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If you’re looking to engage your audience on social media, user-generated content is a great form of content to add into your marketing strategy.
Because user-generated content gives your customers an idea of how your product or service will actually fit into their lifestyle, it provides a great way to resonate with your audience through authentic content.
However, gathering all of that content yourself can be tedious, which is where UGC platforms come in. We’ve put together a list of the top user-generated content platforms to help you find the best one for your content strategy.
Top UGC Platforms for Brands:
- 1. Grin
- 2. Creator.co
- 3. Upfluence
- 4. impact.com
- 5. LTK (formerly rewardStyle)
- 6. Intellifluence
- 7. Insense
- 8. CrewFire
- 9. TINT
- 10. Stackla
- 11. Olapic
- 12. CrowdRiff
- 13. Trend
- 14. Bazaarvoice
- 15. Brandbassador
- 16. Taggbox
- 17. Pixlee TurnTo
- 18. Yotpo
- 19. Aspire (formerly AspireIQ)
- 20. Wyng
- 21. Tribe Dynamics
- Frequently Asked Questions
Leading UGC Platforms to Try
Before we delve into the general benefits that UGC platforms can offer your marketing team, let’s go over the top tools you might want to explore. Each tool has its own features and offerings, so pay attention to each one so you can find the best platform for your brand.
1. Grin
GRIN is a creator management platform that can help with various key marketing-related aspects, including branded content and content management. Trusted by global and well-known brands like L’Oreal and Urban Outfitters, it offers a wide range of features that make it easy to manage relationships with content creators on all social channels and find, track and repurpose content. It will automatically gather all your UGC and store it in a unified place.
Then, to make it even easier to manage your UGC, it lets you search it by post type, tag, performance, or color. Once you’ve found the content piece that you want to use for your next campaign, downloading the specific post is as easy as clicking a button.
Other great features include:
- Custom rights agreements
- Social listening
Pricing: Grin doesn’t publicize their pricing, asking customers to instead request a demo to start the process.
Key Features: Content Amplification, Search/Discovery, Influencer Lifecycle Management, Influencer Relationship Management, Content Review, Content Library, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, E-commerce Tools, Product/Gifting Tools, Forms and Compliance,
Channels: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Twitch, YouTube
2. Creator.co
Trusted by brands like Colgate and Walmart, Creator.co gives brands the option to create their own campaign and add it to the platform’s Collaboration Hub or take advantage of their managed services instead. Whichever approach you decide to take, you’ll gain access to a network of over 150,000 registered creators.
That said, the DIY approach is an attractive option for brands with limited budgets. For example, the self-serve plan has a content-only feature that can help you to get UGC at a lower price. With this option, you’ll need to do the posting to social media sites yourself, but it will work out cheaper.
If you’re a creator looking to create UGC for brands, by joining Creator.co’s community you’re one step closer to partnering with brands in various lifestyle niches like health and wellness. In addition to the collaboration opportunities, you’ll also get access to several useful resources like discounts on creator tools and invites to webinars.
Other great features include:
- Campaign health checks
- Custom reporting
- Advanced creator insights
Pricing: Creator.co offers a number of plans, but all plans require a minimum subscription of three months. For the self-serve option, pricing starts at $460 per month. However, keep in mind that there’s a significant jump in prices and depending on the level of assistance you need, you can pay anything between $1640 per month or double that.
Key Features: Content Amplification, Search/Discovery, Influencer Lifecycle Management, Influencer Relationship Management, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, Exportable reports,
Channels: Instagram, YouTube, TikTok
3. Upfluence
Upfluence is an all-in-one affiliate and influencer marketing platform that offers UGC along with its varied services. With Upfluence, you can work with the right influencers to generate authentic content for your brand, streamline your campaigns, and drive more sales.
The platform can also help you onboard influencers and ensure their commitment to your campaign. By following each stage of collaboration, you will build long-term relationships that can help create more UGC that wins your audience’s confidence and loyalty.
