What Is a UGC Creator & How to Become One in 2023

No marketing strategy is complete without content. It holds the power to singlehandedly turn a prospect into a paying customer. Yet, for years, we have seen content trends change, making inbound a bumpy ride for marketers. 

Back then, it was all flashy and made-up. Now it’s more driven toward relatability and authenticity. We have seen content creation evolve as a full-time job on the internet, where these content creators earn millions for their impact on consumers’ lifestyle decision-making.

Today, we see all types of content creators. First, there are influencers and micro-influencers, and now we see a whole new category of UGC Creators evolving on the platforms like TikTok and Instagram.

How about we dive deeper into this guide on what is a UGC Creator?

What Is A UGC Creator?

A UGC creator is a person who creates content that is generated by users of a particular platform or community. This can include social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok as well as other online forums and communities.

UGC creators are typically individuals who are passionate about a particular topic or interest and want to share their experiences, knowledge, or creativity with others. They may create videos, photos, blogs, or other types of content that are meant to be shared and consumed by a wider audience.

Brands have realized that consumers are seeking authenticity. Consumers are more into low-key content created by someone like them rather than created by someone famous or with too many followers. With user-generated content gaining a huge populace, brands want to be more relatable to their audience. So now we see more brand campaigns looking like someone like you and me creates them.

Note: Some platforms may require you to meet certain eligibility requirements before you can publish UGC. For example, YouTube requires you to have at least 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of watch time in the past 12 months before you can monetize your videos.

Why Have Brands Started Investing In UGC Creators?

Building trust in this age of marketing requires seller transparency and multichannel outreach. Today, this has become possible with user-generated content creators. That’s because UGC is not only authentic but also compatible with any and every marketing scenario, like social ads, email marketing, product marketing, event marketing, and so on.

The idea of user-generated content is to showcase a real-life brand experience, and brands are all up for it, but they want a good amount of UGC. So, how can they generate that? That’s when UGC creators come to the rescue.

Here are a few reasons why brands need UGC Creators:

1. UGC Creator Creates Exactly What You Want

User-generated content creation is beneficial in many ways. UGC serves as social proof and takes the brand’s authenticity to another level. But not all UGC created by your customers will be reusable. When you invest in a UGC content creator, you can be assured that you get the right content to capture your audience the right way.

2. It Helps Gain A Real Audience 

When real people speak about your brand, real people start listening to your brand. Gone are the days when brands would market to people. And their voices speaking about their services or products. When we compare UGC with traditional advertisements, user-generated content acts as a magnet. Consumers find brands with user-generated content at least 60% more credible. 

3. User-Generated Content Is More Trustworthy

Consumers love to resonate and are likely to spend more easily on brands others talk about. If a brand sells all-sizes inclusive clothing, customers want to see people like them wearing those clothes. Trust is conditional, whether in life or with marketing and earning that trust comes hard and fast when it’s a recommendation from people they know or resonate with. It has even been noted that 92% of people are more likely to trust a recommendation from another person over branded content. 

4. User-Generated Content Feels More Human And Less Robotic

It’s 2022, and people are tired of hearing brands talk about themselves, and user-generated content majorly changes that. It gives a more human and less robotic feel to the brand. Showcasing UGC created by UGC creators gives your potential customers or audience a genuine view of your business. A positive review, an aesthetically clicked picture, or a descriptive video can add more weight and emotions to your brand than any other marketing gimmick in 2022.

5. User-Generated Content Encourages The Audience To Make Quicker Purchase Decisions

User-generated content accurately represents the brand to its customers. This representation has a 70% better chance of impacting the viewers than any other form of a traditional ad. Now, this impact is what persuades your audience or buyer to take action. It could be as simple as a review with attached images or a story post on Instagram; when people see real people unassociated with the brand itself talking about it, they get inspired. A brand can make certain promises to its customers, but if a stranger can vouch for them, it’s the biggest win! 

How To Find The Right UGC Creators For Your Brand’s Marketing Campaign?

When it comes to an already built famous brand, it is much easier to find user-generated content as they already have clients posting about them. But, for a new brand or a brand trying to launch a new product/concept in the market, finding user-generated content can be a tough job. That’s when investing in a UGC creator can be the right strategy. Here are a few ways brands can find a UGC creator:

1. Find The Right UGC Creator With Taggbox

Taggbox is a user-generated content platform that enables brands to collect, curate and leverage user-generated content across different marketing touchpoints. Not just that, Taggbox also allows you to track the performance of your UGC campaigns. 

With the in-depth analytics offered by Taggbox, you can easily find out who are the most influential contributors to your brands. You can also identify the users most frequently posting around your brand. 

They might not have an influential reach on social media, but they might be your ideal UGC creators. So connect with them and pitch them to be your UGC creators. You can also send out a direct UGC right request to these users from Taggbox, making the whole process easy for you.

2. Measure The UGC Creator’s Influence & Reach

As a brand, it’s quite the opposite of what you do while looking for an influencer. For influencers, we need to ensure that they have a good set of followers and reach and that their audience is similar to your target audience.

Whereas for UGC creators, you need to find people who do not have many followers and don’t usually post on their accounts, which means their reach is way lesser than an influencer. This is how you can differentiate between an influencer and a UGC creator.

3. Ask About Recent Work/Portfolio

Every UGC creator maintains a portfolio, so you can ask the creator for their portfolio before investing in them. You can ask them for their past work URLs even if they don’t have a portfolio. It will help you to measure their credibility. 

You will get an idea of the kind of content you can expect from them and whether they are compatible with your brand needs or not.

Conclusion

We have come a long way from searching why brands need user-generated content to why brands need a user-generated content creator. Yet, authenticity is still the key, and UGC is still the catalyst. 

Now, the idea of a UGC creator might make you want to sign and wonder why these marketers have to monetise everything. But that’s not the case. 

The emergence of the community of UGC creators has given more people the power to create UGC for brands. And for brands struggling with UGC marketing due to the lack of UGC available, UGC creators have come as the ideal solution.

So, this was your guide on what is a UGC creator. This opportunity is new. How about giving it a try?