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What Are UGC Campaigns? Examples, Benefits, and How-Tos

Written by 糖心vlog官网观看 Staff 鈥 Updated on

Learn what UGC campaigns are, including who uses them and the positive impact this type of marketing may have on your business.

[Featured Image] A person participates in UGC campaigns by taking a selfie with a product.

Key takeaways

User-generated content (UGC) campaigns are marketing strategies in which people, rather than the brand, create content, such as photos and videos. Here are some important facts to know:

  • Grand View Research reports the global market value for user-generated content is projected to reach over $32 billion by 2030, up from $4.4 billion in 2022 [].

  • Popular brands, including Coca-Cola, Apple, and LEGO庐, have created UGC campaigns [,].

  • You can utilize user-generated content across various channels, such as billboards, social media marketing, commercials, and email marketing.听

Learn what UGC campaigns are, the different types, and how developing one might benefit your business. Afterward, consider enrolling in Google鈥檚 Digital Marketing and E-commerce Professional Certificate. You鈥檒l have the opportunity to learn the fundamentals of digital marketing and e-commerce.

Types of UGC

User-generated content comes in many different forms, including written and visual content. A review published by a customer qualifies as UGC, as does a photo posted with a brand鈥檚 hashtag. Discover various types of UGC campaigns, and examine the difference between organic content and paid UGC:聽

Organic UGC

Consumers who create and produce user-generated content without financial compensation fall under the category of organic UGC. Discover specific types of organic UGC:

  • Photos: Customers may post photos or graphics that include your brand鈥檚 products to their social media account, or allow your brand to post their submitted photos to your official account.

  • Videos: Users of your product or consumers of your brand may produce video content using or discussing your brand and tag you on social media.

  • Reviews: Consumers can write reviews of your product or business on websites like Google, Yelp, and Facebook that you can pull for landing pages and social media usage.

  • Blogs: Consumers may mention your product or service in a personal blog or on their website, which you can then cite on your own.

Paid UGC

Paid UGC campaigns typically occur when a brand pays a content creator to make videos or take photos promoting or using their product. For example, you may have a fitness trainer photograph themselves wearing your company鈥檚 workout leggings. Paid UGC overlaps with organic UGC types, with many paid UGC campaigns involving videos and photos captured by product users. However, with paid UGC, you must disclose and identify sponsored content.

This type of marketing differs from influencers, who have a large following and enter an agreement with a brand to produce content and post it on their own social media channels for their followers to see. With paid UGC, the content typically goes live on the brand鈥檚 feed, rather than the user鈥檚.

What does UGC stand for?

UGC stands for user-generated content. Users may or may not earn any money from the production of the content, and allow brands to share their content on various channels, such as social media or their website.

What are UGC campaigns used for?

UGC campaigns are typically used for marketing purposes. Your marketing department may seek out user-generated content to repurpose on your own website or social channels as social proof that users interact with and have positive feelings toward your brand products. Marketers looking to reduce costs may prioritize the UGC campaigns, as organic UGC typically comes at no cost to the brand.

Who uses UGC campaigns?

Brands and consumers use UGC campaigns, but for different reasons. Brands post user-generated content as a marketing tactic, while users create the content because they want to share their experiences.

Individuals who create UGC differ from content creators, who typically earn money for producing content and must disclose any sponsored content with a brand. For example, Instagram requires that users disclose sponsored content as such by adding a "paid partnership" label to those posts.

Learn more: 14 Essential Digital Content Creator Skills

Benefits of UGC campaigns

One of the largest benefits of creating a UGC campaign is the brand awareness it provides for your business. When other users post about your product and tag you, word travels about your brand and leads back to you. Additional benefits of UGC campaigns may include:

  • Reduced marketing costs: Influencer marketing can cost marketing departments a lot, but user-generated content is often free. Consumers share content on their own volition, and your brand reposts the content to share their stories as proof that users enjoy and use your product. Taking advantage of this content requires strategy, but the production comes at a reduced cost to you and your brand.

  • Ability to adapt across marketing channels: Much of user-generated content begins on social media, but it can be repurposed for other marketing channels, such as commercials, billboards, landing pages, and email campaigns.

  • Brand interaction: When your brand reposts a photo, video, or written post created by a consumer, it instantly shows that you interact firsthand with users of your products. This can inspire other consumers to share their content with your brand, and also leans into the genuine, authentic nature of your business to share content created by actual customers, rather than partnering with influencers or paid creators.

What are some examples of UGC campaigns?

