I’m a sucker for brands that post user-generated content. I love seeing ads with user reviews and Instagram grids filled with images and videos from real customers. It usually gives me the confidence to buy something even if it’s the first time I’m hearing about the brand.
When I recently bought a pair of trousers from UNIQLO, I had to first check the StyleHint section to see how it looked on other customers. This gave me an idea of how the trousers might look on me, which size I’d need to get the fit I wanted, and how I could style it. And many consumers are just like me—they let UGC guide their buying decisions.
That’s exactly why so many brands are starting to prioritize user-generated content in their marketing strategies. But manually collecting UGC through hashtag searches can be time-consuming. And you might not always get the highest-quality content through this method.
Having a dedicated user-generated content platform solves all of these issues, helping you scale your UGC strategy with ease.
A user-generated content platform is a tool that lets you manage content created by customers and fans. Most UGC management platforms come with features to discover and curate content as well as manage usage rights and showcase content across different channels like product pages, social media, and ads.
You can choose from two main types of user-generated content platforms, depending on what works with your marketing strategy.
Influencer marketing tools like Influencity also have UGC features baked into the platform. For instance, you can use the Shopify integration to seed products to various creators, who will create content and share promo codes to drive sales for your brand.
The content they generate can then be reused or repurposed across various channels, depending on your agreement.
So how exactly can you use a UGC platform? Let’s look at some of the key features that you get with most user-generated content platforms.
No matter the type of UGC management platform you use, they’ll have one thing in common: they can easily identify and curate user-generated content.
Some may track hashtags, brand mentions, or tagged photos to aggregate customer photos and videos from social media. These tools often come with built-in moderation features. So they authentically filter out spam or irrelevant content, allowing teams to select the best content for their brand.
Other tools may also let you collect content directly from creators who will upload it to the platform instead of publishing it to their social media first. So it’s much easier to manage content creation projects with paid or organic creators.
In both cases, you save hours of manual work scouring through social media to discover high-quality UGC. This allows for asset scaling, as you can now curate hundreds of UGC posts within minutes.
The UGC assets you curate are stored in a centralized content library with the necessary info about who created which post.
You don’t have to maintain a separate Excel sheet to track the content or store the files in a separate cloud folder. This allows you to easily access the content you need when you need it and assign credit to the respective creators.
A UGC platform can facilitate requesting and tracking consent from users before you repost or reuse their content. This ensures compliance with copyright and privacy regulations (like GDPR).
For creator UGC campaigns, using a dedicated platform makes it easy to negotiate, track, and manage usage rights. Influencity lets you create casting calls with customized usage rights, so you get to work with creators who specifically agree to those terms. This saves you the trouble of manually getting permissions and renegotiating usage rights after the campaign is already live.
You can customize the terms and duration of those rights or even leave it open to negotiation before you start working with the creator.
Another common feature of UGC management platforms is the ability to share or display the content you’ve curated. Some platforms come with widgets, embed codes, and galleries that let you aggregate customer photos from social media. You can then display them as social proof on your website, product pages, or even email campaigns.
Some are integrated with social media platforms and come with built-in publishing tools, allowing you to publish creator content directly to your social media channels. You can select the creator content from your content library, add it to your draft, add captions and tags, and ultimately post it on social.
In both cases, the UGC platform lets you streamline the process of publishing UGC to the desired channel.
Additionally, you can also find platforms that let you amplify UGC for your paid advertising campaigns. This is another effective asset scaling feature, as you can quickly find high-performing, authentic-looking videos and reuse them in your social media ads.
Most UGC management platforms come with analytics tools to track performance metrics. You can measure the ROI of your UGC strategy by tracking the engagement and sales driven by each piece of UGC. Some tools will let you generate discount codes or unique tracking links and then track the sales generated by a given piece of content.
Influencity lets you generate unique discount codes for creators to share with their audience. You can then use the dashboard to track how the code is used and how many sales it generates.
These built-in analytics features also make it easy to narrow down the most impactful posts and identify which ones to reuse or repurpose. For instance, you could choose the most engaging posts and reuse them as creatives for your ad campaign.
Now that you understand how UGC platforms work and what they do, let’s look at a few common use cases to inspire your own UGC strategy.
