When people search for products or services online, they tend to interact with both paid advertising and reviews, such as those posted on social media. In practice, people are more inclined to believe honest reviews than annoying adverts. The tendency to rely on real stories rather than picture-perfect reviews in the midst of digital noise is natural and normal.
This explains why many digital marketers today are increasingly favouring a UGC (User Generated Content) approach. It's no longer just a trend, but something of a new standard of communication between consumers and brands. Working as a digital kind of word of mouth, user-generated content (UGC) is a powerful tool to promote businesses in various niches. After reading this article, you will learn what is UGC, how to use it to attract potential customers, what challenges you will face, and what is the future of UGC in marketing.
As the name implies, (UGC) user generated content is reviews left by those who have used a brand's products or services. It can come in any format including social media posts, photos, videos, text reviews and even memes created by real customers. The core feature here is that people share their genuine emotions, which explains why user generated content is important.
While brands strive to build trust with their audiences, people - for the most part - trust each other, not companies. According to a recent study by BrightLocal, only 2% of consumers don't read reviews before making a purchase. In addition, BusinessWire states that 67% of users abandon a purchase when faced with negative reviews. This clearly demonstrates how important user-generated content is. Moreover, by utilising UGC, marketers can save on content development and build a real connection with potential customers.
Paid adverts from search engines and advertising networks on social media bore today's users. They don't trust content where everything looks too perfect to be true. Since they want to see real stories and genuine emotions, it is hard to overestimate the importance of UGC here.
People are organised in such a way that they trust ordinary people just like them more. For example, a photo of a customer with your product posted on Instagram looks much more convincing than a photo taken during a professional photo shoot. With Millennials and Gen Z making up the lion's share of many online brands' audiences - who are sceptical of traditional advertising - raw and unfiltered content is becoming increasingly important in marketing.
It's crucial for modern users to feel part of the brand they interact with, and customer-generated content helps create a strong emotional connection. It works as follows:
· Brands create content with hashtags and invite their customers to share these hashtags to encourage mass engagement with campaigns.
· By publishing the stories of its users, the brand demonstrates how it values its customers.
· Through UGC in the form of unboxings, reviews and testimonials, brands convince new customers of the quality and usefulness of their products (i.e., using social proof to effectively promote products).
So, the ability to increase engagement through unique stories that evoke trust is one of the most important user-generated content benefits.
Marketers looking to maximise audience engagement and conversions may be overlooking the voice of the customer as perhaps the most valuable asset today. If you have at least one way to communicate with your users, you can develop a UGC strategy that will resonate with your audience and lead to meaningful results. With cost-effectiveness, increased trust, great community-building opportunities, and benefits for SEO, user-generated content can be part of your broader marketing plan.
The first thing a marketer looking to harness the power of UGC should do is make it easy and attractive for users to participate. The benefit and enjoyment customers get when they post reviews of your products are the biggest motivators for them. If you're looking for effective ways to inspire your audience, here are some time-tested options:
· Offer rewards through promotions or contests such as discounts, exclusive access to promoted products or giveaways. The idea here is that the user gets something in return for their efforts in writing a review or posting a photo review, and it makes the process of creating user-generated content more engaging.
· Create opportunities for your customers to be creative. Starbucks is a good example here with its annual RedCupContest campaign where participants can share unique photos of their festive cups.
· Select the best testimonials from your customers thereby recognising their contributions. For instance, by posting the best photos on your brand's official pages, you create a sense of belonging for your audience thereby further incentivising users to participate.
· Simplify participation in your UGC campaigns. The easier it is for users to post reviews or perform other actions, the more likely they are to do so. For example, you can greatly reduce friction - and thus increase engagement - by generating hashtags or providing clear instructions.
Finally, make your call to action clear and concise, that is, be upfront with your customers about what you want them to do.
In the early days of social platforms and the UGC approach, selecting content creators was a challenge. However, to get the most out of customer-generated content, you need a smart approach to collecting and processing it. And this is where UGC platforms come to the rescue for brands looking to stand out from the competition.
Offering content collection, moderation, rights management, integration with marketing channels and advanced analytics, these platforms can take user generated marketing to a whole new level. Below, you'll find a table of the top 5 user generated content platform options with descriptions of their features and tools offered.
