User-Generated Content Examples: How Brands Are Winning & How You Can Too

Publish Date:

March 25, 2024

7 min read

User Generated Content Examples from Top Brands

Introduction

User generated content is basically any content that is created by the consumer, customer, or user of a product, service, or a business. It differs in the fact that it is not sponsored by the brand nor do the creators have any monetary gains to make from the content they have produced. And a lot of brands are now leveraging these user generated content pieces in their individual marketing efforts. This could be because UGC is known to be 20% more influential than any other type of media when it comes to driving Millennial’s purchasing decisions.

In this blog we are going to quickly look at some leading brands that are using user generated content and winning the marketing game. And learn from their tactics to implement in our own initiatives and efforts.

Why UGC Matters: The Power of Customer-Generated Content

Did you know that content created by real people greatly sways purchasing choices across age groups? Over 79% of individuals are influenced by it and 93% find it extremely helpful! That is a massive number. And not one that must be ignored if you want to make use of the content your users and audience have created for you.

But that is not all. User generated content isn’t just more trustworthy, it is a lot helpful for boosting SEO factors as well. Because UGC tends to unknowingly incorporate long tail keywords, specific facts and figures, and candid content that search engines like Google favour for being unbiased and human written content.

With that being said we hope you are ready to dive into some great examples of user generated content across different brands. Let us check them out.

10 Best User-Generated Content Examples in Action

A. Social Media UGC

GoPro - Their entire social media strategy revolves around featuring stunning videos and pictures taken by clients using their cameras. The “Photo Of The Day”, along with other hashtag competitions, motivates clients to post GoPro content on social media.

GoPro Creator Spotlight Featuring Inspiring Content Creators — Image Source

Apple’s “Shot On iPhone” - Campaigns shot with the phone by regular iphone users are put on a billboard around the globe and on social media for everyone to see. Showcases the camera features available in their devices.

User Generated Content Examples Featuring Shot on iPhone Campaign — Image Source

Starbucks’ “White Cup Contest” - Guests were allowed to personalize the plain white Starbucks cups and post pictures of them on social media. The winning design was turned into a limited edition reusable cup.

Starbucks White Cup Contest Winning User Generated Design — Image Source

Airbnb Instagram strategy - They have ever featured pictures taken by the hosts and the guests at actual Airbnb properties, which show real life rather than promotional materials to market the brand.
Coca-Cola “Share a Coke” campaign - By customizing their bottles with names and asking people to post a picture whenever they come across a bottle with their name, Coca-Cola sparked millions of social media posts.

Coca Cola Share a Coke Campaign Encouraging User Participation — Image Source

Adobe #Adobe_Perspective - The Software Company uses hashtag posts to show off art made using their products. They also feature the user generated content on the company’s page and social media.

User Generated Content Examples from Adobe Showcasing Creative Art — Image Source

Lululemon #thesweatlife - The athletic apparel brand encourages customers to take pictures of themselves doing various activities while clad in Lululemon clothing and post them on social media.

Lululemon Customers Showcasing Active Lifestyle in The Sweatlife Campaign — Image Source

“Crash the Super Bowl” by Doritos. Super Bowl aired commercials made by fans, enabling them to win and have them aired. For quite a while do-it-yourself commercials were broadcast by Doritos, extending prize-winning opportunities in the form of fans turned superbowl winners.

Doritos Crash the Super Bowl Fan Made Commercial Winner — Image Source

Hashtag AsSeenOnMe by ASOS. Customers are entitled to post pictures showcasing their outfits, tagging the fashion retailer. The snapshots are displayed on their corporate website and social media platforms, providing them with a requisitioned feed of genuine buyers.

User Generated Content Examples Featuring ASOS Hashtag AsSeenOnMe — Image Source

Glossier. True clients of the beauty brand are made the center of attention always in their ads placed on social media, which is their entire marketing strategy, and so is leveraging user paid pictures and ratings to make their brand gain pieces of color in the beauty world.

Glossier Uses Customer Photos and Reviews in Marketing — Image Source

Collecting More Customer Reviews to Improve SEO

B. Customer Review & Testimonial UGC

Amazon -The infrastructure of Amazon is built around it’s own verified customer ratings and reviews that are globally recognized. Verified customer feedback is advertised on product pages and used in marketing. Such strategies together, crown top reviewer programs designed to motivate in-depth reviews and critique.

How Amazon Uses Verified Customer Reviews for Marketing and Product Pages — Image Source

Sephora- Their targeted customers are integrated them into the marketing campaigns of the Beauty Insider Community. Above Sketch was compiled by the remark of their customers, where publicity showed benefits of their products along with pictures of them being used and also their skin types.

Sephora Beauty Insider Community Featuring Customer Reviews and Skin Types — Image Source

Casper - The company markets their brand all over the net declaring how attention has been caught using their mattresses in advertising. Mindbuting sleep experiences coupled with the lives of the customers endorse the quality experience that is shared by the customers therefore reaffirmed by the customers.

