What Is a User-Generated Content Platform?

If you’re planning on using a user-generated content platform for your brand’s marketing efforts, you first need to understand what this is and what it can do. You also need to learn how to use it to your advantage.

In a nutshell, a UGC platform is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) that helps content marketers easily curate videos, images, and other content they can use.

With a UGC content platform, you don’t have to go through posts made by your brand’s loyal followers one by one. You get to effortlessly sift through the posts made by content creators in one fell swoop, o you can repost or repurpose them for your marketing needs.

Some UGC platforms allow you to gather content from various social media platforms, while a few can only be used for a specific medium, like Instagram or YouTube. There are also user-generated content platforms geared toward acquiring testimonials from customers, and some are specifically made for images and videos you can use for your marketing campaigns.

However, you should remember that there is a difference between consumers who’ve become content creators and influencers who make money out of their posts. There is also a fine line between UGC marketing and influencer marketing.

Both can use a hashtag that can benefit your company, provide social proof for your target market, and can be helpful in a digital marketing strategy. They can be utilized as a kind-of word-of-mouth advertising. While one uses content from unpaid sources, the other gets it from individuals expecting payment for their endorsements.

If you want your brand to connect with your target audience while saving money, you might want to go with organic content creators instead of influencers. You can easily differentiate one from the other when gathering these from social media platforms. During the asking of permissions, you’ll get stipulations from influencers on what kind of payment they expect from the usage of their content, while non-influencers simply say yes when you ask.

Why You Need a User-Generated Content Platform in Your Marketing Strategy

Adding user-generated content to your marketing strategy and utilizing a user-generated content platform to speed up the acquisition process is no longer just an option for your company. It’s already a must since it helps generate revenues for your brand. There are three main reasons you should consider getting a UGC platform for your business.

Doing things manually can take forever

Searching through review sites, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and other social media platforms can take forever and a day to get you what you need. You can put the time you waste digging through the internet for your marketing strategy requirements to better use.

Connecting with the right people

When you use a UGC platform, you can find the right people from the proper social channels effortlessly and quickly. You don’t have to go through mountains of possible content creators for your branded content. These platforms can pair you up with who you need, and even with influencers they know will benefit from your brand because they have existing relationships with these people.

Creating marketing strategies faster

Since digging through Instagram accounts, sites with testimonials, and social media sites for the content you need won’t eat up most of your time, you can formulate more marketing strategies for your company. A UGC platform essentially makes your life as a marketer easier.

When to Consider Using a User-Generated Content Platform

Before you start going through the many different UGC platform options you can find, there are a few things you need to consider. While user-generated content can influence purchasing decisions, not all businesses need or are ready to use a user-generated content platform for their marketing needs. Here are some of the signs that will tell you it’s a good idea for you to start using this tool for your company:

• Your products and your brand already have a loyal and supportive following: If you already have an audience that’s willing and happy to create content for your marketing channels, then a UGC platform is an excellent thing to consider. People who are satisfied with your brand will want to share their experience with it with others. They can do this through case studies, videos, and images reposted on your social channels, and even via contests using hashtags you created.
• Your loyal customers are already creating and sharing user-generated content: If you find people tagging any of your social media pages with content they made to show how much they love your brand, then getting a UGC platform is a good idea. This means you already have a loyal market that believes in you, so you don’t have to build trust with as much effort if it were otherwise. You just need to leverage that into a marketing strategy that brings in even more customers for your brand.
• You value engagement as much as reach: Some companies gravitate towards the use of influencers instead of tapping loyal customers for their marketing and social commerce needs because of their reach. There are others, however, that believe and prioritize engagement for their brand. If you’re more of the latter, then a UGC platform that helps you find and connect with your not-so-famous but pleased base is a must. Some of the best user-generated content comes from ordinary people, not celebrities, since these resonate better with those who love to engage with their favorite brands.

If your audience isn’t that ready to share content about your brand with others, or you still have to build a loyal following on your social media pages, influencer marketing is a good tool. This can encourage your target market to follow suit and to start posting images with your product in hand.

What to Consider in a UGC Platform

Not all user-generated content platforms are created equal. Some are better for what you need than others. To find the best one for your content marketing needs, here are some of the considerations you need to make during your UGC platform selection process:

Features

Some of the features you should look into when choosing a UGC marketing platform include curation and aggregation, display, publishing, and analytics. However, not all your choices may have these. So you need to research and compare to find the one with all the features you require.

Ease of Use

One of the reasons you’re looking for a UGC platform is to make your marketing work easier. This does not only mean quick and efficient sourcing of the appropriate UGC. It’s also about how easy it is to use, especially if you are not that techy. To determine this, check the free trial or demo first so you can try it on for size.

Customizability

Some user-generated content platforms can be customized easily to fit your specific needs, while you need a developer to do this with others. So before you settle on one, ask if you can customize it yourself and if it is even customizable.

Integrations

Some platforms don’t have everything you need, but they do allow integrations so you can build the tool you require for your marketing campaigns. To find out if you can do this, ask whether they support add-ons like messaging, metrics, and other features that will meet your requirements.

Reliability and Support

Another thing you have to consider is a platform’s reliability. Ask the provider these questions below:

• How long have they been around?
• Where is their office’s location?
• Do they have 24-hour support?
• What kind of assistance do they offer?