Popular brands, including Coca-Cola, Apple, and LEGO, have used user-generated content campaigns. You鈥檝e likely come across a user-generated content campaign from a brand you know, but perhaps you didn鈥檛 realize that the marketing tactic they used was, in fact, UGC. User-generated content is on the rise, and according to Grand View Research, the global market value for user-generated content was $4.4 billion in 2022, and may reach upwards of $32 billion by 2030 [].听

颁辞肠补-颁辞濒补听

Nearly 15 years ago, Coca-Cola developed a personalized marketing campaign for its consumers by producing bottles of the popular beverage containing people鈥檚 names, for example, 鈥楢ustin鈥 or 鈥楳aya鈥. The idea was to encourage consumers to try to find a bottle of Coca-Cola with their name, or the name of someone they knew, on it, and purchase it.听

In March of 2025, Coca-Cola launched a new version of its 鈥楽hare a Coke鈥 campaign, this time with the addition of QR codes, which led consumers to the opportunity to add customized names and create videos of their shared experiences []. These videos can go on social media as user-generated content, and, similar to the 2011 campaign, encourage consumers to share a Coca-Cola with someone they know.

Apple

In 2019, Apple launched the 鈥楽hot on iPhone Challenge鈥 campaign, encouraging users to share the best photos and videos they had taken with their Apple device. To participate, users submitted their work on Instagram or X (formerly Twitter) with the hashtag #ShotOniPhone or via email. The winners came from across the world and used varying Apple devices, such as the iPhone 7 and the iPhone XS Max [].听

This campaign generated content for Apple to use to showcase that their products can take and create beautiful images. By sharing this user-generated content, Apple could then build credibility among those looking to buy its product.

LEGO

LEGO invites users to share ideas based on the type of products they want to see made by the popular company. On the LEGO Ideas page, you can submit original ideas using their BrickLink Studio for other consumers to see, and they can vote for their favorites with the hopes of LEGO making the proposed set a reality [].听

This campaign relies heavily on the support of other users, with submissions having two months to gain 100 votes from individual users. If a project receives upwards of 100 supporters, you get additional time to reach the goal of 10,000 supporters, which increases the likelihood that the official LEGO review team sees your idea.听

LEGO Ideas encourages users to use their imaginations and contribute to the future of LEGO products. To gain supporters, users may also share their projects on social media channels, further encouraging traffic to LEGO鈥檚 site.

What tools offer seamless integration between referrals and UGC campaigns?

Social media apps often offer seamless integration between referrals and UGC campaigns, and you can also use platforms specifically designed for UGC content management. Referral marketing refers to a tactic that offers customers an incentive for sharing a review or simply information about your brand or product. Consider using social media tools, such as Instagram and TikTok, to integrate referrals and user-generated content.听

For example, you may offer users who create unsolicited user-generated content for your brand a discount on their next purchase, which may then prompt them to share additional photos, videos, or reviews of your product. You can also do this by running a campaign where users must like, tag a friend in the comments, and share the post to their own account to enter to win a free product. This builds awareness through shared content and incentivizes users.

Additionally, explore UGC content management platforms, which can help you find content related to your brand, moderate it, and post it to various channels, as well as automate your UGC marketing tasks. Some examples include Flowbox, Yotpo, EmbedSocial, and Insense.

How to create a UGC campaign

To create a UGC campaign, start by determining where you will source your content. Are you creating a challenge or trend with hopes of it going viral? Will your marketing team spend time searching for tagged or hashtagged content? Once you鈥檝e settled on where the content comes from, consider additional steps to take:

  • Strategize: Work together with other members of your marketing team to ensure that the UGC campaign you run aligns with your brand's image. Often, the type of UGC you request from users will be determined by what your brand needs. For example, if you want to drive sales of a product, such as slippers, consider encouraging customers to post photos or videos showcasing different styles of your footwear.

  • Request permission from users: One of the most important aspects of UGC is ensuring that you have permission from, or give credit to, the creators. You can do this by directly contacting the creator of the content you want to use and by tagging them in a social media post. If you choose to share on your website, you can explicitly state who took a photo, video, or wrote the provided content.

  • Use positive and negative UGC to your advantage: When searching for reviews or testimonials about your products, you may encounter less-than-favorable ones. You can use this to your advantage by responding to customers and giving them a positive interaction with your brand. For the positive content, you can choose various platforms to share customer experiences with new and existing consumers.

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Article sources

1.听

Grand View Research. 鈥, https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/user-generated-content-platform-market-report.鈥 Accessed October 16, 2025.

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