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You’ve been thinking about using user-generated content (UGC) to market your products.
Now, the question is, “What types of user-generated content will work best for your business?”
Luckily, you have many options to pick from.
And in this guide, I’ll walk you through 9 UGC types you can use for various campaigns.
Let’s dive in.
Why you should use user-generated content on Instagram
These 4 reasons position UGC as an important content source for your business:
Social proof
It’s an open secret in marketing: people look to other people before buying a product. If I want to buy a car and 2 of my friends swear that the Toyota Camry is the most reliable vehicle they’ve ever used, then the Toyota Camry will have an edge over other options.
The same thing applies to your products. If customers create content about how your product has solved an important problem, they’ll compel more people to check it out.
Trust
If you say good things about your products, prospects know you have an ulterior motive: to convince them to buy the product.
This motive reduces the level of trust.
But if a customer says good things about your product, potential buyers are more likely to trust them because they have little to gain from promoting your product.
Broader reach
The reality of putting the word out about your product is that some people will be out of your reach.
User-generated content will reach people that you can’t reach through your marketing efforts.
Even if you feature some UGC on your social media pages and website, the ones you don’t feature can also reach thousands of people.
Lower costs
Since most UGC is free, you’ll only spend a little out of your marketing budget for UGC campaigns.
So, if you have a tight marketing budget, take advantage of UGC to fill your content queue with great content.
That said, what types of UGC can help you obtain these benefits?
Types of user-generated content for better product promotion
1. Testimonials
Testimonials are statements from your customers explaining how your product helped them solve important problems.
In a testimonial, the customer will explain a task they use your product to perform and how your product has improved their results or saved them time.
A testimonial is one of the best ways to convince prospects who are still on the fence about your product. It clears the doubt a potential buyer has about whether your product can actually fulfill its promise.
While some customers will create testimonials about your product on social media, most won’t.
You have to encourage them to create testimonials for your preferred platforms.
For example, you can prompt your customers on social media by specifying a hashtag customers can use. Tell them to explain the benefits they’ve gained from using your product.
Here’s a video on TikTok showing a testimonial from a customer of JVN hair:
You can also collect testimonials to feature on your website. All you have to do is ask (usually through email) about your customers’ experience with your products.
If they have a positive experience, take it a step further and ask them to write a testimonial or record a video testimonial.
Fastsigns has a video testimonial page where customers talk about the problems the company solved for them.
With testimonials, your customers can tell all the wonders your product has done for them.
2. Reviews
Reviews explain a customer’s experience with your product. A review can go into detail about your product features and what each feature does for its user. It can also mention the pros and cons of the product.
The main difference between a review and a testimonial is that a review can be positive or negative, while a testimonial is only positive.
While negative reviews can be a thorn in your flesh, it’s an essential part of the buying process.
Of course, you won’t repost them on your social media page or website. But you can draw important information from them to improve your product.
Beyond that, a good review usually enlightens prospects about a product before they buy it.
You can encourage reviews on social media, review sites, or your website.
For social media, you can ask what your customers think about your product and provide a hashtag to use in the content. Through the hashtag, you’ll see all the reviews.
Here’s a review of Jones Road Beauty foundation by James Charles:
If you want customers to create reviews on review sites, you can send an email with links to your product review pages.
Here’s a review of a software product on Capterra:
Apart from review sites, you can also send your product to bloggers who create content in your niche. In return, the blogger will use the product and create a review to educate their audience.
Here’s a review of Vista Social, a social media management tool, on this blog:
The third option is to collect reviews on your website. This is common for ecommerce sites.
All you have to do is send an email to customers a few weeks after buying your product. This email will mention the product and link to the product review page.
Here’s an email from Jumia to leave a review about a recent purchase:
With reviews, prospects can get all the information they need before buying your product.
3. Product use cases
People will use your product to perform different tasks.
Take a blender as an example. You can use it to blend tomatoes and peppers to prepare a stew, blend fruits to create a smoothie, or blend seeds.
User-generated content can help you showcase the different tasks that customers perform with your product.
First, this will show potential buyers all the ways they can get value from your product. Second, it will show customers more ways to use your product and thereby increase satisfaction.
To encourage customers to create this type of UGC, call on them to capture moments they use your product.
This will show many use cases since people use your product in different ways.
This UGC type is perfect if you want to run a giveaway or contest.
See this giveaway by GoPro:
Even though the giveaway asks customers to publish their fails, the submissions will indirectly show different use cases of GoPro cameras.
But beyond giveaways, GoPro also has awards for customers who create mind-blowing content with GoPro cameras. You can see content created on top of mountains, on ice, or inside water.
UGC showing use cases can display the value of your product to both prospects and customers.
4. Product awareness
It’s simple. If people don’t know your product, they can’t buy it even if they need it.
This means the more you get your product in front of people, the more you widen the net to increase the number of prospects.
