User-Generated Content: How Businesses Can Get It and Use It Well

User-generated content, or UGC, is any content about your business created by customers rather than by you: photos, videos, reviews, posts, stories and comments. It builds trust because it comes from people with no reason to exaggerate. A customer’s photo of their finished kitchen or a client’s short video about their experience often persuades more than polished brand content.

The term is also now used for paid creator content made to look like customer content. That can be useful for ads, but it is different, and it should be clearly disclosed where required.

Why UGC works

• Credibility: people trust other customers more than businesses talking about themselves.
• Relatability: prospects see people like them using your product or service.
• Volume: customers create content you could never produce alone.
• Proof in context: real results in real settings, rather than staged shots.

How to encourage customers to create content

Most customers will not create content unless asked or prompted. Make it easy and natural:

• Ask at the right moment: when a project is finished, a result is visible, or a customer says something positive.
• Create shareable moments: a nice unboxing, a reveal, a photo-worthy space, a handwritten note.
• Give a clear prompt: “Tag us when your new garden is in bloom” works better than “share your experience”.
• Use a branded hashtag if you have enough customers to make it meaningful.
• Feature customers: people are more likely to share when they see others being featured.
• Follow up by email or message after a positive interaction, with a simple request.

For service businesses, a short request after a job is complete, paired with your review request, often produces both a review and photos. Our guide to collecting testimonials covers the wording.

Permission and rights

Being tagged in a post does not automatically give you permission to reuse it in your marketing. Ask before sharing, credit the creator, and get clear written permission if you plan to use content in ads, on your website or in print. Keep a simple record of permissions. If you pay or reward customers or creators for content, make sure the relationship is disclosed in line with advertising rules where you operate, and avoid rewarding only positive reviews, which can breach platform policies and consumer protection rules.

Where to use UGC

• Social feeds and Stories: reshare with credit, and save the best to Highlights.
• Service and product pages: real photos near the claims they support.
• Landing pages and ads: customer content often outperforms brand creative.
• Emails: show what other customers achieved.
• Sales conversations: examples that match the prospect’s situation.

UGC also helps keep your content calendar full without constant production. Our content repurposing planner helps turn one strong piece into several uses.

Paid UGC-style content

Many brands now hire creators to produce authentic-looking videos for ads. This can work very well, especially for products and consumer services. Treat it as advertising: brief creators properly, avoid claims you cannot support, and disclose partnerships where required. Do not present paid creators as independent customers.

Measuring the impact

Track how often customers create content, the engagement on reshared UGC compared with your own posts, and conversion rates on pages or ads that use it. If UGC consistently outperforms brand content, shift your production effort toward encouraging and curating it.

Build a steady flow of customer proof

We help businesses create systems for collecting customer content, managing permissions and using UGC across social, website and campaigns. See our Social Media Management service or contact us to talk about turning customers into your best marketing.