How to use UGC in marketing and how brands get it WRONG

In recent years, brands have turned their attention to UGC as the “new trend” in digital marketing (see how to create a digital marketing strategy). But there’s a problem: many are using it incorrectly. Very incorrectly.

If you think that paying 10 profiles with 6,000 followers to upload a video to their profile is “doing UGC”, we need to clarify a few concepts… Come on, grab a coffee and let’s get to it.

This is what many brands are doing:

• They look for profiles with 5,000+ followers. Many UGC platforms require content creators to have at least 3,000 followers, and our question is… what are they trying to achieve?. That sounds more like a micro-influencer campaign
• They send them a product and a somewhat improvised brief.
• They tell them: “Make a TikTok-style video and post it on your profile”.

In this scenario, the value lies in the creator’s reach, not in the content as a brand asset. The video lives on the creator’s profile and, although it can generate visibility, it does not build a repository of owned content.

This is influencer marketing. To be more academic, it could be called nano-influencer or micro-influencer marketing. UGC vs Influencer: Where is the real impact?

We explain it better here:

In any case, they could be called “UGC campaigns“, but always taking care with every video and every post, rather than doing it en masse without control and without requiring X followers, because if the value lies in the followers, it is no longer UGC. The value of UGC lies in knowing how to create content, regardless of the creator’s follower count.

A UGC creator does not need an audience. Their value lies in their ability to:

• Know how to sell
• Record, edit and act professionally
• Convey trust within seconds
• Tell a story in 15–30 seconds that makes your customer think: “This is for me”.

The key difference: you publish the content on your social media, website, ads or ecommerce store. The goal is not to leverage their reach, but to leverage their credibility to sell or strengthen your brand.

The difference from influencer marketing (the real kind, not what some platforms disguise as UGC because it is currently fashionable) is that, while influencers’ reach is lost here, the brand amplifies this content by investing in paid media, either by promoting the organic post or through paid campaigns.

Alternatively, you can run a UGC campaign at scale, replacing each micro-influencer’s reach with the volume, quality and personalization of UGC content creation.

At HICARI, we give you the option for UGC creators to post a video on their social media profile, but we recommend (although it is something to test) making it a collaborative video with the brand to make it feel more natural and even allow the content to be promoted.

If necessary, that UGC creator can amplify the content, as these creator profiles are usually very willing to share it and give it plenty of exposure. One of our clients did this with one of the videos ordered through HICARI and it worked brilliantly: view content.

Well-executed UGC helps you:

• Humanize your brand and put a face to it.
• Build trust with genuine testimonials.
• Fuel your paid campaigns with credible content.
• Generate social proof in your ecommerce store.
• Stand out from cold, aggressively sales-driven ads.

We’ve told you this twenty thousand times, but we’ll say it again: 92% of consumers trust real people more than brands (Nielsen, 2024).

Yes, this data will come in handy for that presentation, strategy or meeting with your boss. Here’s the source in case you need it.

If you want awareness → influencers.
If you want conversion and trust → UGC on your channels.

There are several middle-ground models, including:

• Running paid media and UGC Ads from the content creator’s own account, with links to the brands’ websites. This model is increasingly common, although it does not inspire as much trust among consumers as an ad from the brand itself would.
• Creating collaborative UGC content between the creator and the brand. This is a way of sharing the content through the brand’s accounts, with the (small) boost provided by the UGC creator. And we can already tell you that they will almost certainly ask all their friends and family to show that post some love—which will be great for your brand’s engagement.

Running campaigns with UGC: eeeeeeeeeerrorrrrrrrrrrrrr!

If, after everything we’ve told you, you think that “campaigns are run with UGC,” you’ve missed the point, I’m sorry to say. No, that’s micro-influencers. With UGC creators, you don’t run campaigns; you work to obtain high-quality videos for your brand’s channels.

Paying several creators to post on their profiles and believing that this is UGC is like handing out flyers without a strategy: you’ll spend money without a clear return.

UGC isn’t about saving budget; it’s about connecting. When done with intention, casting, scripting and a distribution strategy, it becomes one of the most powerful assets in your digital marketing.