Creating product awareness is the process of getting your product in front of more people.
User-generated content can help create awareness, especially for new products.
To use this type of UGC, you can provide a product-related hashtag and tell customers to use it when they feature your product in their content. Another option is for customers to tag your account in the content.
GoPro does this whenever it launches a new camera. For example, its latest camera is the GoPro Hero 12, and you’ll see many posts on Instagram using the #GoProHERO12 hashtag.
Over 38,000 posts for a single product is a lot of publicity. And this means that even people who don’t follow GoPro on Instagram will hear about the product.
GoPro also features UGC of this camera on its page, which will encourage even more users to create UGC.
UGC for product awareness can help you create a buzz around a new product.
5. Tutorials
Tutorials show customers how to perform specific tasks with your product.
Tutorials can guide people on how to use your product to get the best results possible. They are especially critical in industries where customers can easily misuse products, e.g., beauty.
By watching tutorials, customers can solve more problems with your product, become satisfied, and buy the product for many years.
In addition to that, tutorials can serve as customer support and reduce the load on your customer support reps.
To get tutorials, you can call on customers to share how they perform a specific action with your product.
See this tutorial by a user on how to use a Jones Road Beauty product:
Tutorials clear a path to arrive at more customer satisfaction and retention.
6. Unboxing
How do you feel when the delivery man rings your doorbell and delivers that product you’re excited about?
You want to unbox it immediately to see all the goodies inside the box.
Unboxing a product can create a good feeling in the buyer. When you ask customers to create unboxing videos, you want to recreate this feeling in a prospect.
Unboxing videos can paint a clear image in your prospect’s mind as they seek to lay their hands on your product.
To get this type of UGC video, call on customers to make a video of them unboxing the new product.
Here’s an unboxing video of the Telstra smart modem on TikTok:
Unboxing is a fun way to show prospects what to expect when they order your product.
7. Challenge
A challenge involves people doing their version of a particular task. It’s a great way to create awareness, as they tend to go viral.
A challenge can happen in 2 main ways. If you see a popular challenge related to your product, you can encourage customers to join the challenge using your product.
The other way is to create your own challenge. This can work if you have a large customer and follower base.
You can even structure it like a contest so that the winner of the challenge gets to win a gift (preferably your product).
A challenge can help you leverage the fun side of your customers.
8. Case study
A case study is a form of testimonial, but it delivers more details than testimonials. It comes in the form of before and after.
So, a customer will show the results they achieved before using your product and the results they now achieve with your product.
Case studies are common for software products but can work for products in niches where it’s easy to measure results objectively.
Publishing case studies is a great way to convince prospects to try your product. You’re literally showing a potential buyer the type of results they can achieve.
To create a case study, reach out to a satisfied customer for more details about their results.
While a case study may not be created by the customer alone, the numbers and details are supplied by the customer.
From the details supplied by the customer, you can create a compelling story about your product.
In most cases, case studies will live on your website. But you can create an image of the numbers and share it on social media.
ConvertKit, an email marketing software company, publishes many case studies that show specific results its customers achieved with the tool.
But ConvertKit dives deeper beyond the entire software. It highlights a particular ConvertKit feature that helped a customer achieve great results.
Case studies, by showing numbers, can convince prospects who need to deliver concrete results for their bosses or businesses.
9. Ads
Whenever you have a high-performing UGC on social media, you can push its performance further with ads.
Most social media platforms let you boost your organic posts. So, you can turn user-generated content on Instagram into ads.
Instagram lets you set your goal, audience, budget, and duration for the ad.
You can also turn user-generated content on TikTok into Spark ads. TikTok lets you add a CTA button to your ad if you want to take viewers to a landing page.
Before using UGC for ads, ensure that you get permission from its creator.
When setting up ads, ensure the content of the UGC aligns with the goal of your ad. For example, a UGC showing a product use case can have a goal to drive more people to your profile.
After running UGC ad campaigns, compare your results to other types of ads you run. This will help you understand how effective your UGC ads are.
Once you decide how to use UGC on Instagram for a particular campaign, the next step is to collect UGC. See my detailed guide on how to collect user-generated content for your business.
To see more examples of brands nailing UGC on Instagram, check out Instagram user-generated content examples.
Which type of UGC is best for your business?
The type of UGC you encourage and collect will depend on your goal at a specific time.
For example, if you want to create more brand awareness, you can encourage customers to create UGC for challenges and product use cases.
However, to generate leads or sales, you can employ UGC, such as testimonials, reviews, and unboxing.
So, all the UGC types can work for your business at different times.
Conclusion
You can use user-generated content to achieve various marketing goals for your business.
But you have to understand which types of user-generated content match the goal you want to achieve.
So that when you collect UGC from customers, you’ll specify the best UGC type for your business at that time.
Exploit these UGC types, and you can squeeze every benefit from user-generated content.
