What is User Generated Video Content (UGC) and Why Do You Need It?

While using videos is one of the most effective form of marketing these days, videos made by brands just don’t cut it. 

Nowadays, consumers don’t want to hear about products solely from a brand as it is evident that the brand is trying to sell it to them. Instead, they would prefer to learn about products from other consumers, just like them!

This is why eCommerce brands need to leverage UGC video, meaning videos created by consumers featuring the brand and its products.

In this guide, we’ll talk more about user-generated video content and what it is. 

What is user-generated video content? (ugc video meaning)

User-generated video content is any video content created by consumers about a brand rather than by the brand. These videos are created by customers using everyday equipment like a smartphone.

For instance, many consumers post “Get ready with me” videos where they show how they do their makeup, tagging the products they used to complete their look. Brands can repost this user-generated content onto their social media accounts. 

Why is UGC video content important?

With more consumers creating UGC videos, brands can leverage them to show how their products are liked, increase their brand’s visibility, and sell more. Let’s dive into the multiple reasons why user-generated videos are a must-have within your eCommerce store’s strategy:

1. 1. Increase brand awareness

2. 2. Drive more traffic to your website

3. 3. Increase brand trust and credibility

4. 4. Foster a sense of community

5. 5. Improve SEO ranking

6. 6. Understand customers better

7. 7. Increase conversion

1. Increase brand awareness

When customers share user-generated content on various social media platforms, they are letting their network of followers know about your brand. Not everyone in their audience would know about your brand or be aware of the products and why it’s worth buying.

By creating and sharing user-generated videos, customers are helping you increase brand awareness, helping you reach a new audience. 

2. Drive more traffic to your website

Once audiences learn about your brand from the user-generated videos, some of them would want to learn more about your brand. They would then head to your brand's social media channels and even to your website to see the product in detail and consider purchasing.

This way, user-generated content created about your brand can effectively bring more traffic to your eCommerce website and even increase sales.

3. Increase brand trust and credibility

There's no doubt that shoppers prefer to hear from other customers than from the brand itself. In fact, 49% of consumers trust reviews as much as personal recommendations from friends and family members.

User-generated content is authentic, created by real people rather than to sell, and provides a unique perspective on the product and how it's used in real. When brands share user-generated content, they are putting their customers' opinions before the sales pitch they could share instead. 

This unique and authentic content from other customers would make the brand seem more trustworthy and credible to the potential shopper.

4. Foster a sense of community

With user-generated videos, you can foster a sense of community among your audience and increase loyalty. 

By putting your customers at the front and center of your marketing campaigns, you make them brand advocates. Your audience will see customers (who are just like them!) share how they use your products and why they like the brand. They would then be more eager to engage with your content, leaving comments and even creating content of their own that feature your brand. 

Your audience wouldn’t just interact with your content and your brand but also talk to other customers in the comments, discussing your products and related topics.

Moreover, the users whose content got featured by your brand would feel recognized, and the positive feedback they get would reinforce a sense of belonging, making them want to engage with your brand more frequently.

5. Improve SEO ranking

More user-generated content means more content about your brand that you can use on your website or various social media sites, helping you build an online presence that search engines will use as signals of popularity. 

UGC content can also generate more backlinks to your website, showing search engines that your website is credible and, in turn, improving your search engine ranking.

6. Understand customers better

As consumers share user-generated content, you can also use it to get insights into what these customers prefer, how they use your products, and even how they feel about your brand. 

Such high engagement behavior, like creating and sharing UGC, also means that the customers would be willing to share constructive feedback and their experience with the brand.

You can then use these insights to tailor your messaging to sell better, improve your processes, and even iterate on your products to cater to your customer’s needs better.

For instance, a travel bag company may find that their consumers use one of the side pockets of their bag to carry their passport or their phone. The brand can then share packing hacks on its social media platform or even redesign the side pocket to help customers pack better.

7. Increase conversion

More trust, a sense of community, and higher traffic ultimately contribute to higher sales.  

Adding UGC content to your eCommerce store can have a huge impact on your conversion rate. In fact, product pages that include UGC see an 8.5% lift in conversion. When visitors interact with the user-generated videos, the conversion increase is as large as 100.6%!

Examples of user-generated videos

Brands from every industry have been leveraging user-generated content on social media as well as their own website to better engage and convert their customers. Here are 3 brands that do it well:

1. Busy Baby Mat - Showing how the product works on the homepage

Busy Baby Mat has created silicone suction placemats that help to keep babies' favorite toys, teethers, and utensils in place and ensure they stay sanitary. Since the product can't be fully explained through pictures, the brand has added video content created by customers onto its homepage. These videos better explain how the product works and why it's worth buying.

2. Pillow Cube - Increasing social proof with videos from real customers

Pillow Cube is made for side sleepers, the first of its kind. Due to their products' high price tag, the brand needs to do a little more to convince potential customers to buy. They've imported TikTok videos made by real customers and placed them at different touchpoints of their website. This gives visitors more information about their products' benefits and features, helping them make an informed decision.