Security

Also worth looking into is a platform’s level of security. Hackers are always looking for weak spots they can infiltrate. Find out if it has stringent security policies and regular penetration testing. Also, check if they’ve ever encountered a data breach before.

Finding out about all these will help you make an educated decision on the UGC platform or platforms to use for your marketing and engagement needs.

Pro Tip: "UGC is the digital version of word-of-mouth marketing, so you should use unique and helpful tools to make your campaign easy and fun for the users."

7 Examples of the Best User-Generated Content Platforms

Now that you know what a user-generated content platform is and what to look for when you need one, here are some examples that people love to use for their content marketing campaigns:

1. Archive

If your content marketing strategy focuses on Facebook and Instagram, this is one tool you should have in your arsenal. Archive helps you pull posts from Instagram that tag your brand. It also allows you to quickly contact UGC owners as well as download and sort user-generated content for your campaigns. Its other features include:

• Automatically detects any tags your brand receives on Instagram
• Filters and creates lists of all downloaded assets so you can easily find them when needed
• Makes launching ads on both Instagram and Facebook easier

2. Yotpo

This is a platform that does more than collate user-generated content. You can also use it as an eCommerce marketing tool, focusing on visual content and SMS marketing, among other things. Some of its other features include the following:

• Lets you create photo collages with the help of a customizable UGC widget
• Allows you to share to your Instagram feed easily via a curation feature
• Has built-in analytics that helps you check content performance

3. Trend

If you need a platform that finds UGCs that are right for your brand and narrows down your search to those that aren’t low quality or blurry, then Trend is for you. It also helps you get the best UGC for increased brand awareness and conversion rates. It can even help you partner with influencers who can do the following for you:

• Make high-quality UGCs that closely follow guidelines you set for your brand
• Promote and share your content to their followers
• Provide you with content rights to the UGC they create for you

4. ShortStack

If you’re fond of hosting contests for your loyal following, then ShortStack is probably an excellent platform to try. It allows you to easily create image-centric contests for your audience, prompting them to post images (and even videos) on social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Here are some of the advantages you can get with this UGC platform:

• Get your audience to post in real-time, giving you great and authentic content
• Gather information for your mailing list via the contact information form they fill out to qualify for your contests
• Dictate what kind of UGC you get via these giveaways and contests based on your guidelines

5. Taggbox

If you’re looking to collect UGC across various marketing touchpoints, this is the tool for you. You can collate and curate content from email campaigns, social media networks, eCommerce product pages, etc. Below are some of the notable features this platform will allow you to do:

• Build a social media wall you can display in your actual store
• Create custom widgets using the UGC you curate, and use these with customer reviews, social feeds, and other content types you want to use on your site
• Get content rights for the UGC you collect so you can repurpose these however you see fit

6. TINT

Another tool you can use for collecting, publishing, and storing your UGC is this platform that lets you easily customize your UGC marketing strategies. Some of the features you can expect from this platform include:

• Allows you to formulate omnichannel marketing strategies and campaigns using UGCs
• Uses AI to locate and collect the high-quality UGCs for your brand
• Has a capability for integrations, which allows you to use TINT with your marketing stack easily

7. CrowdRiff

For companies that focus on travel and tourism, this platform is probably one of the best. This allows you to collect content that travelers post on various social media outlets. You get authentic and attractive images and content from your target audience while also increasing conversion rates for your business. Features that come with the platform include:

• Ability to gain permissions to share content you source from travelers
• Easy-to-use dashboard that lets you manage and view the UGC you collect
• Metrics and analytics that help you tweak your campaigns to improve performance

Some of these platforms come with templates that you can change around and use for your campaigns. Although they come with different pricing schemes and packages, you can find a cost-effective one that’s most suitable for your brand’s needs.

Archive Can Help You Leverage Your UGC Marketing Strategy

Whatever your UGC marketing needs are, there’s a perfect tool and platform that will help make creating better campaigns easier. Archive is the perfect platform for you if you want to focus on content that can be found and shared via Instagram and Facebook. Find out how you can optimize the use of this tool to your advantage and get expert advice from the creators of this app so you can reach optimal results from your UGC marketing efforts.

Make your customers’ journey more enjoyable through aggregated user-generated content without the stress and time-consuming work of collecting and sorting through UGCs. Leverage customer content, find awesome customer reviews, get great functionality, and ensure that you curate high-quality content with Archive. To learn more about what you can do with the app, check out the many articles on this platform’s usability.

UGC platforms make finding, collecting, and presenting content from social media easier. Visit Archive for more useful resources on how to improve your UGC marketing strategies.

FAQs on the 7 Best UGC Marketing Platforms

Where can I find UGC?

You can find UGC on numerous social media channels, and they can come in various forms. Some of the more popular locations for UGCs include Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube.

What are the different types of UGC?

UGCs come in many different forms, with the most common being images. Other UGCs that companies use for their marketing needs include testimonials, videos, podcasts, feedback, and comments.

What is an influencer content platform?  

Unlike UGC platforms that use content made by ordinary people, an influencer content platform uses those made by influencers for marketing. These platforms help companies find, contact, and manage the influencers they need for their brand awareness and marketing goals. They also assist businesses in measuring which influencers bring in the most revenues and even automate certain tasks associated with running an influencer marketing campaign.

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