Other features include:
- Influencer matching for your client and event needs
- Full software access and 100% transparency on your campaigns
- Drafting and approving UGC that meets your expectations
Pricing: Upfluence prices are available upon request via a contact form on their website’s Pricing page.
Key Features: Influencer Search & Discovery, Relationship Management, Campaign Management, Third Party Analytics, Automated Recruiting, Influencer Lifecycle Management, Team Collaboration Tools, Content Review, Campaign Reporting, Audience Analysis, E-commerce Tools, Product/Gifting Tools, Payment Processing, Social Listening,
Channels: Instagram, Youtube, Facebook, Twitch, Tiktok, Twitter, Pinterest, Blogs
4. impact.com
Among the numerous platforms available, Impact.com stands out as one of the best for streamlining the management of UGC and facilitating seamless collaborations with social influencers.
Impact’s innovative UGC management tools streamline content scheduling, publishing, and optimization for efficient audience engagement. The platform allows brands to create customized Terms and Conditions, fostering transparency in brand-influencer partnerships. The platform’s Media Vault is an invaluable resource for brands, allowing them to effortlessly filter, tag, and download all IGC associated with their campaigns. The content library features advanced hashtag and social listening tools, which significantly enhance the search for relevant influencer-generated content.
Other features include:
- Partnership automation solution to automate management and partnership tracking
- Managing affiliate programs, including tracking, reporting, and payment processing
- Uses machine learning to detect and prevent fraudulent activities
Pricing: Impact offers customized pricing based on the needs of individual businesses, the size of the operation, and the volume of transactions.
Key Features: Influencer Content Amplification, Search/Discovery, Automated Recruiting, Influencer Relationship Management, Influencer Marketplace, Team Collaboration Tools, Content Review, Content Library, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, E-commerce Tools, Product/Gifting Tools, Forms and Compliance, Payment Processing,
5. LTK (formerly rewardStyle)
Established over a decade ago in 2011, LTK (formerly called rewardStyle and LIKEtoKNOW.it) is one of the leading influencer platforms across the globe. Their team of brand marketers is experienced at curating creators to help brands increase their sales. Their network boasts hundreds of thousands of curated creators from more than 100 countries.
Not only do they offer a diverse selection of creators, but they’ve also served a wide range of industries and verticals. In the 10+ years that they’ve been in business, they’ve created strong partnerships with creators in virtually all the most popular lifestyle categories, including fashion, travel, and fitness.
If you’re not interested in taking them up on their end-to-end creator campaign management, they also offer a self-serve option for brands that like a more hands-on approach. This way, you can connect directly with creators. You can then offer incentives to chosen creators in return for creating (and even publishing) mobile-first content.
Other great features include:
- Content licensing
- Performance tracking
Pricing: LTK offers three subscription levels based on the number of creators required and your campaign investment. Pricing starts at $300 per month.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Content Review, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, Product/Gifting Tools, Forms and Compliance, Payment Processing,
Channels: Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Blogs, LTK App
6. Intellifluence
Aimed at smaller businesses, Intellifluence is an end-to-end influencer marketing platform that offers a decent network of influencers. While they might not boast the biggest influencer network (there are about 200,000), all the influencers chose to join on their own accord. This means that whichever influencer you choose to work with on your UGC campaign will be willing, eager, and ready.
What Intellifluence does extremely well is make it easy to create and amplify custom content. After you’ve created your campaign, it’s straightforward to add an influencer with Intellifluence’s Influencer Discovery tool.
Other great features include:
- In-app messaging
- Reports
Pricing: Intellifluence has a completely free plan. The paid plans start at $99 per month.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Automated Recruiting, Influencer Relationship Management, Influencer Marketplace, Campaign Management, Product/Gifting Tools, Payment Processing,
Channels: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitch, TikTok,Reddit
7. Insense
Insense is a creator marketplace for UGC at scale and describes its platform as your “one-stop shop to collaborate with creators for UGC”. There are more than 35,000 screened creators in its community who can deliver mobile-first content in as few as five business days. Not only will the content keep mobile devices in mind, but it will also be platform-native.
