What is UGC?

How many types of UGC are there and how you can use it for your brand.

1/13/20252 min read

What is User Generated Content (UGC)?

User Generated Content (UGC) is content created by users of a platform. It can be in the form of text, images, videos or any other type of media that users upload on the platform. UGC is also known as user-generated content and user-contributed content.
Examples of UGC include:

  • Photos taken by users on Instagram or Facebook;

  • Videos created by YouTube users for their channels or TikTok users for their or brands channel;

  • Reviews on brands website or text, e-mail messages from client about brands product that they liked;

  • Podcast or interviews where audio content is used to promote some kind of brand.

Types of User Generated Content

There are three main types of UGC: text, visual and audio. Text-based UGC includes anything that you can read or hear on the internet. Examples include comments on blogs, forums and social media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter. Visual UGC includes images, videos and infographics created by users for websites like Instagram or Pinterest. Audio UGC refers to audio recordings such as podcasts or interviews that users upload onto sites like SoundCloud or YouTube.

How Can Brands Leverage UGC?

  • Organic UGC
    Organic UGC is the most cost-effective way to leverage your brand. It's also the most authentic and natural way to build a community around your product or service, as users are creating content for themselves and not for an advertiser. The best part about organic UGC is that it can be repurposed into different formats and platforms, which means you don't have to start from scratch every time you want to use it!

  • Paid UGC
    Paid UGC refers specifically to paid campaigns where brands pay influencers (people who have large followings on social media) in order for them to create content around their product or service. This form of marketing involves partnering with influential people within certain niches by giving them free products/services in exchange for promoting them on social media sites like Facebook or Instagram. Or a sponsored post, when someone shares their opinion about something online but doesn't disclose that they were paid for doing so.

UGC Platforms

  • Social Media Platforms: The most common way to create UGC is through social media. You can post photos, videos and comments on your favorite platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

  • Online Communities: Many people join online communities where they can share their opinions with other members of the community in the form of discussions or reviews. Some examples are Yelp (restaurant reviews), TripAdvisor (hotel reviews), Amazon product reviews etc.

  • Content Hosting Platforms: some websites allow users to upload their own content such as videos or images which can then be shared with others via links or embed codes.

UGC Best Practices

Establish Guideline


The first step to managing UGC is establishing guidelines for your brand's social media channels. This can be done with a simple blog post or by creating an FAQ page on your website. The key here is to make sure that users know what kind of content you want them to create, how often they should post it and where they should share it (i.e., Instagram vs Facebook). You also want to make sure you're clear about what types of comments are acceptable so that nothing slips through the cracks without being addressed by the right person at your company or worse yet, gets deleted because someone thought it was spammy!


Track & Measure Results


Once you've established guidelines for UGC creation and posting frequency, it's time to track how well those rules are working out in practice. There are several ways to do this:

1) Monitor mentions online

2) Use tools like Google Analytics

3) Ask people directly via surveys

4) Run polls

5) Set up A/B tests

6) Use heatmaps

7) Check engagement levels

8) Analyze clickthrough rates

9) Analyze demographics

Or we can help you with all of that! We connect brands with UGC creators in Europe and can create Ads for your social media and track, measure results! Feel free to contact us for more information.