a UGC direction platform such as TINT to assistance uncover relevant user-generated content and insights for your campaigns.

User-generated content tools

Looking for more tools to help you craft authentic and compelling user-generated content? Hither's our choice of the bunch:

  1. Hootsuite Streams
  2. TINT
  3. Chute

Ready to start displaying accurate user-generated content beyond your social channels? Employ Hootsuite to help manage your campaigns with our advanced Streams, Analytics, Insights, and integrations with TINT and Chute.

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