User-Generated Video (UGC): Benefits, Types & Examples | [Your Brand/Website Name]

From 2018 to 2023, there has been a 63% increase in brands using UGC videos in their marketing campaigns, according to recent industry statistics. If you decide to incorporate UGC videos into your strategy, this is what awaits you.

What is User-Generated Video Content (UGC Video)?

UGC video stands for user-generated content, meaning content made by ordinary people (not the brand) in which a product or service is showcased. They are more credible because they are presented by regular people (like you and me) as opposed to a company selling something.

This is why many people check YouTube reviews before buying a product. We trust other customers more than advertisements.

UGC videos are different from traditional marketing because:

• They're made by real customers or creators (not professional marketing teams)
• They look authentic and less polished (shot on phones, in homes)
• They show the honest opinions of real persons
• They don't use expensive or professional equipment or editing

Why is UGC Video Important?

Building Brand Trust and Credibility

Trust is the glue of any brand-customer relationship. When potential customers see regular people who love and enjoy your products, they forge an emotional, authentic connection that no ad will ever match.

Consumers trust other people, even strangers, over branded content. It makes sense to do so. We are skeptical of brands sharing how great they are, but when some random person is hyping their experience? That hits different.

The psychology behind this is simple: we trust people who seem similar to us. A study by Nielsen found that 92% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know, and UGC creates a similar feeling of peer recommendation.

This trust factor becomes even more important for:

• High-cost purchases where risk is greater
• Products with technical features that need demonstration
• Items where fit, quality, or performance matters significantly
• Services where results vary between customers

Increases Brand Awareness and Engagement

UGC usually goes viral. Not only will you be building organically, but you'll probably be fine with reducing spend on ads because you'll continually be getting increasingly enthusiastic about letting your customers do the talking. You can add subtitles to videos, making them accessible to a wider audience.

This word-of-mouth dissemination can rapidly increase your exposure without increasing your budget.

Boosts SEO ranking

Good news: Your UGC content can help. Search engines love fresh, relevant content, and your UGC lends you a consistent pipeline of new content that is populated with your brand keywords and themes. This optimizes your search ranking and drives greater organic traffic to your site.

When Google sees people spending more time viewing your customers giving a testimonial about your product, it is like it is a sign that your site is filled with quality content, elevating you up in those all-important search ranking lists and causing your competition to ask themselves why their expensive SEO company isn't getting it done.

Encourages Community-Building

When your customers record themselves with your product and upload it to the internet, all bets are off. They're joining your strange little brand family. 

Your product is converting regular customers into brand ambassadors: if individuals go out of their way to make a point of videotaping themselves with your product, they're interested. They're interested enough to want to share it with their friends, and that's a big win for you.

It snowballs. One person shares, another does. Before you know it, you've got people engaging with each other off the back of their affection for your brand. They comment on each other's channels, exchange tips, and defend you against critics.

Types of UGC Videos

Know that wacky variety of content out there? It might not seem as overwhelming anymore once you understand the main types of UGC videos that can benefit your brand.

Customer Testimonials

Customer reviews are the most impactful sort of UGC content: Actual people giving honest feedback on their genuine use of your product or service. 

Your greatest testimonials are concrete, specific, and clearly describe exactly how your product helped solve a certain problem or improve a customer's life in some way.

Video testimonials capture emotional responses that written reviews simply cannot. You can see the excitement in someone's eyes when they talk about how your product changed their life.

Tutorials and How-To Videos

A study of first-time users with new products showed that their ability to be patient was cut in half when trying to figure things out alone. When given basic instructions in video form by other users, the satisfaction rates skyrocketed. 

Tutorial UGC videos show real customers demonstrating how to use your products effectively. These practical demonstrations help potential customers visualize themselves using your product. 

User-created tutorials often highlight creative or unexpected uses for your products that you might not have considered in your official marketing.

These videos serve a dual purpose: they provide valuable information to viewers while simultaneously showcasing your product in action.

Unboxing Videos

There's something oddly satisfying about watching someone open a package. Unboxing videos create anticipation and excitement around receiving your product.

These videos highlight:

• Packaging quality and presentation
• First impressions and reactions
• Product features and initial testing

Unboxing experiences are now so important to brands that many create packaging for the sole purpose of delivering a memorable moment of unboxing that can be shared publicly.

Product Reviews

Honest reviews from real users carry tremendous weight. Effective review videos include:

• Pros and cons (yes, including negatives, makes it more trustworthy)
• Comparisons to competitors
• Long-term usage results
• Personal stories about how the product solved a problem

How Brands are Leveraging UGC Videos

These are just some of the things brands focusing on UGC now enjoy:

Social Media Campaigns

Strategic social media campaigns centered around branded hashtags can generate massive amounts of UGC video content. Successful campaigns make participation simple, fun, and aligned with users' natural behavior.

Take Chipotle's #GuacDance challenge on TikTok, which generated 250,000 video submissions and led to their biggest guacamole day ever, serving 802,000 sides of guacamole. 

GoPro initiated its own #HomePro challenge to encourage users to create adventure videos from home due to the pandemic by using GoPro content to make adventure videos, resulting in thousands of creative submissions.

Contests and Challenges

Even if you're on solid ground brand-wise, you will notice a depletion in the ol' engagement bank without regular contests. After the contest, brands often use an online video cutter to create highlight reels or compilation videos showcasing the best entries.

Challenges and competitions provide a simple incentive for users to create and share UGC videos involving your product. The competitive nature of challenges often leads to even better engagement and creative submissions.

For example, every year, Starbucks runs its Red Cup Contest, where customers decorate their holiday cup and post pictures of it on social media. Even the contest entries provided us with thousands of creative entries and drove a ton of social media impressions.

Adobe’s “Make the Cut” contest had consumers create videos using Adobe software, provided a big prize opportunity and featured opportunity, and kind of UGC and showcased the impact of using the software.

Collaborating with UGC Creators & Brand Ambassadors

Micro-influencers (with 1,000-10,000 followers) often produce engagement rates 60% higher than larger influencers.

Partnering with dedicated UGC creators gives you more control while keeping authenticity. UGC creators have experience creating content that appears authentic while meeting brand requirements.

Paid Advertising & UGC Video Ads

UGC video ads generate higher click-through rates and lower cost-per-acquisition than normal advertisements. Before launching a campaign, brands typically add text to the video to include a strong call-to-action, discount code, or some message that grabs attention in the first few seconds.

These ads work particularly well in social media environments where users are accustomed to seeing authentic content from friends and connections. Think about your own behavior. When was the last time you willingly watched a traditional ad? But a real person showing how a product changed their life? That gets your attention.

Your Customers, Your Voice

As we said in the beginning, there might be no greater decision a brand can make today than to embrace UGC videos. Brands using UGC see 29% higher web conversions than those who don't. 

I guarantee that your first successful UGC campaign will melt you, and that the first authentic testimonial will delight you more than you thought. As for the first time, your content goes viral through user sharing, I don't even think I need to mention it.