If you’ve seen any advertisements on social media recently, you’ll find a ton of UGC advertising. User-generated content (UGC) ads, also sometimes called native advertising, are ads that don’t look like your standard commercial. Scroll for 3 minutes on any video social media, and you’ll find some videos that you will likely mistake for a normal post, but will actually be an ad. You might be wondering what happened to high-production video marketing and why it has been replaced by UGC ads.
What is a User Generated Content (UGC) Ad?
UGC advertising is videos that prioritize relatability and personality over production quality and professionalism. People simply record on their cell phones or post a meme relating to their product. Think testimonials, reviews, podcasts, and people actually using the product or service in the social media post.
User Generated Content (UGC) ads disguise your message in a format that feels like it was generated by a user of the social media platform. This is why it can be challenging to distinguish between advertisements and normal posts.
The Benefits of UGC ads
There are many benefits to using USG ads for your company, but the key points are;
UGC ads Convey Trustworthiness and Relatability
People trust real People over Corporate Entities
UGC ads Maximize Brand Reach on Social Media
Puts real People in front of your Brand, making your Marketing much more humanized
UGC Ads are often Significantly Cheaper than High-production Advertising.
UGC Ads Utilize Social Proof
Why do User Generated Content ads Work?
UGC works because of the relatability and trustworthiness that come with listening to a real person. Testimonials have always been a huge benefit in a marketing campaign. The problem with testimonials is that they were always contained within an advertisement.
Testimonials’ trustworthiness and relatablity was never as high as UGC ads because the viewer knows for a fact they are watching an advertisement, and they feel as if the person or people giving the testimony have no power to actually say what they really feel.
While watching a user-generated content ads you will first be unsure if you are actually watching an advertisement, then you feel as if the “user” or the person in the ad discussing the product has complete control over what the ad says. UGC ads are extremely social-proof. We’re wired to trust someone when they are being genuine, and UGC ads give us a strong connection.
UGC Ads are Disguised as Normal Posts
With short-form content, social media platforms are developing the way we advertise is developing too. On TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, and other social media sites, the advertisement is inserted into the social feed as if it were an image or video.
This is much different from how ads were on television, for example. The strategy used to rely on the fact that the advertisement was viewed. Now the ad can be skipped or swiped away without a second thought in less than a second.
The power of UGC Ads being disguised as regular posts is that people are scrolling on these social media platforms to see those exact posts. If your advertisement looks the same, sounds the same, and feels the same as the post your audience is looking for, then it’s the post your audience is looking for. They will watch your ad and likely realize it’s an ad before the video is done, but you get precious time to showcase your product or service in a way that feels genuine, trustworthy, and relatable
To best use an ad, it should be designed for the platform it’s going to be delivered on. If you are making a graphic for a billboard, it will look different than a graphic you put on social media. UGC is the optimized ad style for social media platforms.
The Problems with UGC Ads
While user-generated content ads are a very powerful tool to use in a marketing campaign their are some problems that need to be watched and compensated for.
UGC Ads can get lost in the Sea of Content
The goal of an influencer’s video is to entertain or inform. An advertisement’s goal is to send a message. This means an advertisement will always struggle to be as entertaining or engaging as an organic content creator.
Luckily and advertisement has the advantage of being able to pay the social media platforms to “boost” their post and show it to far wider audiences. Without spending that extra money on actually advertising the UGC, it will likely not go anywhere.
UGC Ads can Feel Too Cheap
You run the risk of damaging your brand when giving the camera to someone. Especially if they are not skilled in video production or social media strategy. You can have a bad-looking advertisement that ends up harming your brand despite getting more sales.
The trick is to have UGC that looks good without being overly professional or overproduced.
If you are a company trying to get your employees to do UGC ads, giving them the camera is a great starting point, but it needs to be edited by a skilled editor, or it will not get you the results you are looking for.
UGC advertising has some ethical concerns, too, depending on how you use it, but all of the problems that UGC has are not insurmountable and can be defeated and accounted for with the correct marketing strategy.
If you want to build a marketing strategy that includes UGC ads, video production, SEO, Social media, and other advertising, Contact Us today. We have been in business for 20 years, and we have evolved with the ever-changing landscape of digital marketing, so don’t hesitate to reach out.