It doesn’t matter if you prefer photos over videos or vice versa, their creators have the skills needed. They can help with various types of UGC such as product demos or reviews, testimonials, and unboxing videos.
In terms of pricing, Insense also offers variety. If you’re happy with a more hands-on approach, you can sign up for one of the self-service plans. Alternatively, you can leave everything to them and opt for their fully managed service. However, know that there’s quite a significant difference in pricing. While this is not uncommon, the jump in pricing is more significant than some of the other platforms that also offer these two options.
Other great features include:
- Content rights
- Automated contracting and payments
- A content library
Pricing: Self-service plans start at $400 per month. If you prefer a fully managed service, pricing starts at $3,500 per month and requires a three-month commitment.
Key Features: Content Amplification, Search/Discovery, Automated Recruiting, Influencer Relationship Management, Influencer Marketplace, Content Review, Content Library, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, E-commerce Tools, Product/Gifting Tools, Fake Follower/Fraud Detection, Payment Processing, Influencer Whitelisting, Creator Marketplace,
Channels: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook
8. CrewFire
CrewFire is a brand ambassador management software solution that you can use to drive more UGC campaigns. For example, when Vitae Apparel signed up to CrewFire, they managed to generate more than 25,000 pieces of UGC.
To make it easier for your brand ambassadors to get started, it lets you create campaigns in which you set out the instructions. You also have the option of including brand assets that they may use.
While it’s very easy to use and your users won’t have any trouble getting started, you can also use its platform to create incentives for extra encouragement. You can, for example, reward them with points. The points that they’ve collected can then be exchanged for rewards offered by your brand.
Other great features include:
- The ability to create affiliate links and referral codes
- PayPal and ACH payouts
- Community message boards
- Email and SMS broadcasts
- Customizable application forms to grow your brand ambassador network
Pricing: CrewFire offers three pricing plans based on features and the size of the team. Pricing starts at $1,000 per month.
Key Features: Influencer Relationship Management, Team Collaboration Tools, Content Review, Campaign Management, White Label Reporting, Payment Processing, Influencer Content Amplification, Ecommerce Tools,
Channels: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter
9. TINT
TINT is an awesome platform for basic UGC collection, storing, and publishing. When we say basic, though, we don’t mean primitive—we simply mean that TINT has all the features you need for core UGC marketing.
While they may not have software for accepting photos with product reviews, creating, UGC widgets, and the like, their tools are perfect for gathering organic UGC, getting content rights, publishing and promoting content, and more.
Other great features include:
- The ability to create omnichannel UGC marketing campaigns
- AI that helps you find the highest-quality UGC for your brand to repurpose
- A number of integrations that seamlessly work TINT into your marketing stack
Pricing: TINT asks interested customers to request pricing information via a contact form on their Pricing page.
10. Stackla
Stackla is another recent acquisition, having joined Nosto. Stackla has dubbed itself a visual content engine, helping brands to find, manage, and share UGC across all marketing touchpoints.
Stackla’s content discovery tools allow brands to gather a large library of UGC, sourcing content from more than 25 social networks. Get content rights for stress-free resharing, organize your content with their digital asset manager, and more.
Other great features include:
- An influencer marketing platform that helps you turn real customers into authentic influencers
- Predictive AI that helps your brand save time with gathering and publishing UGC
- Easy-to-use digital asset management for keeping your UGC library organized
Pricing: Stackla has an online form interested customers can use to request a demo and gather more information.
11. Olapic
Olapic, recently acquired by Social Native, offers two main services: one surrounding UGC and another for creating short-form videos. This is a great option for brands looking to kill two birds with one stone.
With Olapic’s UGC tools, brands can gather UGC for every aspect of the marketing journey: Website, ads, social media, email marketing, and more. They have website widgets, a UGC library for you to manage, the ability to create offline ads with your UGC, and more.