Casper post Showing a Customer Review and a Person Relaxing on a Mattress — Image Source

Slack -Customer case study is provided in great detail for all sizes of companies, featuring quotes explaining how exactly has Slack’s transformed workflow enabling the company to streamline it.
Warby Parker - The presentation of products is not customary for them. They illustrate glasses being worn by customers in their marketing emails and on social media, showcasing customer-made reviews calling the shopping experience delightful.

Warby Parker Showcasing Glasses Through Customer Photos — Image Source

Patagonia - Customers are featured showcasing their stories wearing these clothes, which are termed "Worn Wear" campaigns to promote the clothes and appreciate the customers for their loyalty.

Patagonia Customers Sharing Worn Wear Stories — Image Source

Peloton - The brand is well known for showcasing customer-led advertisements comprising testimonies and transformational photos, illustrating the impact and emotional attachment from the brand’s products.

Peloton Customer Testimonials and Transformation Stories — Image Source

Glossier - Apart from general product testimonials, Glossier accentuates detailed reviews and illustrations of the results of their products, making customer-testimonials an aspect of their promotion strategy.

Glossier Transformation Stories — Image Source

B&H Photo - The retail company displays and incorporates product reviews by customers who bought them alongside technical descriptions and marketing promotions as they are readily available.
Zappos - The retail company asks their clientele to comment and assess the shoes’ fitting, their comfortability, and their how long the shoes lasted. The results are included in retargeting emails and ads to enhance credibility with clients.

Zappos Customer Ratings and Reviews on Shoes and Apparel — Image Source

C. Community-Driven UGC & Co-Creation

LEGO Ideas – This service enables fans to be more actively engaged by permitting them to suggest set designs for LEGO products. When a submission accrues community votes of 10,000, LEGO will consider it for evaluation and possible production. Upon accomplishing this, LEGO grants its creators recognition and payments, thus forming a complete co-creation ecosystem.

LEGO Submission Reaching 10000 Community Votes for Review

Threadless - This company underscores the power of co-creation through community-centered business processes. People are allowed to propose t-shirt designs, which other people can cast their votes on. The best designs win, and the designer earns money from their t-shirts being produced and sold.

Threadless Community Voting on T Shirt Designs

Starbucks 'My Starbucks Idea' – This opened a channel for customers to suggest any additional products or new forms and activities of the company. Numerous implemented suggestions, such as the cake pops and no-charge ‘birthday drinks’, were especially formulated by customers.

Starbucks Customer Suggestions Leading to New Products

Lay's ‘Do Us A Flavor’ – This is an ongoing competition which encourages consumers to suggest and vote for prospective flavors of potato chips. The winners’ flavors are produced for nationwide sales, and a cash award is given to each winner in varying amounts.

Lay's Do Us A Flavor Campaign Encouraging Consumer Participation — Image Source

Sephora's Beauty Insider Community - In addition to reviews, Sephora now has separate boards for discussion, challenges, tutorials, looks, and other advices beauty lovers share to one another, which Sephora uses in their marketing.

Sephora Beauty Insider Community with Reviews and User Shared Content

Reddit's r/photoshopbattles - This community of users uses the source image to produce works of art in the form of elaborate photoshopped pictures. Adobe chose to sponsor this community.

Creative User Generated Content from r/photoshopbattles Community — Image Source

Airbnb involves hosts in shaping product features and policies by using community forums and their Host Advisory Board and acknowledges their input as vital to product development.

Airbnb Community Discussion on Host Advisory Board Selection

This platform created by DJI enables professionals and hobbyists to display their talents and win contests while collaborating with others and having their work featured in DJI promotions.

DJI Platform for Showcasing Talent and Winning Contests

The annual Spotify Wrapped feature does not represent direct co-creation but uses user listening data to generate personalized content that users share to help promote Spotify by acting as brand ambassadors.

User Listening Data in Spotify Wrapped for Personalized Content — Image Source

The Xbox Insider Program bridges the gap between Microsoft and its fan base by enabling video game enthusiasts to test new console features and share their feedback which influences Xbox platform development.

Xbox Insider Program Connecting Gamers with Microsoft for Feature Testing

D. Video-Based UGC

Through TikTok's platform Chipotle ran effective challenges which included #ChipotleLidFlip and #GuacDance and these led to millions of users creating UGC videos of themselves performing these brand-specific activities.
The YouTube channel for GoPro features top user-created extreme sports and adventure clips which demonstrate product usage and receive the “Video of the Day” tag.

GoPro YouTube Channel Featuring Extreme Sports and Adventure Clips — Image Source

Gymshark displays genuine customer testimonials through previously uploaded before and after transformation videos which clearly show the brand's lifestyle.

Gymshark Customer Testimonials Showcasing Before and After Transformations

The Dove Real Beauty campaign lets users both watch and upload videos to share women's beauty experiences. This campaign defies traditional advertising principles through its emotional connection with customers.

Dove Real Beauty Campaign Encouraging User Generated Videos — Image Source

Airbnb Experiences - The video and image tours created by hosts serve as marketing material, allowing the platform to market real and engaging travel experiences. This exposes the hosts to a wider audience and gives them a marketing advantage.

