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Since the dawn of social media, people have been posting selfies and OOTDs with the hopes of recognition. Many have been successful. We call this breed, influencers.
Now more than ever before, people are making money just by telling other people about great products. Seems like an easy job right? In reality, it’s not all unboxings and rainbows. Being an influencer is difficult because your paycheck is determined by your relevance. Social media trends change every day, in order to succeed you need to be dedicated. Thankfully for brands, you can outsource content generation to these social media professionals for a fraction of the cost with UGC.
Rise of UGC
Brand use of user generated content has exploded in the past few years. UGC refers to any content produced by a independent user. As social media platforms go global, the scale of UGC expands rapidly, but the industry is not saturated yet. In fact, the potential for UGC is widely unknown and continually exceeds advertisers expectations. Out of Advertise Purple’s 240K affiliates almost 3K are UGC creators, but as these affiliates pay out dividends for our clients our portfolio of creators will continue to grow.
Authenticity is key
UGC is enabling even the smallest of brands to reach wide audiences and create connections with potential customers through their established relationship with the affiliate, or user. Trust is increasingly important in customer decisions. When a brand does not already have the consumer’s trust, it can be garnered through their trust in their favorite influencer. UGC rights give the brand the ability to use the content for their own platforms, but it appears more authentic coming from a third party.
At Advertise Purple we use affiliate links to track the performance of different campaigns, but recently our clients have been asking more and more for UGC as an add on. Head of Content Partnerships, Becca N. says, “the value of UGC for a brand is the organic inclusion of their product/service in content and access to a creator’s audience engagement and trust. The primary goal of influencer partnerships is brand awareness, but purchasing their UGC can play a role in viewer trust and cut costs on advertising.” The most common deal for UGC is a flat fee combined with free product and a CPA, which is a great deal for many accessible influencers.
Advertise Purple @ImJamieStone X Derek Lam UGC campaign
Understanding your audience
Using UGC helps you connect better with your audience because you can figure out what types of content they prefer to engage with and capitalize on that. This does however take a lot of trial and error. Going through an agency like Advertise Purple can give you access to trends from clients in your vertical to see what content works best for your audience the first time around.
UGC has been on the rise for the last decade, but over the last couple it has launched into a new stratosphere. With millions of users generating content, the partnership opportunities for marketers in 2023 are endless. And with trends appearing and dying out in a matter of weeks, it’s unrealistic for your brand to participate in every one of them. Investing in UGC is one of the best ways to keep branded content relevant and to stay on top of trends without burning out your marketing team.