Other features include:
- Syndication capabilities allowing brands to place UGC on retail partner sites
- A number of gallery options for putting your UGC front and center on your website
- Machine learning that helps you pinpoint where your content will perform best
Pricing: Olapic has an option to request a demo to learn more.
12. CrowdRiff
CrowdRiff is a UGC platform that focuses on travel and tourism companies, helping them increase user engagement through photos and content that travelers have created.
Businesses in the travel and tourism space are able to use this tool to create an online presence that attracts their target audience and works to ramp up click-through rates and conversions.
Features include:
- The ability to source UGC and get permission for sharing
- A dashboard for viewing and managing all UGC in one place
- Analytics and metrics to help you measure overall performance
Pricing: CrowdRiff asks customers to request a free demo to learn more about pricing and signing up for their service.
13. Trend
Trend works a bit differently from Yotpo. Instead of online software that helps you to gather and share UGC, they connect brands to content creators who actually create each piece of content for the brands to share.
With this option, Trend has compiled its own creator network that influencers can apply to join, and brands pay per creator that they work with.
Features of Trend include:
- A dense network of 3,700+ creators that ensures you get awesome online content
- The ability to customize what types of content you want so it meets your marketing goals
- Content rights for all creator-generated content so you have UGC at every marketing touchpoint
Pricing: Starts at $100/creator.
14. Bazaarvoice
Bazaarvoice has solutions for brands looking to ramp up their user-generated content, but that’s only a fraction of their service offerings.
They’ve dubbed themselves a shopper engagement platform, with the ability to help brands put UGC in front of their customers, pull off product launches, boost sales and conversions, and more.
Features of Bazaarvoice include:
- Customers can add photos to their ratings and reviews
- Past purchasers have the ability to answer potential customer questions
- The ability to put UGC at every stage of the customer journey
Pricing: Bazaarvoice also doesn’t publicize their pricing, asking customers to instead request a demo to start the process.
15. Brandbassador
Used by more than 250 eCommerce brands, Brandbassador is a creator marketing management platform that was founded in 2016. You can use it to create authentic user-generated content that will help to create brand awareness and drive sales. To ensure that the final result aligns with your current branding, Brandbassador also helps you to create detailed project briefs and content guidelines. As an added measure, there’s also a functionality for reviewing and approving content first.
Then, to make it easier to stay on top of all your approved UGC, you can rate the quality of posts or narrow down the best content via various parameters.
Other great features include:
- Built-in licensing agreements
- ROI tracking and analytics
Pricing: Brandbassador offers three subscription plans. Pricing is available upon request.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Automated Recruiting, Content Library, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, E-commerce Tools, Product/Gifting Tools, Payment Processing,
16. Taggbox
Taggbox is an awesome service for collecting and curating UGC across a number of marketing touchpoints, from your social networks to email campaigns to websites and product pages to so much more.
When working with this tool, there are four main offerings you can choose from:
- Display: Create a displayable social media wall for your brick-and-mortar store
- Widget: Build widgets with UGC, social feeds, reviews, and more to place on your website
- Taggshop: Make your UGC shoppable with an Instagram shop, product page gallery, and more
- UGC Rights: Easily get UGC content rights from the original creators to repurpose on your feeds
Select one or more of their service options to get the most out of this UGC platform.
Pricing: Each of their main offerings has a different price point. Display starts at $249/month. Widgets has a free plan with premium plans starting at $24/month. Taggshop creates a custom price depending on your needs. Rights Management starts at $79/month.
17. Pixlee TurnTo
Pixlee who recently joined forces with TurnTo, another online marketing platform that offers a number of different services. If you land on the TurnTo website, they now have “Pixlee” listed as one of their products, leading you directly to Pixlee’s site and its UGC tools.
With Pixlee, your brand can easily collect, curate, get the rights for, and publish UGC on your own feeds. It even offers analytics to help you measure the success of your UGC campaign.
