How User-Generated Content can Grow Your CPG Brand Online

For years, social media strategists have kept their eyes peeled for high quality user-generated content (UGC). We’ve scrolled Instagram, kept our notifications on, and put all our energy into building relationships with our communities. 

Unfortunately, accounts are popping up on Instagram and TikTok promoting their user-generated content services, which, if you keep reading, you’ll learn defeats the entire point of UGC. 

What is User-Generated Content?

User-generated content is organic content that a user posts on their own social media accounts.

Let’s be clear: user-generated content is not paid content. 

UGC is not an Influencer campaign and it’s not content you’d pay a content creator for. It’s organic content that users create on their own, simply because they love your products. Which is why it’s so valuable. And why it’s so effective at growing your Instagram community. True UGC is a form of social proof.

What Types of User-Generated Content Is There?

Any kind of social media content can be user-generated. On Instagram, UGC can include Instagram stories, reels, and grid posts. 

How Does UGC Help Grow Your Instagram Community?

UGC is Posted on the User’s Own Accounts

When a user posts about your brand on their own social media account, you’re reaching new people. It doesn’t matter if they have 10,000 followers or 100,000 because you’re reaching a new group of people who likely haven’t heard of your brand before.

User Generated Content is a Form of Social Proof

Everyone knows that having testimonials on your site is valuable, but sometimes new customers have a healthy level of skepticism about on-site reviews. Organic social posts, however, are much more valuable because they’re totally unprompted and they come directly from the user. 

UGC Shows How Customers are Using and Loving Your Products

Customers love to see your product in action. They want to see what it looks like, how it works, and what their experience will be like. User-generated content checks all these boxes. They also show customers where your products can be enjoyed, which is sometimes missed in a tutorial. 

User Generated Content Adds Variety to Your Instagram Content, Maintaining Community Interest

To create a profitable social media calendar, you need content that drives awareness, content that educates, and content that sells. User generated content is definitely content that drives awareness. When you have permission from the creator, it can be reshared to your stories and grid, giving you additional awareness content to share with your followers. 

User Generated Content Creates a Community Around Your Brand

All of this comes together by creating a community around your brand. UGC shows your customers that your brand is of interest to others, that it’s something they should care about, that you as a brand pay attention to what your customers are saying, and that you engage with your customers on social media.

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Wait, Who Am I?

Hiiii! 👋🏻 I’m Sarah, a CPG social media strategist with over 10 years of experience. I went from starting a clean beauty blog right out of high school to managing social media for Canada’s largest wellness retailer. Now I live in the middle of nowhere in North Carolina, helping high-growth entrepreneurs get SEEN so they can build a crazy fun life their business supports, and not the other way around.

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