Authenticity has become a gold standard for digital marketing, with more and more consumers craving it.
In this context, user-generated content (UGC) is the go-to solution, making brands look more trustworthy and relatable in the eyes of the audience.
Still, constantly sourcing high-quality content can be difficult without some help.
That’s why you should partner with one of the best UGC platforms.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know about these platforms and show you how to choose the right one for your brand.
What Is a UGC Platform?
A UGC platform is an online platform that helps brands obtain high-quality user-generated content for their digital marketing campaigns.
In other words, these platforms connect brands with influencers and professional UGC creators who create authentic and engaging content.
User-generated content can include everything from blog posts to social media posts as long as they’re created by consumers instead of brands.
Of course, the best UGC platforms are more versatile, offering additional features and functionalities, as we’ll explain later.
For now, let’s take a closer look at how these platforms operate.
How Do UGC Platforms Work?
User-generated content platforms work with brands to simplify the process of obtaining and using UGC for the best marketing outcomes.
They usually focus on the following activities.
1. UGC Creator Discovery
UGC platforms have large databases of vetted creators specializing in various industries.
Our very own Insense gives you access to over 20K micro-influencers and UGC creators skilled in:
- Beauty and care
- Fashion and style
- Food and drinks
- Health and wellness
- Travel, etc.
Using special briefs and advanced search features, these platforms can match you with UGC creators who best fit your brand and needs.
2. UGC Sourcing
The main role of these platforms is to help you acquire UGC for diverse use cases.
Whether you want to launch a social media or email campaign or improve your SEO strategy, the right UGC platform will find appropriate content for you.
You just need to provide some campaign details and creative asset requirements, and the platform takes care of the rest.
For instance, in our Creative Brief, you can fill out information about:
- The campaign type and platform (e.g., TikTok UGC campaign)
- The content type (e.g., video UGC)
- Product details (e.g., product photo and description)
3. Content Distribution
The best UGC platforms offer various platform integrations that simplify content distribution and campaign management.
For example, you can connect your Shopify store to Insense in just a few clicks.
Then, you can create and manage multiple orders for influencer campaigns without leaving the Insense platform.
Moreover, you can always repurpose the content you receive for other campaigns.
An e-commerce brand can use UGC for organic posting and paid ads.
4. Performance Tracking
A good UGC platform also tracks campaign performance.
This data helps you determine if your marketing campaigns are effective and if you’re properly allocating your resources.
For instance, our Performance feature tracks your campaign numbers, post performance, and platform spend.
On top of that, the intuitive data visualization dashboard makes it easier to understand and analyze this complex data.
Coming up next, we’ll list some of the benefits of working with UGC platforms.
Why Are UGC Platforms Important for Brands?
This is a no-brainer.
UGC platforms are important for brands because they help collect high-quality user-generated content.
The acquired UGC will then enable brands to achieve great things. For instance, according to multiple statistics, you can:
- Create more brand and product exposure
- Build brand authenticity and consumer trust
- Increase engagement rates
- Influence customer purchasing decisions and drive sales
Still, partnering with a UGC platform has some additional advantages.
Here are three of them:
- Save time through automation. Manually gathering UGC from your customers, employees, or social media followers is time-consuming.
However, UGC platforms use automated features to match you with the right creators and deliver creative assets in no time.
- Build long-term partnerships. Once you find a UGC creator who aligns perfectly with your brand, you shouldn’t let them go.
UGC platforms often allow you to keep in touch with creators and work with the same people over and over again.
- Simplify all legal and financial aspects. If you search for UGC creators on your own, you need to negotiate and manage agreements and payments for each collaboration.
UGC platforms give you full digital usage rights for all gathered content and automate creator payments.
Now, let us give you some tips on how to choose the right platform for your brand.
How to Choose the Best UGC Platform for Your Brand
To choose the best UGC platform for your brand’s needs, you must follow these steps.
Let’s explore them one by one.
1. Identify your brand’s goals
Before you start looking for a UGC platform, you must decide what you want to accomplish.
After all, each of these platforms offers unique features and functionalities for different marketing goals.
If you don’t have a specific objective, you risk wasting your time and resources and missing out on amazing opportunities.
Some of the most common marketing goals include increasing brand awareness, reach, engagement, and conversions.
Still, you should be as specific as possible.
