5 Advantages UGC Content Creators Bring Into Businesses

Social media platforms are filled with diverse user-generated content or UGC content creators nowadays. But, do you know who they really are and what their roles are in any business marketing strategy? UGC creators are those people who create sponsored content that seems authentic but is actually made to promote a specific business or product.

UGC is a type of content created by the people who interact with a brand, not the business or the brand itself. They can be customers, employees, or volunteers.

You have probably come across them on digital platforms such as TikTok and Instagram. One of the most common formats used by UGC creators is video, they film and give perspective about certain brands or products to earn the trust of their target audience. According to Business2Community, millennials believe that UGC is 35% more memorable than other media.

Outline

• 5 Benefits of Collaborating With UGC Creators
• Where To Find The Right UGC Creators For Your Brand's Marketing Campaign?
• TINT
• Yotpo
• Taggbox
• Pixlee
• Examples of User-Generated Contents Campaign
• SVA Campus Store “Caption This” Contest
• Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke”
• Apple’s #ShotoniPhone
• Starbucks’s #WhiteCupContest
• Conclusion

5 Benefits of Collaborating With UGC Creators

Image Source

User-generated content creators as most know have the power to earn the trust not only of their followers but as well as the bystanders. People find it easier to relate to others with similar lifestyles, problems, and preferences to them.

In reality, shoppers resonate not with a brand, but with its wide range of satisfied customers. It is due to the fact that happiness is what they truly aim for. It makes sense for buyers to replicate the same solution by shopping for the exact products or services that work best for the creators they believe in.

Cost-effective marketing

Image Source

UGC content creators reduce production costs while still delivering high-quality content. When compared to traditional advertising strategies such as television commercials, print ads as well as billboards, UGC contents are better for those businesses that have a limited budget for promotions. According to Statista, the cost of a 30-second TV commercial in the United States ranges from $3,240 to $62,400.

Despite their lower price, commonly at minimum $50 per content, they are just as effective as the traditional ones. Most creators are open to closing deals with UGC bundles, which enables brands to buy multiple pieces of content for a significant discount. While some creators offer customizable packages for brands who are in for long-term business partnerships.

Authentic Content

Image Source

With tons of brands popping around, consumers may find it hard to know who to trust in terms of quality products or services. Of course, who wouldn't want purchases that are worth buying for, right? As a result, they often look for other people's product recommendations and reviews.

However, they don't just trust any people, they choose those with authenticity, creativity, and great influence. This is where UGC becomes the best form of marketing, as there is a sense of trust and realness when you notice a fellow consumer promoting a product compared to when you see commercials or advertisements from a business that seems to only have one main goal — boost sales.

UGC content creators all have their own unique way of approaching consumers, they find those audiences who they can genuinely connect to and genuine approach when reviewing products that the audience feels connected to. An example of creative content was made by SoNonye Beauty on TikTok, where they gave away free gloss products to users.

They encouraged people to comment on a certain video, then those who will not get any replies from anyone will be the winners. This helped them get a huge organic reach through one of the most used video-form applications nowadays.

Image Source

According to Business Wire, a total of 51% of consumers believe that less than half of the content brands create are all authentic. For instance, some creators make lifestyle video blog content which is somehow a casual way of advertisements that keeps the audience engaged.

Increased engagement

Image Source

A successful UGC creator can drive higher levels of engagement by attracting, captivating, and encouraging consumers to participate and interact with their content. A good way of communication helps maintain brand-consumer relationships, which businesses can attain when they hire UGC creators.

They are experts at creating content that resonates with their followers, which might be due to their experience and observation throughout their years of making content. They already know what their audience prefers and what will get them active. By leveraging UGC creators, merchants can easily reach and tap into their audience’s interests.

Wider demographic reach

Image Source

Photo or video content created organically by creators tends to cater to different demographics. As each has its own niche as well as targets, the brands' messages will likely expand to different ages and areas whether local or international.

Some creators have large audiences spanning several demographics while others have smaller but more targeted communities. Knowing what type of UGC creator you need in terms of reach, cost, and engagement can help you easily choose the right ones for your brand.

High success rate

Image Source

Businesses should use UGC creators as they statistically show their effectiveness in advertising, as mentioned above. Almost 70% of brands believe that UGC lets them connect better with customers on social media platforms.

UGC is used across every stage of the buyer’s journey to help increase conversions. So, we can say that UGC is also more impactful than content created by social media influencers in terms of growing brand reputation.

Where To Find The Right UGC Creators For Your Brand's Marketing Campaign?

A compelling portfolio is what brands need to look for, but aside from that, do you know where to actually find legit UGC creators with better experience and audience? To make it easy for you, we listed four sites that can bridge you to the best UGC creators you will need. It will just need a little research in order for you to properly connect with your chosen niche community.

TINT

Image Source

TINT is used as a platform for basic UGC storing, publishing, and promotion, it simply has all the features you need for UGC marketing. Among its features are campaign management, reporting and analytics, content management system, video converter, and such.

Other features of TINT include the chance to create omnichannel UGC marketing campaigns, access AI that helps you locate the UGC for your brand to repurpose, and lots of integrations that seamlessly work TINT into your entire marketing stack.

TINT asks interested clients to request pricing information through a contact form posted on their website.