3. Sama Tea - Sharing customers’ daily routine

Sama Tea is a tea brand that uses adaptogens in its products to provide balance in your body, mind, and heart. The brand encourages customers to share their daily tea rituals, resharing these UGC videos onto their social channels.

How can you use UGC videos for your eCommerce brand? 

Identifying user-generated video content is just one part of the marketing strategy. Most importantly, you need to use it to your advantage so that you can ultimately convert your audience into shoppers. 

There are three main touchpoints where you can use consumer-generated content to amplify your trust and increase sales for your eCommerce brand:

1. 1. Social media platforms

2. 2. Website

3. 3. Email

1. Social media platforms

Instead of only sharing content made by your brand on your social media accounts, adding user-generated content to the mix is more effective. Many brands share mostly helpful tips and behind-the-scenes, leaving the product advocacy for the UGC that they reshare. 

With this marketing strategy, you can show your authority in the field while amplifying real stories and experiences of using your products. 

Here are three easy ways to reshare user-generated posts onto your social media feed and show audiences how much customers love your products:

• Reshare images and videos posted by customers onto your social media feed, with a caption giving more information about the product. 

• Screenshot messages sent by customers and share them on your Instagram Stories. You can even use the Q&A feature to collect customer responses about your products, how they use them, what they love about them, etc.

• Use images shared by customers for a custom post. For instance, skincare brands can take before and after pictures and use them for a carousel or even a voiceover video that explains the positive effects of the product.

Pattern Beauty does this well! The haircare brand reshares videos made by its customers about how they use their products. The brand adds its caption, giving some context on the product the customer talks about and a link to the product for easy access.

Need more guidance on using social media videos for your marketing? We have a guide on how to use TikTok for eCommerce brands.

2. Website

When a visitor lands on your eCommerce website, you must convince them within a few seconds that your products are worth buying. This is why you need to host user-generated content across different touchpoints of your site, showing how and why other customers love the brand and increasing your credibility as they browse through.  

Let’s explore how you can add user-generated content to different parts of the customer journey on your site: 

Homepage

The homepage is usually the first interaction that new visitors have with your brand. Here, you need to establish credibility fast.

For this, you can add a testimonial section that shows how the shopper liked the product, how it improved their overall lifestyle, etc. Testimonials on the homepage are especially ideal for brands that sell products requiring higher customer buy-in, like health products.

Vital Proteins has a “Customer Testimonials” section on its homepage, with 3 testimonials from different types of customers. These prove the positive impact of the brand and its products.

Product Page 

The product page is where the customer is looking for as much information about the product as possible. Almost every brand has a product reviews section, with reviews collected from past customers. 

Besides reviews, another user-generated content that customers would find helpful is videos showing the product in use. 

Busy Baby Mat has a section on its product page with videos from other customers on how they’ve used the product for ease, functionality, and fewer spills during mealtime.

These videos are imported from various social media platforms like TikTok. Once a website visitor clicks on the video, they can scroll through all the videos just like on social media. For more information on the products in the videos, they can click on the items featured section and even add the product directly to their cart!

The brand uses Videowise to automatically collect UGC videos from social media platforms and add them to its store’s pages. With the app, the brand can also make the video shoppable, making conversion easier and faster. 

With Videowise, Busy Baby Mat has seen 27% more conversion and an added time of 451+ hours on-site. 

Add user-generated videos to your eCommerce store for increased engagement and conversion. Get started with Videowise now!

3. Email

One of the biggest problems that many brands have is the low click-to-conversion on their email campaigns. Here’s why.

When subscribers click on your email, they land on an engaging and colorful email. They are welcomed in, shown pictures, and sometimes, they even get to hear a story. At this point, they are highly engaged. They then scroll down to the CTA, where they are prompted to click and learn more about your products.

However, once they click on the CTA, they land on a standard-looking product page that they’ve seen a thousand times. Here, they aren’t engaged as they were when they started reading the email. At this point, most subscribers would drop off from disinterest.

Instead of the standard product page, you can take the subscriber to a video made by a real customer that explains more about the product. This way, they can understand the product and whether it fits their needs. If it does, they can checkout directly from the video player.

Using Videowise, you can turn user-generated content into a landing page. This user-generated video campaign can be linked to your email. This way, you get to keep your customers engaged until they add to the cart and successfully convert.

Learn more about shoppable video marketing for your email campaigns.

Don’t miss out on UGC videos

User-generated content is a must-have in every eCommerce brand's marketing strategy. With user-generated video, you can make it easier for new audiences to relate to your brand, trust your products quickly, and ultimately convert into shoppers. 

This is why adding user-generated video to your website is vital. With UGC video content from your customers on your product pages, store visitors who are considering your products could see a first-hand experience of using your products. 

You can add user-generated videos to your online store with Videowise. Besides importing UGC videos from social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, you can make the videos shoppable so that your visitors can directly add the product to the cart once they view the video.

Get started with Videowise now!