UGC For Ecommerce: A Complete Guide

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To understand the influence of ecommerce UGC, a staggering 93% of customers believe user-generated content is a crucial factor when making a purchasing decision.

Moreover, the influence of UGC on ecommerce is rising so much that it is becoming the ultimate deciding factor for consumers of whether they would invest in a brand or not. 

User-generated content has unlocked a new door of endless sales possibilities for ecommerce stores. People, online shoppers, are actively exploring UGC. 

It offers the shoppers what they need; the products they wish to purchase, coming out of the studio lights, and working alongside the common consumers.

Don’t be overwhelmed and get to the basics with us with the complete guide on UGC for ecommerce.

What Is User-generated Content & Its Impact?

User-generated content is the content that consumers create when they have to share their experience with a brand’s product or services in the form of a social media post, an image, a video, GIFs, reviews, etc. It comes from different sources(customers), so the audience consumes unique and vibrant content each time they engage with the brands.

Many ecommerce brands have started incorporating UGC in their marketing strategies as it helps them create a rather customer-centric approach; the marketing is cost-effective, and the transparency is more emotive for the common consumers. 72% of brands believe that UGC helps them connect with their customers and foster their trust in the brand. 

What makes UGC for the ecommerce audience more interesting is the fact that they find it more relatable. They get to see the products beyond studio lights in action with a common consumer, depicting the real-life image. 

Top Benefits Of Adding UGC To Ecommerce Store

Here are the most significant reasons why leveraging user-generated content on your ecommerce store can be beneficial for your brand.

Showcase Your Products In Action

Ecommerce user-generated content is your customers showcasing the real-life use cases of your products. That’s what makes UGC so impactful as you get to show your products in action. Generally, brands would create fake scenarios by hiring paid models that are usually labeled as “made-up” or “marketing gimmicks” by the consumers.

But, the raw nature of user-generated content becomes the real game changer on your ecommerce store. The potential customers get inspired by their peer consumers to purchase your products. 

For example, if you are an interior store showcasing ecommerce UGC for your products. Like a couch in a customer’s living room or a console table in a client’s lobby, these images would help your prospects to create a picture around the product about how it would look in their living space.

Elevate The Customers’ Shopping Experience

Adding user-generated content from social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc., to your ecommerce store can be the ultimate solution to turn your customers’ social engagement into social shopping.

While consumers seek real-life experiences before making any purchase decisions, user-generated content elevates your customers’ shopping experience when you incorporate it throughout their ecommerce journey. It allows them to engage, inspire and purchase, all in one place.

With UGC, your customers experience a rather effortless purchase experience that’s much quicker, insightful, and stimulating. Now, who wouldn’t like an uninterrupted social shopping journey?

Humanize Your eCommerce Campaigns

With the world evolving and new advances coming in, it has become much easier for users to distinguish between brand-created and user-generated content. 

Not only that, but the consumer behavior has also shifted from getting mesmerized by the unrealistic brand ad campaigns to only trusting what’s more human and real.

Now, you no longer have to spend extra capital on hiring professional photographers and models. User-generated content works quite well in humanizing your ecommerce campaigns to catch the eyes of potential customers, evoke their emotions, and instill a curiosity in them to explore more with your brand.

Create Brand Awareness & User-engagement

User-generated content can play a leading role when it comes to user engagement. That’s because it instills a sense of social proof among your customers. Social proof works as a bandwagon effect; when a user comes across a social behavior that more people are following, they tend to copy that behavior. 

While your customers engage with the user-generated content you offer, they also get influenced to create content for you. As more people generate content for you, it reaches more people, enabling better brand awareness.

Not to mention how the transparency of your content would attract the prospects and encourage them to engage with your content and continue to explore more.

The Role Of UGC For Brand Advocacy & Social Influence

Brand advocacy is not a newly introduced concept. It has been around the ecommerce town for quite a while. But the real question is, how will you turn your customers into your brand advocates?

User-generated content can turn customers into brand advocates. That’s because when brands value customers’ voices, the customers feel a sense of connection with the brand. Consumers start associating with brands and always recommend them to their friends and family members. Not only that, but they also never feel hesitant to create more UGC for the brand.

If brand advocacy is the first step, then the social influence is second. They both go hand-in-hand. The biggest example of that would be the brand Vaseline’s petroleum jelly. While petroleum jelly is in itself a product sold by many brands, Vaseline has created such an impact that people have started calling petroleum jelly- Vaseline.

Shoot Up Your Conversion Rate

This part is more like a concluding point for all the abovementioned subparts stating the benefits of UGC for ecommerce stores. That’s because all of them clubbed together leads to a brand’s expedited conversion rate.

No matter what form user-generated content takes; photos, videos, reviews, ratings, etc., it holds the capacity to single-handedly engage, attract, influence, and convert a brand’s prospects.

 53% of millennials have said that UGC has influenced their purchase decisions. When ecommerce brands publish user-generated content across consumer touchpoints, it inspires prospects to make positive purchase decisions that eventually boost brand sales. The basic idea is to turn the point of inspiration into conversion, and UGC does that quite well.

How UGC Integrates With Ecommerce Stores

If you are wondering how to get on board with the UGC on ecommerce, then here are the three basic forms of UGC to begin with.

Customer Testimonials Or Reviews

Customer testimonials or reviews are the precious words by your customers who have shared their experience with your brand. They enable potential customers to make confident purchase decisions with your brand. Consumers identify them as the most transparent and trust-building source as 91% of them read at least one review before purchasing a product.