Airbnb Hosts Using Video and Images to Market Travel Experiences

Red Bull's Content Pool - Aside from keeping their own videos, Red Bull collects and organizes a wide variety of user-generated action sports content to create a genuine brand image by having an extensive archive of real media.

Red Bull's Collection of User Generated Action Sports Content

Nintendo's Switch gameplay videos - The gaming company encourages sharing of entertaining video parts from the game and uses the collection for advertising set pieces as well as for showcasing the game and its social options.

Nintendo Switch Gameplay Clips Shared by Players

Glossier's "Get Ready With Me" compilations - The beauty brand’s marketing department collects and showcases user-created makeup tutorials, merging them into advertising campaigns that feature actual usage of the products.

Glossier Features User Created Makeup Tutorials in Advertising Campaigns — Image Source

Patagonia's Worn Wear videos - The outdoor company asks for and displays customer stories about their enduring Patagonia apparel, helping promote their brand authenticity with real stories.

Patagonia Worn Wear Customer Stories Highlighting Durable Apparel — Image Source

Blendtec's "Will It Blend?" - While creator Tom Dickson is a company employee, this campaign accepted user ideas for the items to be blended into a video, thus portraying the company’s product’s sturdiness in a creative way.

Blendtec Will It Blend Campaign Demonstrating Product Durability — Image Source

How to Effectively Use UGC for Marketing

Use real customer-generated content — after building the guidelines and permission to allow their use.

Consider creating a branded hashtag that is memorable and campaign specific.
Make sure you’re commenting, sharing, and thanking submitters for their submissions.
Share UGC on multiple channels—website, social media, email, and in-store displays.
Encourage participation through contests, recognition, or rewards but never at the cost of authenticity.
Create a content library for repurposing. And always give appropriate credit to creators and obtain necessary permissions.
Integrate UGC into your overall marketing strategy instead of as a separate effort.

Additionally, you must also invest in a good tool that will help you promote all the user generated content you have. Feedspace is one such tool that has an inbuilt Wall of Love feature to showcase and build social proof with testimonials, reviews, and other user generated content from your customers and clients. Feedspace’s Wall of Love also naturally emphasizes on keywords in its code which can help boost your SEO rankings too.

Advanced UGC Strategies for Brands (Going Beyond the Basics)

You can start by establishing brand ambassador programs that provide exclusive co-creation opportunities. This is for those brands that have a large presence in the market already or even those just gaining traction.

Create user-generated content experiences that allow interaction through augmented reality filters and specialized templates.
Design contests that contain multiple stages of challenges with increasing prizes and allow community members to vote.
Utilize achievement badges and leaderboards combined with exclusive access levels to gamify user participation.
Email campaigns should include dynamic UGC feeds that display content tailored to each subscriber's interests and previous purchases.
Upgrade product pages by implementing customer-generated content carousels that display content selected according to specific use cases and demographic segments.

Assess UGC effectiveness using full attribution modeling combined with sentiment analysis and conversion lift testing.

Common UGC Mistakes to Avoid (Another missing section in competitor blogs!)

Let us just look at some of the most common UGC mistakes that must be avoided. Of course this list is non-exhaustive and there are a lot more things to keep in mind.

Content creators deserve proper permission and rights before you use their material for marketing purposes.
Brands often edit the UGC they receive to fit their visual treatment and standards. Avoid doing too much of this.
When contributors receive no credit their trust goes down. This can have the bad effect of decreased future participation. You don’t want that.
Interruptions in UGC interaction lead to community neglect periods which reduce overall interest.

The mistake many companies make is to view UGC as free content instead of recognizing its strategic value for brand-building which requires investment and continuous relationship management.

How Feedspace Helps Brands Collect & Leverage UGC

Overview of Feedspace.io’s Features:

Feedspace is an easy to setup testimonial collection tool. You’re ready to use it right from the start with no learning curves or special instructions needed. Just sign up, set up a form, send it to your audience, and watch as video testimonials start rolling in.
The interface of the tool is super user-friendly and clean. Which makes it accessible to multiple team members and contributors. And if there’s any issues at all—our support staff is available 24/7, just one text message away!
Feedspace’s Wall of Love feature is designed to allow its users to customize the aesthetics of their testimonial showcase to match their existing website’s theme without disrupting anything.

Benefits of Using Feedspace:

One of the biggest benefits to using Feedspace is that it allows one to import authentic testimonials from established platforms like G2, Trustpilot, Google Reviews, Product Hunt, and many more!
This can help with SEO because Google Search tends to favor content that is user-generated, original, and comes from a reliable source. What’s more original than raw, candid content that has come directly from your users?
Finally, Feedspace has multiple inbuilt tools that let you manage, delete, and modify testimonials from different sources right from the comfort of your account dashboard.

Conclusion

There is no secret sauce or major transformative knowledge in this blog that we have shared with you. It is all knowledge that everyone already has and knows. It is only about now implementing it in real life and getting the results. Marketers tend to be lazy when it comes to collecting and using user-generated content. And at Feedspace we are trying to change that every single day. Which is why we are giving out free workspaces and unlimited imports to anyone who signs up with us. What are you waiting for?

Feedspace is free forever. Try Now!

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Rahul Pai

Author

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