Yotpo

Image Source

Yotpo helps brands turn their customers into their own brand ambassadors by collecting product reviews, videos, and pictures. Businesses can share content on social media or on the website’s homepage. With Yotpo, businesses can quickly set up SMS marketing campaigns, and create referral programs with user-generated content. They can also utilize its analytics to see how each content is performing

You can try their free plan, which covers everything you need to build a revenue channel. You will be eligible for up to 50 monthly orders checked, you can also send automatic review requests, design emails from the template library, moderate and publish reviews, display reviews on-site as well as access to all-day live chat support. Aside from that they also offer the following:

• Growth plan: $15 per month for new brands that want to drive quick revenue with SMS.
• Prime plan: $119 per month for growing brands that want to maximize sales and their customer base.
  Aside from that, they have flexible plans for small to large enterprises.
• Premium plan: A tailored program with smart data and advice from Yotpo's e-commerce experts.
• Enterprise: A scale program with enterprise-grade service across various markets and brands.
  

Taggbox

Image Source

Taggbox curates UGC across different marketing touchpoints, whether from social networks, email campaigns, or even product pages. It’s the ideal option for freelancers, small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs), and established businesses that are interested to use and publish UGC across various channels.

They have various plans for business and enterprise in order to meet your needs. Tagboxx has worked and continues working with multi-user, multi-region, and multi-brands.

Taggbox offers three widely planned services such as the ‍UGC Suite, the Widget package, and the Display package.

‍UGC Suite has basic, elite, and premium options. It allows you to collect user-generated content, manage it into collections, and publish it across websites, screens, social media, ads, and such in one single dashboard.

The Widget has four plans, which are the free plan, basic, pro, and enterprise. The Widget package lets you build and publish UGC galleries, hashtag campaigns, social feeds, as well as reviews to boost your brand's performance.

The Display package or as they call it the Social Wall, lets you attract and convert audiences with social media displays in events, signage, as well as screens. The package includes exclusive, basic, pro and enterprise plans.

Pixlee

Image Source

Pixlee is another online marketing platform that allows brands to collect and get the rights for UGC to be posted on their own feeds. It also comes with analytics to help merchants measure the success of their UGC campaign.

Through Pixlee, businesses can automatically gather images using a specific hashtag and do brand protection filtering to make sure only high-quality UGC contents are present in their scope.

Pixlee recently partnered with TurnTo, which is another online marketing platform that offers different services. If you go to the TurnTo website, you will notice that they now have “Pixlee” listed as one of their products, this will direct you to Pixlee’s site and its UGC tools.

Pixlee doesn’t have its pricing posted on its website. They prefer interested clients to request a demo to learn more about their service.

Examples of User-Generated Contents Campaign

User-generated content can obviously be used to promote your business not only on social media but through any platform. This reason makes brands, even the biggest ones, walk on this path.

To give you more visuals on how businesses utilize the magic UGC brings, here are some of the examples of companies that successfully used and delivered UGC campaigns that increased their brand awareness and gave birth to limitless valuable customer relationships.

SVA Campus Store “Caption This” Contest

Image Source

Another exciting UGC content is the giveaway post ideas on Instagram. Especially for small businesses who are working on gathering social media engagements for wider visibility. All you need to do is put a picture on your Instagram account and direct the users to suggest a caption. The best-fitted caption is commonly declared the winner in such giveaways.

Some big companies to also look out for:

Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke”

Image Source

The "Share a Coke" campaign was first launched in Australia in 2011. The campaign involved changing the Coca-Cola bottle's traditional wrapping to say "Share a Coke with…" and a popular name. The brand's aim is to establish a more tailored relationship with consumers while encouraging them to share their happy moments as they purchase the product.

The campaign was well-received so other countries adopted it and put their own twists on it. In Israel, for example, the country’s largest billboards displayed interactive signs greeting its citizens by name.

Their marketing team came up with the whole idea, starting from printing around 150 most common male and female names in Australia and putting them on their bottles. Through this strategy, they managed to get customers to share their personalized bottles, post and share them on their social media. These buyers instantly become the brand's UGC creators.

Apple’s #ShotoniPhone

There came a time when iPhone users expressed disappointment about the quality of their cameras. Instead of leaving this issue behind, the company thought of a great way to make things accordingly.

After realizing that their customers were not satisfied with the camera capabilities of photos in low lights, they launched a campaign called “Shot on iPhone.” The company wanted to regain customers' trust and retain the most known feature that makes an iPhone stand out — its ability to take good photos.

Apple encouraged pro users to capture photos in low light with their iPhones and post them online for others to see. This campaign allows more audiences to see and appreciate Apple’s amazing lens and how they can wisely use it for their benefit.

Starbucks’s #WhiteCupContest

Image Source

Starbucks started the campaign #WhiteCupContest in 2014. They dominated Twitter, which became the main platform of the contest, by encouraging customers to draw anything artistic for their white cups.

All the winning drawings would be used as templates for their future cup designs. This massive opportunity of being able to contribute their idea to one of the largest companies in the world truly inspired many people.

Following the success of its previous work on #WhiteCupContest, Starbucks came up with a brand new contest named #RedCupArt challenge in 2016. The campaign also garnered positive feedback from customers, Starbucks generated huge social media activity on Twitter as well as on Instagram.

Conclusion

UGC campaigns help increase brand awareness through the use of customer reviews, product testimonials, social media posts, and even blog posts.

In order for you, a merchant, to run a successful UGC campaign, you may consider offering incentives for customers or established creators to submit their content, making it easy and interesting for them to participate.

Partnering with UGC creators can take various forms. You can directly contact them for sponsored posts, guest blogging, or video content collaborations. Try to build clear expectations, imply your brand voice and guidelines, and involve UGC creators in content creation to ensure their uniqueness and creativity can be seen through.