UGC - User Generated Content

The obvious benefit of user-generated content is, of course, that someone else spends time creating your content. But there's another benefit too - many users are better at photography and video with your products in focus. So sometimes you get even better content by having your users generate it.

But what exactly is user-generated content / UGC?

There are many different types of UGC.

• Images from e.g. influencers
• Videos from users
• Blog posts
• Comments and reviews

The most obvious form of user-generated content is comments. If you look at a blog like Valdemarsro, you'll notice that there are a lot of comments on her blog posts. It's not unusual for half or 2/3 of the text on a page to be user-generated. For example, if she writes a recipe for chili con carne, users contribute all kinds of comments such as "I often add licorice" or "I add coriander". This means that when a user searches for "chili con carne with licorice" on Google, Valdemarsro's recipe is a candidate. All content produced by users.

But more and more people are also starting to get influencers to create the content. Not only do the influencers do some of the marketing, they also transfer the right to use the images to the webshop. Many of them are really good photographers, so the webshop can get really good images relatively cheaply.

Strategies to get more UGC

How do you get users to start creating UGC?

On the face of it, it's extremely rare that users themselves approach you and say "you can just use my content". So you need stronger cases in play.

The big influencers have standardized contracts and fixed prices for UGC and mentions. The advantage of the big influencers is that you often get really good content out of it - they are usually really good at photography and filming. In addition, you often get your content out to many users.

But less can do it too. You can offer people a discount code if you can use their content either in your advertising or directly on your website / webshop.

There are also webshops that have contacted people who have written a review of the product and informed them that they will be refunded the price of the product as a thank you for the review. The webshop has then posted on their social media that "Thanks for the review Tobias. We will refund the full amount because you bothered to review the product". If you do this a few times, your followers become aware of it and become more diligent about reviewing.

Examples of UGC

The most obvious examples are photo and video. Probably because UGC has been most promoted by influencer agencies and it's one of their most important items on the shelf. But another very overlooked form of UGC is product reviews, testimonials and comments on blog posts. They don't lend themselves to marketing to the same extent. But they are extremely attractive in terms of SEO.

Benefits of using UGC in marketing

Most people who are interested in UGC do so because they want to use it in marketing. And often on visual channels like Instagram and TikTok. It's about getting users or influencers to use your product, talk about it and create both video and image material. There are many advantages to using UGC in your marketing. Here are a few of them:

• Credible - consumers generally see it as more credible as it's another user sending the message. Often the videos are also produced in a way that makes it clear that it is not a professionally created advertisement and therefore appears more credible.
• Variety - different users will use the product differently and emphasize different benefits. This allows you to expose more benefits of the product to your users.
• Time-saving - creating content is extremely time-consuming. With UGC, it's the users or influencers who spend the time on it. So you may pay for it, but you also save a lot of time.
• Higher conversion rate - several studies suggest that ads with user-generated content have a higher conversion rate(source). It's not a guarantee, but there are pretty clear signs in that direction.