5 Tips to Grow Your Brand with User-Generated Content (UGC)

Okay–so you have some fantastic UGC from Clip and want to make the most of it, right? How?

We’ll discuss that today because UGC is good for SO MUCH. If you get great videos, you can use them in tons of places to create credibility, increase engagement, and grow your sales.

Here are our top 5 recommendations. ⬇️

Use UGC in ads

Running ads isn’t the only way to grow your brand using UGC… But it is the best one! 💁‍♀️

You will see the biggest ROI when you run paid ads featuring UGC to either bring in new customers or convert people who have visited your website but haven’t bought yet.

Meta and TikTok have developed AMAZING algorithms that identify people who are ready to make a purchase. They have so much data at their fingertips that behavior mapping is a BREEZE. So, when you combine their algorithms with one of the best ad media types (read: UGC), you’ll find yourself in marketing heaven. Sales WILL happen.

But you don’t just have to leverage UGC videos in ads–if you collect customer reviews (which you should), you can transform those into ads, too. Major review platforms like TrustPilot or Reviews IO offer options where you can turn the reviews into static images to use in ads. It’s super clever and works well for many brands.

Don’t be discouraged if you’ve read that ads aren’t working anymore–it’s true, they don’t work for some brands, but that doesn’t mean they won’t work for yours.

Plus, there’s another problem: People like to complain about ads not working. It’s a convenient excuse. But if you look at the ads they’re running, their sales pages, or their products, you’ll see that the algorithm is the least of their concerns. Running ads can't magically get you sales if you have a terrible product (or your website doesn’t load). The usual marketing rules still apply.

Plus, we can tell you definitively that using ads DOES work–each of our founders has scaled multiple brands using ads. Two reached multiple figures, mainly using advertising to get the word out. So, ads work. You just need a few prerequisites, like being in the right niche, knowing what you’re doing, and having a good product to sell.

Use UGC in email marketing

Another great way to use UGC is in your email marketing flows and campaigns. (And when we’re talking about UGC, we mean UGC videos, photos, or reviews–feel free to experiment with different mediums depending on the theme of your email)

Especially when you’re talking e-commerce, email marketing is the BIG place you make sales. So, it’s a good idea to leverage stories from real customers and fill your emails with UGC.

See? Suddenly, you have two growth channels where you can use UGC, and if you use it well, you can bring super good ROAS or ROI.

This depends on your brand, but one great way to collect all this UGC is to offer discounts when you use it–this should increase your chances of selling more.

And, if you’re new to email marketing, there are SO MANY great platforms to choose from. From our tests, Klaviyo and FloDesk are some of the best–FloDesk is super affordable, too, starting at less than $100 per month. So make sure to check it out!

Use UGC in TikTok ads & on your TikTok profile

We know–we already said to use UGC in ads. But this is a hack we discovered while running ads for our brands on TikTok.

Post UGC videos you get from creators to your TikTok profile organically. Then, go to TikTok Ads Manager and use that post as an ad on TikTok.

Why would you do that?

Because some of the metrics from the ads will appear in your organic post. For example, imagine you put money behind your ad, and it gets millions of views. Those views and other metrics like comments, likes, and saves will appear on your profile, boosting your credibility.

If you want to make your brand go viral on TikTok, this is a great way to do that AND hopefully increase sales!

Host a contest or giveaway

Okay, we need to give you a disclaimer on this one–this strategy might only work if you’re a bigger brand with an established social media presence. You don’t need to be Nike, but having a few thousand followers on social media is a good baseline.

But if you’re interested in it but are not there yet, don’t let us discourage you. It can work for brands of all sizes! Just temper your expectations a bit if you have a smaller audience.

You can create a contest with a nice price for your audience–you can even have tiered prizes like first place, second place, and third place if you can afford it. In this giveaway, you can encourage people to follow you, but more importantly, you can encourage them to share UGC related to your brand. You can even create a hashtag for the challenge!

(Also–it’s important to note that you probably shouldn’t ask your customers for “UGC” because most consumers won’t know what that is. Say something like, “Share your story with [brand]” or relate your call to action to the hashtag.)

Giveaways are the same thing, so what you want to call it is up to you.

So, what’s the goal of creating a contest or giveaway?

• First, the main goal is to get UGC. Ask for videos, photos, or written reviews. This is a great way to get a ton of UGC for nearly FREE. Just note: it might not be as high-quality as expected if you’ve worked with our home studio UGC creators before. But that’s okay–you’ll probably get something!
• Second, you can use this UGC across your different marketing channels.
• Finally, You can make a condition of the contest or giveaway that someone must follow you to enter, which will often increase your follower count!

Use UGC on product pages or checkout pages

UGC can be a valuable tool outside of social media, too. Here’s a place most brands don’t think to include UGC: Product pages.

Classic customer reviews are a good start, but you can also incorporate UGC videos from clients or video testimonials on your product pages. This will help you increase your chances of converting visitors to your sales pages.

Another hack is to use written reviews on your checkout page. Video reviews might be a bit too much since you don’t want to create distractions, but short, convincing reviews will help customers feel good about the purchase they’re about to make.

Which are you using right now?

So, there you have it–our top picks for how to use UGC to grow your brand in 2024. We’d LOVE to hear from you: How are you using UGC? Where do you see success? Did we miss something?

Share your thoughts with our team–we’d love to make this article even better with your input! 🎉