Using UGC platforms, marketers can automate many of the processes necessary to build trust with their target audience and increase customer engagement. However, to utilise UGC marketing to its maximum potential, you need to understand what types of UGC platforms exist and how to integrate them into your strategy properly. The table below summarises the main types of UGC solutions with descriptions of their features and practical applications.
How do potential customers perceive your brand? While other types of content are still important, it's reviews and testimonials that are now coming to the forefront as the most powerful type of UGC.
Firstly, people tend to trust the opinions of others, especially those similar to them, thus social proof is a powerful tool. Second, sincere stories resonate and help establish an emotional connection with a brand. Thirdly, good reviews can give potential customers confidence that they are making the right choice, thereby supporting their decision.
The first thing you need to do is create a section with real customer testimonials on your website to make the rest of your content more persuasive. Then, integrate testimonials into your ads and use UGC platforms to manage reviews and automate their placement. Finally, show testimonials from different categories of customers to expand the reach.
By utilising photos posted by consumers on Instagram or viral videos on TikTok, marketers are capitalising on an authenticity effect almost unattainable with traditional advertising. Actually, customer generated marketing strategies work because UGC looks natural, essentially makes customers brand ambassadors and provides opportunities to scale by inspiring others to create content.
Marketers use a variety of tools and channels to integrate UGC testimonials into their campaigns:
· Sharing customers' best social media posts highlighting authors to create a sense of belonging and encourage sharing their experiences interacting with the brand and products with other users.
· Posting testimonials and photos on sales sites and landings.
· Adding UGC content to email newsletters to clearly demonstrate how the products offered help make people's lives easier and more comfortable.
· Integrating UGC into targeting adverts so that social proof contributes to ad clickability.
Using various metrics such as engagement, participation rates (through likes, reposts and comments), conversions and sales, you can evaluate how effective UGC can be for marketing.
As conventional advertising becomes less and less effective - since most users are Millennials and Gen Z who don't trust it - consumer generated content is coming to the forefront. However, despite the obvious benefits, using UGC to promote products and brands comes with some challenges that you should overcome.
Copyright compliance is one of the most important issues marketers face when working with customer-generated content. Here are the main risks and ways to minimise them:
· You don't have permission to use the content. Before posting reviews or testimonials on a brand's website, always seek consent from the authors. Using Stackla, TINT and similar platforms, you will have access to automated permission tools.
· You're violating copyright. Make sure the content you would like to post is from a specific user and not just copied from some other source.
· You're breaking the privacy policy. Avoid posting reviews that contain personal data or other sensitive information.
Ideally, you should develop clear terms and conditions for using UGC in your campaigns and familiarise your audience with them.
Below, you'll find some of the most successful examples of UGC campaigns implemented by brands capitalising on an honest, clear and engaging way to interact with their audiences:
1. Distributing videos from GoPro users captured on the brand's camera. The company regularly runs contests to encourage people to explore their products and create user-generated marketing content. A good example is the GoPro MAX 360° Challenge where winners are chosen based on creativity and engagement.
2. Real stories of travellers using Airbnb. The platform publishes photos and stories from its customers to show the uniqueness of accommodation and life in different countries. The #AirbnbExperiences hashtag campaign inspires users to share their experiences, thereby building trust with their audience.
3. Spreading comedy videos as part of the #DuolingoChallenge. By publishing light-hearted skits featuring Influencers, a language learning app builds brand awareness among a younger audience and increases downloads.
These are just a few examples of how you can share user-generated content on social media to strengthen your brand strategy. By encouraging content creation by your customers, you open the door for ordinary people to become advocates for what you offer.
Today, consumer voices are coming to the forefront and marketers can't help but reckon with that. With visual proof as the gold standard of trust, social media becoming the new search engine, and improved personalisation based on UGC, 2025 and beyond promises to be exciting for marketers.
With its ability to process massive amounts of data in minutes, AI is an important tool that simplifies and automates many marketing processes. By integrating AI with UGC platforms, marketers can quickly find the most relevant content, filter reviews and feedback with minimal manual intervention, tailor UGC to different audience segments, and even generate content that looks like it was written by a real person.
Recent studies show that 64% of users trust timely reviews, meaning that novelty plays an important role. With the ability to quickly analyse trends and consumer sentiment, AI allows brands to stay relevant and gain trust, which is important for business success in the long term.
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