5 Benefits of User-Generated Content We've Seen for Brands

Are the benefits of UGC legit?

The idea of featuring user-generated content in your marketing campaigns isn’t breaking news.

However, many brands still underestimate the importance of UGC. Let's change that!

What Are the Benefits of UGC?

We’ve seen firsthand how the hype around user-generated content is real.  Let's dig into the benefits of UGC and how it gives brands a measurable competitive advantage.

1. Generate New Marketing Creatives Faster

Consider how every customer photo, unboxing video or positive review is a marketing asset for your brand. The more user-generated content your customers share, the less burden there is on your team to come up with new posts and promotions. 

Saving time is an underrated benefit of UGC for brands that frequently run ads or publish content on social media. Especially as more and more consumer brands ramp up customer content in their TikTok ads and social feeds.

2. Build Trust and Credibility with Customers

The importance of user-generated content for establishing trust can’t be overstated. 

We’ve seen firsthand how ads featuring customer content can earn 6x the engagement rate of branded content.  Here are recent stats highlighting the trust-building power of UGC:

• 84% of consumers are more likely to trust brands that use UGC in their marketing campaigns (and 77% are more likely to buy from them).
  
  
•  1-in-4 adult consumers turn to social media to search for products over traditional channels, citing trust and authenticity as reasons why.
  
  
•  85% of consumers claim that UGC is more trustworthy than brand-made photos or videos.

Modern consumers overwhelmingly trust content and marketing messages from real people versus brands. Integrating UGC into your marketing campaigns immediately sets your brand apart from competitors who primarily rely on brand-generated content. 

3. Increase the Performance of Your Social Media Ads

Both Meta and TikTok have made it clear that ads featuring UGC creators and influencers outperform traditional branded content. This applies to conversions, watch times and engagement.

Want to learn more about the advantages of UGC? Check out our webinar breaking featuring actual advertising experts on how to maximize the impact of your brand’s user-generated content.

4. Gather Meaningful Product Feedback

Another underrated benefit of UGC is the fact that there’s no better way to gather authentic feedback about your products. For example, brands frequently send products to UGC creators and influencers to publish authentic reviews about their products. These reviews can translate into authentic ads that build trust with potential customers.

By encouraging UGC, you create opportunities to gauge the response and reception of your products among your target audience. You can learn which products drive the most engagement and which can be your priority to promote in the future.

5. Scale Word-of-Mouth and Brand Visibility

Breaking through the noise is an ongoing challenge for brands today. One of the biggest benefits of user-generated content is how it’s favored by social algorithms.

And this is well-documented on both TikTok and Instagram.

Heck, see for yourself! If you search for any given brand or product category on TikTok or Instagram, your results will almost exclusively be UGC. The more UGC you encourage, the easier it is to rank in social search and stay top-of-mind with your target audience.

This brings all of the other advantages of user-generated together, too. More content means more opportunities to optimize and find the best possible posts to promote as UGC ads.

Is Your Brand Seeing the Full Benefits of UGC?

The popularity of UGC in marketing campaigns is totally justified. 

From organic posts to ads and beyond, brands are making user-generated content the cornerstone of their strategies for good reason.

If you’re eager to build your brand’s content library for ads and beyond, check out how Statusphere’s influencer marketing platform can help your brand get rights-ready UGC at scale.