People trust other people—whether it’s the friend who’s raving about the food at a new local restaurant or the stranger on TikTok telling you how great a certain pair of jeans fits. The same extends to your website, where shoppers need social proof to guide their buying decisions.
Traditionally, websites are a place where shoppers only see your brand’s claims and official photos. Aside from text-based reviews, there’s not much to go on in terms of an item’s real-life look, feel, and fit.
User-generated content adds an extra layer of trust and authenticity because shoppers get to see the product on real people or in real-life scenarios. That’s why 85% of consumers are more influenced by visual UGC than by brand photos and videos.
A UGC platform helps you streamline the process of curating content from social media and publishing it to your website.
See how Fabletics pulls social media posts and adds them to the home screen. They include the social media handle of each creator to prove authenticity. And they associate each post with a corresponding product, making it easy for shoppers to buy.
Brands can also use UGC platforms to scale content creation for their UGC marketing efforts. This mainly involves getting creators to produce high-quality content featuring your products and then publishing the content to your social media.
Your brand may not have the time or resources to consistently produce 10 original, high-quality Reels a week. But a UGC platform allows for asset scaling as it curates content from hundreds of creators on your behalf. Whether it scours the internet for existing UGC or collects creator-generated content based on a casting call, it lets you effortlessly scale your social media content efforts.
So it’s a highly effective strategy for maintaining a consistent publishing schedule, especially if you want to publish multiple pieces of content per day.
Brands like Huda Beauty manage to publish multiple times a day because of UGC. Before and after photos, tutorials, and product demo Reels from creators take up most of the brand’s Instagram grid.
UGC platforms are also great for running product seeding campaigns, especially if they come with creator discovery tools. You can use the platform to find creators, send them products, and have them create authentic review videos to boost visibility and trust.
Additionally, a platform that integrates with your ecommerce store makes the process even easier, as you can simply pick and send the products straight from your store.
Platforms like Influencity do just this. You can conduct an influencer search and use multiple filters to narrow down high-quality UGC creators in your niche. It integrates with your Shopify store, so you just need to choose the product you want to send from your store.
It even lets you create unique tracking links or discount codes to drive more sales. You’ll also be able to track the sales generated by each creator, helping you measure impact.
One of the best uses of a UGC platform is for scaling ad creatives.
Say your brand needs 50 creatives a week for Facebook Ads. You can't shoot that in-house. And manually collecting UGC from customers is time-consuming. Not to mention the content sourced from socials tends to drop in quality if you use screenshots or screenrecordings. So they’re not always a great pick for advertising campaigns.
UGC platforms make it easy to source raw video files from creators without requiring them to post to their feeds. You can set up casting calls with your specifications and have creators send in their videos directly to the platform.
Some platforms (like Influencity) will even let you set up social media ads directly using the creator-generated content. So everything’s done in one place without having to switch between multiple tools.
Influencity is more than just an influencer marketing platform; it serves as a one-stop solution for all your UGC needs. From discovery to asset management to publishing and amplification, it has all the features you need for a successful UGC strategy.
You can use it to find relevant UGC creators in your niche and set up casting calls with your UGC requirements. Meanwhile, the built-in monitoring tools make it easy to keep track of brand mentions in one place, so it’s easy to discover organic UGC. Influencity’s content library will let you store and track all these posts in one place without the need for messy spreadsheets.
Additionally, its publishing tools allow you to use the content from this library and share it across your social media channels. Or you can use its Shopify integration to seed products to influencers and collect authentic reviews.
It even comes with advertising tools that let you create and manage social media ads all within the Influencity ecosystem.
Ready to scale your UGC strategy with Influencity? Sign up for a free 7-day trial.
User-generated content platforms are tools that let you collect and manage content created by customers and/or creators.
A UGC platform typically comes with content aggregation, content libraries, analytics, and rights management features. Depending on the type of platform, it may also have features for creator search, content publishing, and content amplification.
UGC platforms help you streamline user-generated content discovery and scale your content production efforts.
Influencity is the best user-generated content platform for creator-first campaigns. You can streamline everything from creator search and content management to publication and amplification. Alternatively, platforms like Yotpo can be used to collect reviews and organic UGC.