What is UGC? The User Generated Content Guide

User-Generated Content (UGC) is any brand-specific content created by customers.

It’s a powerful way for brands to leverage social proof to showcase a diversity of opinions while building authenticity, loyalty, and trust. Think of it as a more creative way of circulating customer feedback and reviews.

Paid UGC

Not to be confused with influencer marketing, paid UGC is where a brand compensates a customer for content related to its products or services. Compensation usually includes money, free products, or discounts. The brand then posts this content directly to its own channels — the UGC creator does not share it themselves. Essentially, the content looks like an organic endorsement, but it's actually been paid for.

While the brand might provide a creative brief or even a script, the creator will also share their authentic experiences with the products or services. This is the main difference between paid UGC and influencer marketing. The former must serve as a representation of genuine customers with personal experiences to draw upon.

Read more about the difference between UGC and influencer marketing.

Organic UGC

The chances are that when someone talks about UGC, they’re thinking of unpaid or organic UGC. This is where customers create brand-specific content voluntarily. Compensation might still be on offer, but the user must choose to opt-in without a guarantee they’ll get it. An example of this is contests and giveaways. Other examples of organic UGC include try-ons, unboxing videos and hauls.

The million dollar question is: how to get customers to create organic UGC for you? Ultimately, you need to be more strategic with your incentive.

With paid UGC, you choose a user and approach them. With organic UGC, the users have to come to you. There are two big ways to do this:

Give users exposure by re-sharing their content to your audience.

This is the cheapest way to get people to share their experience with your brand. And you don’t necessarily need a large following — as long as the exposure is seen to benefit the original poster in some way.

For example, our client Seamless Overlays has a content calendar that’s heavy on the UGC despite their relatively modest follower count (which we’re growing fast!). Essentially, Seamless Overlays sells materials and training courses to tradies, who in turn share their work with Seamless to repost, because a lot of their followers are interested in hiring tradies for renovation jobs.

Apple’s #ShotOniPhone hashtag campaign is another case study. It offers both amateur and professional photographers the chance to have their skills advertised to an audience of 32 million followers. This has generated millions (literally) of assets for Apple to use as marketing materials for its iPhone cameras — entirely for free.

Another good example is Glossier, who repost funny tweets related to the brand or products, which inspires others to create and tag them in similar content. The exchange? Glossier gets positive social proof for free, while the Twitter user has their joke circulated among millions of people. Their entire feed relies heavily on a low-fi feel with plenty of great paid UGC, too.

Run contests and giveaways.

The beauty about offering a prize in exchange for content is that you only need to pay up once, but could get hundreds or thousands of responses. In these instances, you can also have some degree of control over the content created by setting contest guidelines. Make sure the prize is worth fighting for, though.

Example: In the GoPro Photo of The Day competition, one winner takes home $250-500 every day (which is well and truly under budget for a brand worth over $300 million). In exchange, GoPro receives thousands of high-quality photo submissions they can use in their marketing communications. Their customers are essentially doing all the hard work — GoPro only needs to choose their favourite photo and they have an instant advertisement.

Another general example is a giveaway where the entry requirement is to “share this post to your stories” or “tag three friends below”. Any of these campaigns are a great way to leverage users to generate brand awareness for you. Each tag or story shout-out could mean a new set of eyes on your brand.

Paid vs. Organic UGC: The Pro’s & Cons

In paid UGC campaigns, most agreements will give the brand some degree of control, from making specific content requests to even providing a script. This means you can shape the end result according to your marketing objectives, not to mention choose your ideal customer in the first place.

With unpaid UGC, the brand has little to no control over the content created (and who shares it). Even when setting content guidelines as conditions of entry in contests and giveaways, the end result is left mostly up to each user.

So, if you’re after control, paid UGC is best.

However, this begs the question: how authentic are paid endorsements when brands still have a degree of control over the narrative? Although UGC creators are more relatable than influencer marketing, do audiences really trust someone who’s making content in exchange for payment? Ultimately, we think that unsolicited recommendations are the most trustworthy form of social proof.

Therefore, when it comes to building trust, organic UGC is probably best.

Finally, the most obvious benefit of organic UGC is that it’s cost effective, although no marketing strategy is entirely free — the marketers themselves are (hopefully) being paid for the time and energy required to action everything. The good thing about organic UGC is that you’re not also paying for the content creation itself.

If cost is a concern, organic UGC wins.

Summary

To cut a long story short, user-generated content (UGC) turns passive consumers into engaged advocates for your brand. It creates a community built on shared experiences and genuine interactions, marking the rise of a new collaborative relationship and era of transperancy between brands and their customers. How can that ever be a bad thing?

We’re not saying your entire content schedule needs to be made up of UGC, or that you need to implement a huge campaign to get it. Reposting something every now and then, starting a hashtag campaign, holding a single giveaway — this can all do wonders for gaining some authentic customer experiences to plug on your profile.