Other features include:
- The ability to automatically gather images using a specific hashtag
- Spam and brand protection filtering to ensure you only end up with high-quality UGC
- Shopping tools that allow you to connect products to user-generated images
Pricing: Pixlee doesn’t have their pricing on their website. Instead, they prefer interested parties to request a demo to learn more about their service.
Key Features: Content Amplification, Search/Discovery, Influencer Relationship Management, Influencer Marketplace, Team Collaboration Tools, Content Review, Content Library, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting,
Channels: Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter
18. Yotpo
Yotpo is an ecommerce marketing platform with a number of different service offerings, UGC being just one of them. With Yotpo, your team can easily set up SMS marketing campaigns, create loyalty and referral programs, and ramp up your visual marketing with user-generated content.
With Yotpo, you can do more than gather user-generated content to share on social media. You can also showcase customer photos on your website’s homepage, product page, checkout page, and more.
Other features include:
- A customizable UGC widget to create photo collages
- Analytics to see how your content is performing
- Easy Instagram curation for sharing UGC right to your Instagram feed
Pricing: Yotpo has a completely free plan for brands just starting out with UGC. Their premium plan starts at $9/month.
19. Aspire (formerly AspireIQ)
Aspire is the largest sponsorship marketplace in the world. More than that, it is a relationship workflow that allows you to create a one-of-a-kind influencer platform. With everything in one place, you can organize your UGC more efficiently and never miss an update on your campaign’s progress.
Moreover, Aspire helps you bring a human touch to your brand by leveraging diverse and cost-effective influencer content. You can create, review, and approve UGC, as well as boost your top-performing content. You can even collaborate with your most loyal and influential customers and turn them into super-sellers.
Other features include:
- Engagement with audiences that mention your brand via social listening tools
- A brand-safe content library to collaborate with teams and streamline UGC approval
- Pre-built terms that award you content ownership rights
Pricing: Aspire doesn’t publicize their pricing; instead, you can get more information by requesting a demo on their website.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Influencer Relationship Management, Influencer Marketplace, Team Collaboration Tools, Content Review, Content Library, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, E-commerce Tools, Product/Gifting Tools, Forms and Compliance, Payment Processing, Social Listening, Competitor Research, Visual Discovery, Influencer Content Amplification,
Channels: Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Blogs
20. Wyng
Wyng is the last UGC platform on our list, and it’s another tool that has a couple of different marketing tools, UGC being only one of them. Brands interested in Wyng also get the ability to create microexperiences with their templates and experience builder.
However, Wyng’s UGC tools are extremely useful as well. Users can collect UGC, then create galleries, shoppable experiences, product detail pages, email and ad creative, and more with the content they’ve aggregated.
Other great features include:
- The ability to collect UGC by filtering usernames, hashtags, and more across various platforms
- Options for linking UGC to the products featured in the visuals
- Personalized experiences based on customer data you’ve already collected from your audience
Pricing: Wyng has not publicized their pricing. Interested parties can request a demo to learn more.
21. Tribe Dynamics
Trusted by global and well-known brands like Gucci, Gymshark, and Sephora, Tribe Dynamics, is a CreatorIQ company. Before becoming part of CreatorIQ, it focused on helping brands in the fashion, beauty, and lifestyle industries to drive and evaluate digital earned media. Their proprietary metric, Earned Media Value (EMV), assesses the value of third-party digital content and has become the new standard that brands use when measuring the effectiveness of their influencer marketing campaigns.
Clearly, Tribe Dynamics is no stranger to the secrets of effective UGC. Not only do they offer impressive insights, but they also help to streamline the entire process.
Their platform offers a Content Capture feature that can capture and display content that influencers created about your brand automatically. It can also capture all brand mentions across the main social media platforms, including TikTok and Instagram Stories.
Armed with this info conveniently at your fingertips, it will be much easier to tell which audiences your brand connects with best. You can also take it one step further and organize the influencer-generated content into what they refer to as “dedicated activation-specific feeds”. This just makes it a whole lot easier when it’s time for reporting.
