User Generated Content (UGC)
User generated content is any content – reviews, photos, comments, social media posts – created by customers or members of the audience themselves rather than by the brand, and it is often perceived as more authentic and trustworthy than brand-owned material.
In practice
Actively encouraging real customer content and, with permission, showing it on the website or social channels brings a credibility that is hard to create with brand-owned, tightly designed material alone. What matters here is explicit, documented consent: neither a hashtag nor a tag nor a platform's terms of use give a company the right to reuse someone else's content on its own channels. Where people are recognisable in a picture, image and personality rights come into play as well – the simplest way to settle that is a short written release before a post is reused. Clear, simple guidance on how and where customers can share their content noticeably increases the amount of usable UGC.