TINT Blog
  • Blog
  • User-Generated Content
    1. Why UGC
    2. UGC Research & Trends
    3. Tips, Guides, and How-To’s
    4. UGC Examples
    5. UGC Tools
    6. View All
    types of influencers Influencer Marketing in 2022: 3 Types of Influencers To Focus On
    April 19, 2022
    Marble Impact on Newton's Cradle next to TINT logo 4 Ways User-Generated Content Impacts Businesses in 2022
    March 17, 2022
    woman holding her head while working at laptop What Can Solve the Biggest Challenges Faced by Marketers Today?
    February 7, 2022
    user generated content TINT What is User-Generated Content: The Complete Guide to UGC
    October 18, 2021
    Should Your Retail Brand Go DTC?
    October 7, 2021
    User-Generated Content and the Customer Journey
    June 2, 2021
    Using Social Commerce to Boost Customer Loyalty
    April 16, 2021
    Visual Content Marketing: How To Drive Conversions
    March 31, 2021
    Consumers Want Authentic Ratings and Reviews
    February 16, 2023
    Top UGC Stats to Watch in 2023 Top User-Generated Content Statistics to Watch in 2023
    February 14, 2023
    Six images featuring user-generated content across different industries – a woman swimming, a woman checking her make-up in the mirror, hands holding smoothies, a woman taking a photo, a hand holding a cream, and a woman walking as she shows off her sneakers. How Different Industries Use UGC
    February 9, 2023
    sign on beach with arrows pointing toward future and past 7 Marketing Themes and 7 Marketing Predictions for 2022
    January 27, 2022
    TINT logo next to graph paper featuring a chart on a wooden table The User-Generated Content Marketing Stats You Need to Know in 2022
    January 25, 2022
    TINT logo next to a phone displaying an image of shoes 5 Consumer Trends Shaping UGC in 2022
    January 13, 2022
    New Report Emphasizes Importance of Authentic Content for Tourism and Hospitality Industries
    August 4, 2021
    9 Visual Content Trends to Watch
    May 14, 2021
    TINT team EGC You Ask, TINT Answers: Employee-Generated Content FAQs
    April 27, 2022
    Guide to Employee-Generated Content: What Is It, Why You Need It, and How To Do It
    April 13, 2022
    filming video content in an urban center with TINT overlay How to Increase Engagement and Boost ROI in 2022
    January 31, 2022
    Festival crowd with rainbow overlay and state of Texas outline Texas Festivals and Events face a bright future and a challenging climb
    December 20, 2021
    Apple Mac laptop with Canva on screen to make UGC centric visual content How to Create Engaging Visual Content Using UGC
    November 30, 2021
    women purchasing on phone black friday ecommerce strategy Black Friday eCommerce Strategies For Retail
    November 9, 2021
    user generated content TINT What is User-Generated Content: The Complete Guide to UGC
    October 18, 2021
    Social Commerce – The Definitive Guide to Selling More Online with Social
    October 15, 2021
    Should Your Retail Brand Go DTC?
    October 7, 2021
    Need Instagram Stories Inspiration?
    July 5, 2021
    User-Generated Content and the Customer Journey
    June 2, 2021
    The Social eCommerce Funnel
    May 3, 2021
    6 Great Safe Tourism Marketing Campaigns
    April 22, 2021
    Throwback Thursday: Favorite Travel Campaign Ideas
    April 15, 2021
    Early Adopters in Travel: Encouraging Returning Customers
    March 30, 2021
    When Social meets eCommerce
    March 15, 2021
    Sunset over Downtown San Antonio - Year in Review for TINT 2021 Year in Review for TINT: The Year of Integration and Innovation
    December 28, 2021
    TINT and Canva Integration Featured Now In Canva, Your Best UGC
    November 4, 2021
    TINT Launches Integration with Hootsuite Amplify to Provide Better UGC & EGC
    October 26, 2021
    TINT Attention Score Want to know how people will perceive your content? There’s a tool for that
    August 25, 2021
    TINT Talk july 2021 updates TINT Talk: July 2021 Product Updates
    July 30, 2021
    UGC Influencer Marketing Sprinkled with AI – the Perfect Recipe For Growing Brands
    June 3, 2021
    Feature Release: Aggregate IGTV content in TINT
    April 23, 2021
    2020 Marketing Year in Review
    December 28, 2020
    Consumers Want Authentic Ratings and Reviews
    February 16, 2023
    Top UGC Stats to Watch in 2023 Top User-Generated Content Statistics to Watch in 2023
    February 14, 2023
    Six images featuring user-generated content across different industries – a woman swimming, a woman checking her make-up in the mirror, hands holding smoothies, a woman taking a photo, a hand holding a cream, and a woman walking as she shows off her sneakers. How Different Industries Use UGC
    February 9, 2023
    TINT team EGC You Ask, TINT Answers: Employee-Generated Content FAQs
    April 27, 2022
    types of influencers Influencer Marketing in 2022: 3 Types of Influencers To Focus On
    April 19, 2022
    Guide to Employee-Generated Content: What Is It, Why You Need It, and How To Do It
    April 13, 2022
    Marble Impact on Newton's Cradle next to TINT logo 4 Ways User-Generated Content Impacts Businesses in 2022
    March 17, 2022
    woman holding her head while working at laptop What Can Solve the Biggest Challenges Faced by Marketers Today?
    February 7, 2022
    Previous Next
  • Influencer Marketing
    1. About Influencer Marketing
    2. Influencer Marketing Research and Trends
    3. Influencer Marketing Tips and How To’s
    4. Influencer Marketing Examples
    5. Influencer Marketing Tools
    6. View All
    types of influencers Influencer Marketing in 2022: 3 Types of Influencers To Focus On
    April 19, 2022
    Questions Answered about Micro-Influencers
    August 2, 2021
    Marketer’s Guide to the Creator Economy
    May 19, 2021
    Fake Famous: A Review for Marketers
    February 9, 2021
    What is an Internal Influencer?
    November 24, 2020
    Consider This Before Using Brand Influencers
    July 9, 2018
    Influencer Marketing: Understanding The Difference Between Micro-Influencers and Mega-Influencers
    January 3, 2018
    The History and Evolution of Marketing Influencers
    September 19, 2016
    Man sitting on a ledge overlooking the ocean Top Influencer Marketing Trends for 2022
    March 29, 2022
    5 Influencer Marketing Trends To Watch in 2020
    December 19, 2019
    How to Create the Ideal Dedicated Space for Social Media Videos
    August 4, 2021
    Ask TINT: November 2020 – Digital Summit at Home
    November 22, 2020
    Should Your Retail Brand Go DTC?
    October 7, 2021
    What Facebook Rights Management Tool means for UGC
    October 1, 2020
    A close-up of a person taking pictures of their food with the food in the background. Influencers, Creators, UGC: What’s the Difference? 
    January 19, 2023
    types of influencers Influencer Marketing in 2022: 3 Types of Influencers To Focus On
    April 19, 2022
    Man sitting on a ledge overlooking the ocean Top Influencer Marketing Trends for 2022
    March 29, 2022
    Should Your Retail Brand Go DTC?
    October 7, 2021
    How to Create the Ideal Dedicated Space for Social Media Videos
    August 4, 2021
    Questions Answered about Micro-Influencers
    August 2, 2021
    Marketer’s Guide to the Creator Economy
    May 19, 2021
    Fake Famous: A Review for Marketers
    February 9, 2021
    Previous Next
  • Marketing
    • All Marketing
    • Organic Social Media
    • Digital Advertising
    • Event Marketing
    • Internal Communications
    • Brand Marketing
  • Industries
    • Travel & Tourism
    • Hospitality
    • Retail
    • eCommerce
    • HR & Recruitment
  • Request Demo
  • Try it Free
Tips, Guides, and How-To's

