Create a Winning UGC Marketing Strategy
In 2022, K18 generated 11.2 billion views on TikTok in just 1 month. The haircare brand ran hashtag campaigns to boost awareness of their products. T
housands of people shared UGC content, following this “hairtok” trend, multiplying the brand’s reach.
There’s no denying that customer-driven conversations about your brand impact your growth.
According to research by MASV, 81% of consumers say user-generated content (specifically video) is more trustworthy than professionally created brand content.
Customers can tell when they're being sold to, making them skeptical of brand promotions.
However, when a customer praises your products and shares images and videos of them on social media, it acts as social proof.
UGC content marketing increases word-of-mouth for your brand, giving you more credibility, and increasing sales.
But you need to do it the right way.
Creating a UGC social media marketing strategy is more than just finding and reposting a few customer photos.
In this blog, we will walk you through the exact steps to create a UGC marketing strategy for your eCommerce brand along with best practices so that you can effectively tap into this powerful channel.
6 Steps to Build a UGC Content Marketing Strategy
Here’s how you can create a UGC content strategy, from setting your goals to execution to scaling your efforts.
Step 1: Define Your UGC Goals and KPIs
First things first — define what you want to achieve with your UGC marketing strategy.
While driving sales is the primary goal of any marketing strategy, UGC plays a more nuanced role in buyer journeys.
Brands usually have multiple goals for their user-generated content campaign.
They can run a UGC campaign to drive more brand awareness on social media and use this UGC content on product pages to build trust.
Here are some common goals that eCommerce brands have with their UGC campaigns:
Increase trust and authenticity.
Build loyalty and foster a sense of community.
Reduce buyer hesitancy.
Increase social proof.
Improve ad performance.
Drive FOMO to influence purchasing decisions.
Increase your audience reach by leveraging the virality of UGC campaigns.
Repurpose UGC across marketing channels (website, social media content, ads, etc).
Why do you even need to define your goals?
Without knowing your exact goals, your campaign will be too broad, making it tricky to execute and analyze.
A clear objective ensures that your approach is specific, with clear next steps that work towards your goals.
It makes your analysis more accurate too. If your UGC campaign is to increase brand awareness, you’ll prioritize measuring engagement, not sales.
Next, identify the relevant KPIs to measure your UGC campaign’s effectiveness.
Understand what your performance looks like before you start your campaign to set a benchmark. This makes it easy to compare your metrics at different stages of the campaign.
Set up tracking if relevant (like for unique links).
Check if your data is accurate. You don’t want to be halfway through your UGC campaign and then realize there’s an attribution issue.
Here are some UGC metrics you can monitor based on your goals:
1. Reach and Engagement: How many likes, comments, and shares did the UGC content drive? Measuring this lets you identify the best creators and effective UGC types. You can also look at the number of comments and their quality to understand if your campaign helped in building trust.
2. Conversion: How many people became paying customers through UGC and what drove most conversions? Segment your conversion data to identify performance based on creators, marketing channels, and content format. This will help you identify what’s actually working and what isn’t.
3. Content Diversity: Are you getting one type of UGC or is there a mix of multiple formats? If it’s not diverse enough, you can launch dedicated UGC contests for a specific UGC format. For example, if you mostly receive images, run a campaign asking for Instagram reels and TikTok submissions.
4. Brand Mentions: A great way to measure increased brand awareness and brand advocacy during your UGC campaign is by tracking how often users tag your brand in posts and stories.
5. Ad Performance Using UGC: Compare the performance of your ads using UGC assets versus brand-created content to understand the impact of UGC on clicks, ad spending, and conversions.
Step 2: Identify the Right UGC Creators for Your Brand
Not every user-generated content will be right for your brand. The creators you choose should resonate with your audience. How do you find the right creators?
1. Use the Right Social Media Channels to Look for Creators
For most eCommerce brands, platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube work best.
Fitness brands see a lot of success in collecting UGC from Reddit, but fashion brands are more likely to find the right UGC creators on Pinterest.
Search Instagram and TikTok to see who’s mentioning your brand or using your brand hashtags. You can also check the “Tagged” section on your Instagram profile to find UGCs.
Micro and macro creators with a niche following have a personal connection with their followers. Their UGC looks more authentic and credible to the audience, making them great to partner with.
2. Analyze Your Shortlisted Creators’ Performance
Once you shortlist creators, analyze their suitability for your campaign goals:
Does someone have a huge following but proportionally low engagement? They are less likely to drive results.
You need creators whose content gets active likes, comments, and shares.
Depending on the locations you sell to, you need to look at the creator’s follower demographics, too. If they cater to Australia but you only sell to Germany, your UGC campaigns won’t have meaningful reach.
3. Check Creator Quality and Audience Response
Analyze the authenticity of the creator’s previous social media posts. Do they look salesy or do they convey genuine love for the brand?
Authentic content where the creator seems to honestly enjoy the products is always better than straight-out promotions. You can scan their post comments to understand audience perception better.
Glossier is on a mission to redefine beauty with products that are inclusive, accessible, and celebrate individuality. They reshare high-quality UGC content featuring genuine creators who don’t just talk about the products on camera but use them regularly.
