Have you ever opened a social media channel to discover a new brand, explore its products, and make a purchase? If you nod your head in agreement, know you’re not alone. Social commerce is popular worldwide, and its popularity is rising. 

Forecast says that the value of social commerce will reach 2.9 trillion U.S.. dollars by 2026. 

While more brands are exploring this channel, socials are cluttered by images and videos of new products posted daily by brands.

There’s a steep competition among brands to capture the attention of the audience. At the same time, audiences want to see something new and different, which gives them the confidence to trust a new brand online. 

User-generated content, or UGC, helps brands cut through the noise and help them stand out. 

What is UGC on social media? 

User-generated content is any form of content that’s created by an actual user instead of a brand. The UGC can be in any format - text, image, videos, or reviews. 

Here are some examples.

#MyFevicolAd by Fevicol

The Fevicol brand ran a #MyFevicolAd campaign where the brand asked its users to create a full-fledged ad for Fevicol. The top entries won some exciting prizes. The brand saw a lot of quirky and funny entries from its users. 

This campaign generated a lot of content for Fevicol without the brand having to invest much. Take a look: 

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Here’s another example from Tripoto — a travel community. The entire community runs on UGC content. 

How to use UGC for social commerce? 

While you can go creative and use UGC in various ways to promote your brand, here are some popular ways to use UGC. Let’s take a look.

1. UGC during the user journey

Integrating user-generated content into the buyer’s journey makes you better poised to influence your potential buyers buying decisions. Let’s see how.

Homepage

Using UGC on your homepage helps build trust among new prospects still exploring or considering your product. Reading reviews from other users on your homepage gives them the confidence to trust your brand. 

Salesforce saw users spending 90% more time engaging with UGC content galleries on the homepage. Here are some examples of using UGC on the homepage.

Wooden Street, an online furniture store, uses user testimonials along with the actual product picture on its website homepage. Apart from endorsing the product, the UGC content also gives new buyers ideas on how to style the product. 

UGC in the product pages

For example, IKEA asks its users to rate their products against various parameters that are listed next to each of their products. 

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On checkout page

Adding UGC on checkout pages can be a great tool to reduce cart abandonment, which is as high as 70%. 

UGC content gives buyers the final push they need to close the transaction. Add user ratings, reviews, and testimonials to excite the buyer to press the checkout button. You may also showcase similar products with customer reviews and ratings for an upsell opportunity. 

2.  UGC content on social media

Users love to interact with their favorite brands on social media. A report mentions that 64% of consumers agree that when a brand they like re-shares their content, they are more likely to share content about the brand or its product. 

The same report also says that 72% of users will allow a brand to use their content if asked. This means users are eager to create content for their favorite brands. However, they need some guidance. 

So, brands can give a little direction, like asking to mention specific hashtags, asking for unboxing videos, and flaunting their purchases to help generate more UGC content. 

For example, Go Pro uses UGC content for its YouTube channel. The brand runs a GoPro awards program that regards best content producers with lucrative prizes. The UGC content garnered 130K website visits in 2019.

3. UGC in Social Ads

User-generated content in social ads can reduce cost per click by 50%. It also creates better engagement while creating strong social proof. Here’s how Shopify uses UGC content in their ads. 

Recommended read: How to reduce customer acquisition costs on social media

4. UGC in email

Data says click-through rates increase by 73% when emails include user-generated content. This leads to better conversion for brands as well. Using content from happy customers helps brands to convert leads into customers. So, encourage your users to create content.

For example, you may ask them to share a photo or a video using the product, share the hashtags with which they can post the content on socials, offer incentives to create content, and give them a shoutout on your social page when they share your content. 

Few things to remember while using UGC content

If you're using UGC content for the first time, here are some important points to remember.

1. Encourage them

To use UGC, you need to encourage your users to create content. You can try offering incentives, contests, challenges, hashtags, and campaigns to help users create content and share it with you. 

2. Gather and segregate 

The next step is to collect all the UGC content and store it in your database. Asking users to use hashtags while posting the content can help you locate all the UGC content with the hashtag across all channels. 

Once you have gathered all the posts in your database, it's time to repurpose the content. For example, if you have UGC images and videos, you can use them in your IG stories, reels, and YouTube channels. If you have written testimonials, use them on your website. 

3. Credit the creators

Finally, credit the creators and interact with them. Always ask for permission when you use UGC content, and don't forget to attribute them. Interact with them by commenting on their posts, tagging them, mentioning them in your stores, and asking them to join your ongoing campaign, local program, or newsletter. 

Turn every UGC content piece. Into a shoppable post 

SimplicityDX makes any user-generated content on any channel shoppable in minutes, giving customers a more streamlined user experience to find and buy the products that inspire them. The AI-powered storefronts for social commerce help brands acquire more customers and drive campaign revenue from user-generated content on social media by creating multichannel and campaign-specific ecommerce stores in minutes. 

SimplicityDX ensures real-time integration with products. If a user puts up an unboxing video and the brand pulls that on its feed, the edge storefront can synchronize it to the products on the site and show it on the Storefront page in minutes. 

This can dramatically reduce your customer acquisition cost and boost ROAS. Don't believe it? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oqzgHTECo0 

Conclusion 

If you want to utilize your user-generated content in full swing and improve your social commerce game, then SimplicityDX is here to help.

Our AI-powered social storefronts are designed to identify the products presented in the user generated content shared by your brand on social media, and populate a storefront that displays them all, giving shoppers the ability to find the products of their interest in no time.

Want to know how user generated content can turn into shoppable posts?

Book a demo today.