Why You Need UGC In Your Social Media Strategy

Customers are looking for greater authenticity from brands on social media – some professional, curated images are fine but it’s also important to show real people using your product or service. 

Back in March, AntiSocial claimed 2023 is the Year to Be Bold and Authentic With Your Digital Marketing: "At a time when customers are itching for authenticity, influencers are the new content creators, and TikTok is the fastest-growing social media app." 

What better way to do that than by using content captured by real customers who love what you offer enough to showcase it on their social media? 

Plus you can save time in creating content! No need to wrack your brand for ideas, just pop into your tagged section to find your latest posts.  

Here is a breakdown of why you need to add user-generated content to your social media marketing strategy, plus our favourite examples of it, and some top tips on implementing UGC.  

The Best UGC Campaigns 

One of the best global UGC campaigns we've ever come across is GoPro’s Million Dollar Challenge – it’s been running for 5 years and is still going strong. 

GoPro have created a long lasting UGC campaign.

“The submissions we get for this challenge help fuel the next 12 calendar months of content,” Kelly Baker, GoPro’s head of community marketing told Modern Retail. “There are thousands of clips that we use for other platform content.” These can range from social media posts, TV ads, or even video reels at store kiosks." 

“Typically, people think of UGC as scrappy low-budget videos,” Kislevitz said. “But our cameras have gotten so good over the years that the footage we get is sometimes as good or better than what we’d shoot.” 

Cult brand Sol De Janeiro

Another iconic brand that utilised UGC well is the cult skincare brand Sol De Janeiro. They've built a loyal fan base on TikTok, and you'll spot a Sol de Janeiro body mist or brightening cream in almost every #thatgirl viral video. It's a staple for young women wanting delicious smelling, gorgeously packaged built cosmetics, so their UGC flows organically: the #soldejaniero hashtag has a whopping 1.3 billion views on TikTok! 

You can check out one of their UGC incentive giveaways there: where they offer 5 winners a $100 Sephora gift card each.  

Expected Results from Adding UGC to Your Strategy 

At Matter Agency, we encourage our clients to use UGC in their social media and we've seen some fantastic results from this – for example: 

Kings Plant Barn  

We turned Kings’ fledgling Instagram presence into a large, highly engaged community of plant lovers. A key part of this strategy was UGC. By encouraging followers to tag Kings, and then sharing the content, we not only generated diverse, beautiful content for the feed – we also fed engagement. This was vital in our effort that increased Kings’ following by 1,000%. You can read more about this in our case study.  

FIT NZ  

This is a great example of a brand that has a niche product and audience (quality kitchen and bathroom fittings) using UGC to level up its visuals. The products that FIT creates are instrumental in creating designer kitchen spaces – but they aren’t that easy to photograph on their own (think soft-close hinges and drawer solutions). By engaging with FIT’s community of professional kitchen designers and cabinet makers, we’ve created an amazing community that shares their beautiful work, allowing FIT to showcase the result that their products achieved. As well as lifting brand awareness and engagement among FIT’s key clients, we’ve also grown their Instagram following by more than 500% mostly organically. 

Want to leverage UGC to level up your social presence? Here are our top tips: 

1. See what’s there already: Are people tagging you already? Check your mentions and tagged posts – if they can't be posted on the main feed share your stories. At the very least, leave a comment thanking them for the tag – this will encourage them to tag again! Make it a habit to check your tagged posts regularly to see what’s popped up. 

2. Create a UGC strategy: Think about your master objectives and how UGC can support these. Tie it all in with your social media strategy. Don't have one yet? We can help.  

3. Make it known that you’re looking for UGC: include a call-out in your IG bio, add signage at your retail checkout or do a feature in your newsletter. 

4. Incentivise: Consider whether you need to incentivise people to tag you (this doesn’t have to be financial – sometimes the glory of having content featured on the main feed is enough!) 

5. Ask for what you want: if you’re looking for a particular type of image or video, let your followers know! Make a post calling out which type of content you'd like to see - someone may already have it sitting in their camera roll.   

6. Observe etiquette: if the tag is unsolicited, it’s best practice to check before you share the content. And ALWAYS thank those that tag you for doing so. 

7. Deal with spam: If you get a spam tag (Shein is a shocker for this) you can untag yourself on Instagram, just follow these steps:

1. Go to the post you would like to untag yourself from. 

2. Tap on the post once, so that the tags appear on the post. 

3. Tap your username. 

4. Tap Remove Me From Post. 

Need help with UGC strategy? 

The team at Matter Agency are super experienced with UGC and we LOVE this form of social media marketing – both for its authenticity, the engagement it generates and its cost-effectiveness. Get in touch with us today to find out how we can help.