Leveraging your customers’ honest words to your ecommerce store adds to its credibility. It also eliminates your prospects’ review hunting step by offering them reviews right on your ecommerce step. Now, they no longer have to look around for reliable customer reviews, helping them make quicker purchase decisions.

The Visual Customer Experiences

Visuals play a vital role in influencing customers. That’s because humans are visual creatures, and they tend to engage with brands more often because of the vibrancy they have to offer. The visual form of user-generated content acts as the perfect addition to your ecommerce store. They not only engage your store visitors but also showcase your products’ real-life use-cases. 

The visual marketing strategy using UGC from social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, and Facebook is a remedy for ecommerce brands to shoot up their conversions. That’s because users are already discovering new brands on these platforms. Also, offering the same on your website calls for the huge potential for your brand to improve the conversion rate.

Shoppable UGC Galleries

If you think simply adding user-generated content to your ecommerce store could be the ultimate strategy, you might have to rethink. We are introducing you to the latest ecommerce trend: Shoppable UGC Galleries. Now, leverage the transparent content created by your customers to your website, and tag them as shoppable using product tags or hotspots. 

These product tags enable your ecommerce store visitors with direct buying options. Now, they no longer have to go through your entire ecommerce store. They can engage, get inspired, and make a purchase from the Shoppable UGC gallery, offering them the perfect social shopping experience.

How To Encourage UGC On Your Ecommerce Store?

Wondering how to execute the user-generated content strategy for your ecommerce store? Here are some amazing possibilities for you!

Study Your Audience’s Social Behavior

Before you leverage user-generated content to your ecommerce campaigning, the first thing you need to focus upon is research. Analyze your audience’s social behavior, the social media platform (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.), the type of social content (Stories, Reels, Tweets, etc.). 

Gather the data of which social media platform the maximum number of your customers and target audience resides in. Then choose that platform as your focal point when incorporating user-generated content for your brand.

It will be a great strategy to kickstart your UGC journey, minimize your efforts and help you offer your audience user-generated content they would relate with the most.

Create A Hashtag Campaign

Hashtag campaigns are traditional yet the most effective marketing strategy. Not only create brand awareness but to maximize the creation of UGC, where your audience willingly participates and creates the kind of UGC you want them to.

Choose a relatable and unique hashtag, and encourage your audience to join in. You can even announce a giveaway for the participants that come with attractive goodies. To take things to the next level, you can set up rules that the participants have to pose with your products to become a contender in the hashtag competition. 

As hashtag campaigns are famous for instilling social proof, you can expect many users to participate. The hashtag campaign/competition will help generate a great amount of UGC. You can further repurpose user-generated content for endless ecommerce marketing purposes like Shoppable UGC Galleries, Shop the look, etc.

Offer On-site Review & Visual UGC Uploads

On-site visual UGC uploads and reviews uploads are ecommerce store features that many brands offer. These features are generally available on each product page of the online store. It enables customers to share user-generated content or their experience with the products on the product page directly.

It is a great strategy for ecommerce stores to encourage their customers to create UGC for them by offering them a common forum to upload visual UGC and write reviews or testimonials. 

Now, potential customers can simply scroll down the product page to check out the reviews while exploring products on an ecommerce store. If you want to enable this feature on your ecommerce store, Taggbox Commerce is your solution.

Become A Social Media Trendsetter

Every other day there is a new trend on social media, and the users find relatability in them. So much, so that social media is rapidly turning into social commerce platforms. It often creates an amazing opportunity for brands to get inspired and create marketing gimmicks that catch the prospects’ eyes. 

You can also capitalize on one of these trends and encourage your audience to get on board. Strategically include your products and collaborate with influencers who have an audience similar to your target audience. It will encourage more UGC for your brand and also help you create spectacular brand awareness. 

Famous brand Daniel Wellington started a trend where they hired influencers to create content for them wearing their watches on Instagram. The trend created such an impact that it influenced users on Instagram to generate thousands of photos and videos (UGC) for DW.

UGC Success Stories: Ecommerce Edition

Eureka Street Furniture

Eureka Street has been an Australian brand offering Furniture & Furnishing solutions to common consumers for 35 years now. They stumbled upon a roadblock as they wanted to deliver imagination and inspiration to improve their conversions. But, it is often a challenge for online furniture stores to make their prospects imagine products in their living space and inspire purchases.

That’s when Taggbox Commerce came to the rescue with its Shoppable Instagram & UGC galleries. These engaging galleries helped Eureka Street to attract and acquire customers. Not only that, but they also helped the brand tackle the key ecommerce marketing challenges like driving sales, building user trust, and enhancing the customers’ shopping experience.

The results? The Shoppable Instagram & UGC Galleries helped Eureka Streets to shoot up their conversions up to 15%, with a 78% higher user engagement rate, 2000 monthly clicks on shoppable posts /CTAs, 500K views on Homepage gallery, and 260K post engagements!

Final Word

UGC is compatible with any and every ecommerce conversion rate optimization strategy, be it creating brand awareness, acquiring consumer trust, or helping prospects make positive and quicker purchase decisions. UGC creates a wholesome ecommerce journey leading to conversions. 

UGC effortlessly increases ecommerce sales because it is trustworthy, reliable, and authentic. It satisfies the consumers’ visual appetite and helps them understand the brands’ credibility while exploring the customer experiences.