For instance, if you want to create more social media exposure for your beauty brand’s newest product, you can use an influencer marketing platform specializing in this industry, like Insense.
2. Know what features you’ll need
Based on your marketing goals, you can also determine what features you’ll need.
Since UGC platforms don’t offer the same features, this will narrow down the search.
For example, you should look for a platform offering:
- Advanced search filters for creator discovery
- Comprehensive brief templates
- An in-platform chat for communicating with creators
- Analytics capabilities
Note that Insense offers all of these features and more.
3. Determine your budget
You might find multiple UGC platforms that match your brand’s needs, but can you afford them?
This is the most important question you should ask yourself before committing to any solution.
After all, these platforms usually involve paying a monthly subscription.
If these costs exceed your budget, you should reconsider your options.
Likewise, you should look into each platform’s pricing plans, as these can vary based on factors like:
- The features you choose
- The number of users you need access to
- The number of campaigns you want to launch
So, you might be able to cut down the costs by reassessing what you need.
4. Research different UGC platforms
As a general rule, only dive head first once you’ve researched your options.
We recommend:
- Reading blogs written by industry experts on the best UGC platforms
- Seeking peer recommendations on platforms they’ve used or are currently using
- Checking each platform’s ratings on specialized platforms, like G2
- Reading customer reviews to see what others are saying about each platform
Based on all the information you gather, you can determine which platform best suits your needs.
Later on, we’ll provide you with a list of the top ten UGC platforms, but we encourage you to do further research on each of them.
5. Test the platform
Once you narrow down your search to two or three platforms, it’s time to test them.
The good news is that many UGC platforms offer free demos or affordable trial periods.
Therefore, you can see how these solutions operate, how user-friendly they are, and if they are right for your team.
Pick some of your best marketing specialists and project managers to carry out these tests.
Then, seek their feedback on each platform’s strengths and weaknesses to decide which is best for your brand.
Before we go any further, we want to clarify what features you should look for in a UGC platform.
Key Features and Functionalities to Look For in a UGC Platform
Check out some of the key features and functionalities you should look for in a UGC platform.
✅ Self-service lets you use most of the platform’s features on your own, without professional assistance.
✅ Managed service puts you in contact with marketing specialists who can handle your UGC campaigns from start to finish.
✅ User-friendliness allows anyone on your team to use the platform without requiring advanced technical skills.
✅ UGC collection and curation enables you to gather, check, and approve the content before it’s published.
✅ Automated creator discovery lets you pick a few selection criteria, then lists all the creators who match your requirements.
✅ Analytics helps you track campaign performance to determine what's working and not working.
✅ Integrations allow you to connect your UGC platform account to other platforms to simplify marketing campaign management.
Finally, it’s time for our list of the top 10 UGC platforms.
10 Best UGC Platforms to Consider
We’ve given you the ins and outs of UGC platforms. Now, let’s look at some actual examples.
Check out our list of top UGC platforms to consider for your brand.
1. Insense
Insense is a creator marketing platform specializing in providing UGC for e-commerce platforms and social media campaigns.
Since most of our vetted creators are also micro-influencers you can also use our platform to run influencer campaigns.
Key features:
- Managed Service handles everything for you. Our marketing specialists can conceive, execute, and manage your UGC campaigns for better ROI.
However, you can always opt for the Self-Service plan if budget is an issue.
- Creator Marketplace lets you choose the industry, audience demographics, and creator requirements you’re interested in.
Then, with a click of a button, you get a list of matching creators.
- Creative Brief allows you to give a detailed description of the campaign you want to run and the creative assets you need.
Then, our platform finds the creators who best fit your requirements.
- Direct Chat enables you to keep in touch with creators at all times, inside the platform.
You’ll be able to communicate effectively without missing important messages.
- Performance monitors all your creator collaborations, tracks how the content performs on various platforms, and shows you how much you’ve spent.
2. Upfluence
Upfluence is an influencer marketing platform designed for e-commerce brands.
This platform features Amazon, Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, and BigCommerce integrations.
Key features:
- Influencer Discovery enables you to find creators based on content, audience, and performance, and vet them.
- Creator Relationship Management gives you access to contract templates and an AI mailing assistant to simplify the hiring process.
- Amazon Affiliate Influencer Marketing helps you manage your affiliate campaigns using a centralized dashboard.