Other great features include:
- Influencer marketing data and data benchmarking
- Custom filters and community filtering
Pricing: After a free 30-day trial, pricing starts at $25,000 per year. Tribe Dynamics also offers a number of add-ons that range between $250 and $500 per month extra.
Key Features: Influencer Relationship Management, Content Library, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, Social Listening, Competitor Research,
Channels: Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok
What is User-Generated Content?
User-generated content (UGC) is any form of content—photos, videos, text, reviews—that was created by real people rather than brands.
In turn, this provides a great opportunity for brands to then re-share that content on their own social networks to engage their audiences and provide a real-life look into their products/services.
Bringing UGC into your social media content strategy is a great way to make your feed feel more realistic, rather than including only staged photos or photos of models.
They’ve added their own caption and then tagged the original account beneath it. If you head over to the original account, you can see that she tagged Hollister Co. in her original post as the dress she’s wearing is from that store.
Having content like this helps give each marketing channel a more authentic feel. But again, it can take time compiling all of this content for your strategy.
This is where UGC platforms come in.
Benefits of UGC Platforms
Because many of these are paid tools, we want to give you all the information you need to decide if it’s worth adding one of these platforms into your marketing budget.
UGC is good for your strategy.
User-generated content is proven to help boost conversions, make customers feel better about making a purchase, and increase customer engagement. In fact, Millennials trust UGC 50% more than content that was created by the brand itself.
This is because authentic user-generated content is created by real people who actually purchased—and loved—a product or service. It’s word-of-mouth marketing at its finest.
Furthermore, UGC is relatable content. It’s not all styled shoots and professional models. UGC is about real people and content creators sharing customer photos of a product out in the real world, not in a studio.
So working with a user-generated content platform is a no-brainer for brands who really want to ramp up their customer-created content.
UGC platforms save your team time.
Furthermore, UGC platforms save your team so much time. No more digging through all of your tagged photos and customer reviews to find the right ones. With a platform dedicated to pulling all of the best UGC for your team to choose from, they’re able to spend more time on other aspects of your social media strategy.
UGC platforms already have the right connections.
Many UGC platforms have their own creator network for getting UGC created specifically for your brand. So if you’re struggling to get customer content, working with a platform’s creator network is a great place to start as they already have the right connections in place.
Increase Social Media Conversions With a UGC Platform
Start taking social selling more seriously with user-generated content. Find a UGC platform from the list above and test it out or request a demo to discover if it makes sense for your business and your marketing team. Then start gathering and promoting your UGC to ramp up conversions and engage your audience.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the different types of UGC?
There are a few different types of UGC that you might consider using for your brand’s marketing:
- Photos
- Videos
- Reviews and testimonials
- Blog content
- Case studies
- Hashtag marketing campaigns
- Surveys
How do you get UGC?
If you’re looking to ramp up your brand’s UGC on your social channels, you might be wondering where to get UGC in the first place. There are a few ways you can do this.
First, pay attention to social media photos that your brand gets tagged in. This is a great place to start. You can also promote a hashtag and ask customers to use that hashtag when they share UGC so you can easily find it. Another way is to simply ask customers to leave a review or share photos/videos of your products/services.
Why is UGC effective?
UGC is effective because it gives consumers a realistic look into a brand’s product/service offerings. One study shows that 79% of people say that UGC helps them make purchasing decisions.
The bottom line is that user-generated content has a major impact on your conversion rates, and it should be a bit part of your online strategy.
How can you ask for UGC?
This is a great question. The best place to start is by putting a hashtag in your Instagram bio for people to use in order to be featured. You can also create flyers for your brick-and-mortar store with information about how to share your own product photos.
You can also ask for reviews alongside product photos so customers can view the product in real life while viewing the product page. Or you can start by offering some kind of incentive to customers who provide you with a photo, video, review, etc.
What is the best UGC platform?
It’s hard to answer this without knowing what your specific goals and objectives are. All ten that we outlined within this post are great UGC platforms to explore. The best thing to do is look through the available features within each platform to find out which is going to work best for your brand.
