Khizar Seo
Your customers are already telling your brand’s story. The point is, are you listening? Unboxing videos, ratings, and stories featuring your product build trust among customers that branded ads can’t.
Today, customers are an influential voice in marketing, and people trust them more than they trust you. Still, only 16% of brands have a dedicated UGC strategy. If you are still lagging behind on this important marketing tool, read this blog to the end to change how you view branding.
What UGC Really Means for Brands?
UGC, or user-generated content, is content created by others for your brand that builds trust and feels authentic. Not influencers on a paid script. Not agencies with moodboards. Just actual users sharing their experiences.
This includes:
- Customer reviews
- Instagram stories tagging your brand
- Tweet, reels, unboxing videos, and comments
- Testimonials, referrals, and even complaints
What makes UGC powerful isn’t the format. It’s the feeling. Consumers find UGC 9.8x more impactful when making purchase decisions.
And honestly? It works because it doesn’t try too hard.
Why UGC Quietly Took Over Modern Marketing?
Here’s why UGC has completely flipped the marketing game:
- Authenticity isn’t optional anymore
UGC comes straight from real users, in real situations, with real opinions. That honesty builds trust faster than any branded promotions ever could.
- Engagement Loves Reliability:
Social campaigns with UGC witness a 50% increase in engagement. People naturally engage more with the content they can relate to. UGC feels real, which leads to more likes, comments, and shares, thus boosting engagement.
- Cost-Effective Growth:
Brands can repurpose UGC across multiple marketing channels, driving organic growth without higher production costs.
- Boosts SEO & Conversions:
UGC keeps content fresh, improves search engine rankings, and influences confident buying decisions. All these factors boost SEO and enhance conversions.
Real-World Examples of UGC Impact:
To make you believe in UGC’s impact, we have curated some of the real-world examples worth looking at:
Doritos: Crash the Super Bowl
Doritos once did something bold. Instead of creating their own Super Bowl ads, they asked fans to create them. Its ‘Crash the Super Bowl’ campaign invited everyday users to submit their own Doritos commercials. Yes, really.
What happened next?
- Millions of video submissions
- 30% increase in Super Bowl engagement
- Great brand recognition
Lego: Make Your Mini-Figure
Known for its toys and colorful bricks, LEGO hosted the ‘Make Your Own Mini-Figure’ campaign. Users can design custom LEGO characters by selecting outfits, hairstyles, and accessories on an online platform. The best designs were featured and included in Lego’s official catalogue.
Here’s the impact of this UGC campaign:
- Thousands of designs were generated
- Help Lego build a strong brand community.
- Increased brand awareness without pushing sales
GoPro: GoPro Awards
GoPro has the world’s leading versatile cameras and accessories. It’s the ‘GoPro Awards’ campaign, which encouraged users to submit adventure videos, and the best one was featured on its website and social media. The winners received cash prizes and other gifts, which encouraged participation.
Here’s the impact of this UGC campaign:
- 20k+ video submissions
- Boosted conversions
- Enhanced brand visibility
How to Get Customers to Create UGC?
You can’t just hope UGC shows up. You have to invite it, nicely. Here’s what actually works.
- Run Hashtag Campaigns & Challenges
Simple, fun hashtags encourage participation. Challenges give people a reason to post rather than just scroll. Make it low-effort to gather more and more UGC.
- Give Awards & Prizes
To encourage participation, motivate users by offering exciting prizes, gifts, and other perks to make your customers feel valued.
- Ask After Purchase:
A quick post-purchase message asking for a review or photo works wonders. Around 82% of consumers say they’re more likely to buy from brands that show UGC. That’s… a lot.
- Show UGC Everywhere
When people see others being featured, they want in. Display UGC proudly on your website and social channels. It creates a loop. And loops are powerful.
UGC Across Channels: Where It Works Best?
Gathering UGC is only half the battle; using it in the right places is what makes the real impact. Here’s where your UGC will make the real impact:
- Website & Product Pages: It’s essential to display social proof across your website and product landing pages as it influences purchase decisions, builds trust, and enhances conversions.
- Social Media Feeds & Stories: Because organic content has greater reach and relatability, displaying it on your social media and Stories is a must.
- Testimonials in Emails: Adding UGC to your email campaigns can increase open rates and clicks by making the messaging feel more personal and trustworthy.
How to Curate and Manage UGC Smartly?
In order to effectively curate and manage your UGC smartly, you need to follow these steps:
- Ask before using UGC: Before collecting UGC for your brand, it is important to take permission from the original creator of the content. This helps brands to maintain trust and protect their reputation legally.
- Content Moderation: Not every UGC is of your use; that’s why it is essential to moderate UGC as per your brand requirements. This helps maintain content relevance throughout the branding and eliminates irrelevant content from your feed.
- Manage Legal Rights: Obtain user consent before using their content to protect against legal issues. Keep the process simple and be clear about the content usage to maintain transparency and trust.
- Measure and Optimize: Use UGC aggregator tools that give you the performance metrics of how your UGC is performing. This helps optimize your curated UGC to meet audience needs.
Amplifying UGC with Tagbox and Tagembed
These are two of the most popular tools that will help you manage your curated UGC effectively:
Taggbox – The Best UGC Platform
Taggbox is a powerful UGC and social media aggregation tool that helps brands collect, curate, and manage in one place. It has 15+ aggregation platforms that let you collect all your user-generated content and curate it into a single feed to display on your websites, email campaigns, and more. Not only that, but Taggbox also helps you turn UGC into shoppable galleries to enhance conversions and simplify the shopping process for users.
Key Features:
- 15+ aggregation platform
- Shoppable galleries
- UGC rights management
- Variety of templates and layouts
- AI Summarizer
- Powerful content moderation
- Hashtag campaign management
- Customizable widgets
- Robust analytics
Tagembed – The Best Social Media Aggregator Platform
Tagembed is also a leading UGC and review management platform that helps brands collect, curate, and manage reviews from platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and more. It provides various features and customizable widgets, helping brands increase engagement, sales, and manage their reviews.
Key Features:
- Review collection and management
- Shoppable galleries
- Customizable widget
- Shop on Bio
- Robust analytics
- Content moderation
- Seamless collaboration
- AI Review summarizer
- Real-time updates
Conclusion
User-generated content has truly transformed customers into powerful brand advocates whom potential customers can trust. By sharing real experiences, UGC builds trust, engagement, and enhances the buying decision process. You can see this in the real-life examples above of brands using UGC campaigns.
When used strategically, UGC can create authenticity, stronger brand connections, and credibility for brands.