3. Taggbox
Taggbox is an AI-powered UGC platform that produces UGC for websites, email campaigns, and print media.
The platform mostly focuses on the educational, retail, hospitality, events, and internal communications industries.
Key features:
- Social Wall Display helps you create and display social media walls across different offline channels for audience engagement.
- Taggbox Widget lets you collect social media feeds, photos, and reviews and embed them into your website, ads, or email campaigns.
4. Flowbox
Flowbox is a UGC platform targeting high-traffic international online stores.
Therefore, this platform can sift through a big client’s social media accounts, find the best-performing UGC, and use it for various marketing campaigns.
Key features:
- AI tools that prioritize UGC and link it to products through a Visual Search engine.
- Workflow automation that sends bulk requests to influencers and customers to use their UGC.
- You can also manage product-specific reviews and star ratings using this platform.
5. Trend.io
Trend.io is an online platform that obtains visual user-generated content from vetted creators.
You can use it to gather product photos and videos for your paid ads, social media content, and online stores.
Key features:
- You create a project detailing the type of UGC needed
- You review and approve the creator applications
- You don’t have to negotiate payment, as creators work on a set budget
6. Creator.co
Creator.co is a UGC platform designed for influencer and affiliate marketing programs.
The platform has a network of 250 million TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, X (Twitter), Twitch, and Pinterest influencers.
However, their pricing plans don’t come cheap. They start at $495 monthly and require a minimum three-month subscription.
Key features:
- Self-service enables you to create briefs and obtain UGC for content-only, gifted, and paid campaigns.
- The platform offers three types of managed service plans that can assist with your campaign strategy, influencer recruitment, and campaign management.
7. Bazaarvoice
Bazaarvoice is a UGC platform that uses consumer reviews to help brands grow.
Whether you want to start a UGC campaign or enhance your existing one, this platform can assist you.
Key features:
- Ratings and Reviews lets you manage customer reviews and ratings in one platform and highlights the most compelling UGC.
- Social Commerce helps you turn social media UGC photos and videos into shoppable collections.
- Product Sampling matches you with a community of shoppers eager to create UGC for your products.
8. Later
Later is a social media management and influencer platform.
Therefore you can use it to source UGC, as well as schedule and automate your social media posts.
Key features:
- Content Creation helps you find UGC by hashtags, profiles, or mentions and save it in your Media Library.
- Using the same tool, you can edit the content by cropping it or adding filters and text.
- Finally, the platform allows you to set the posting time and social media channels.
9. Yotpo
Yotpo is a versatile marketing tool that specializes in email and SMS marketing, subscriptions, loyalty and referral programs, reviews, and UGC.
An interesting fact about this platform is that it focuses on customer retention rather than attracting new prospects.
Key features:
- AI-powered tools for collecting more customer reviews of higher quality
- Sourcing visual UGC from socials or direct submissions
- Strategic display of the most relevant product reviews
10. inBeat
inBeat is a TikTok and Instagram influencer database.
The platform also features a separate, fully managed UGC service.
Key features:
- You can search for creators in the database by location, follower count, and keywords, and export their contact information.
- You can also use the automated similar profile and hashtag searches to identify look-alike influencers.
- The managed service finds influencers for you and lets you review the UGC inside the platform.
Let’s wrap this up.
Over To You!
Now that you know what UGC platforms are, how they work, and what their key features are, it’s time to choose the right one for your brand.
You can start by researching the ten best UGC platforms we mentioned here.
To better understand our own platform’s features and functionalities, book a demo with Insense.
Our team will be happy to show you the ropes.
Choosing the Best UGC Platform - FAQs
Here are some of the questions our clients frequently ask:
What kind of brands benefit most from UGC platforms?
Any online brand can benefit from UGC platforms. After all, no matter your industry, you need high-quality UGC to build brand exposure, authenticity, trust, loyalty, and more.
What are the costs associated with using UGC platforms?
The costs associated with using UGC platforms vary widely from one platform to another depending on the service type and desired features.
To give you an idea, the Insense self-service plans start at $500 monthly, while the managed service plans start at $1,800 monthly.
Can UGC platforms help with tracking user engagement and campaign performance?
Yes, UGC platforms can help with tracking user engagement and campaign performance. Some of the best platforms feature advanced analytics that allow you to measure your campaign results and understand how users interact with your content.