How to Get More UGC from Instagram

By Eva Gutierrez May 6, 2021 8 Mins Read
Share
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter LinkedIn Email

Instagram is the top social network for social commerce. More and more consumers are starting their product discovery journey by connecting to brands and micro-influencers on the photo-driven platform. With so much marketing funnel traffic originating on Insta, marketers may find themselves asking, “How do I get more UGC from Instagram?”

Each year, consumers spend more time on social platforms. This constantly increasing usage has turned social networks into the ultimate marketing tool.  From brand awareness to conversion, the entire buying journey has made its way to social platforms. Savvy brands have taken it a step further.

Creating content at a regular cadence is a necessary part of a social commerce strategy, but it can be costly. Social managers and other marketers are busy enough. 72.2% of marketers report having more job responsibilities now compared to past years.  Curating ideas for your content and paying a specialist and team to handle content creation takes resources. Smart brands have figured out that they don’t need those fancy product shoots anymore, and their team needs a new type of skillset that supports mass content creation.

Turn your customers into content creators.

User-generated content (UGC) is a photo, video, testimonial, review, or comment created by customers about your products. The users of your product create the content at no charge to the brand, this has become part of the normal social media experience. Customers are most likely to create UGC at the three most emotional stages of their buying journey:

  1. When they first order their product 
  2. When they get their order delivered
  3. When they see the results of their purchase

Brands can capture this UGC and repurpose it across their social channels, creating a never-ending flywheel of free content they can use to promote their products. The efficiency of this is exciting—but so are the statistics,

  • Forty-eight percent of customers say UGC is a great way for them to discover new products
  • UGC content drives a 73% increase in email click-through rates
  • Ads based on UGC get 4x high click-through rates and a 50% drop in cost-per-click compared to average ads

Use UGC to increase brand awareness and conversions with these 4 simple steps.

Step One: Engage Your Audience

Asking your Instagram followers to share UGC is one of the best ways to boost user engagement. This tactic helps brands build a cohesive Instagram feed and create a deeper emotional bond with their customers. 

“Sharing other users’ content is yet another way to engage with other Instagram users in a meaningful way,” points out Cori Widen in a blog post for Boosted by Lightricks. “Asking to share someone’s content is a much deeper level of engagement than just liking or commenting on it.”

Fifty percent of consumers wish that brands would tell them what type of content to create and share. Make it easy for customers to be part of the social conversation around your brand. Make social accounts highly visible, put your hashtags everywhere, and consider implementing tools that encourage customers to create specific forms of UGC. 

For example, once a customer has purchased your product you can place a button on your Thank You Page that allows them to share their new purchase across social. Write some sample copy for people who may struggle to find the words in the moment. 

“We just ordered [product name]. T-Minus [days] until it arrives.”

The key here is to be specific with your call to action. You want to provide your customers the exact steps you want them to take after purchasing your product, receiving it in the mail, or getting the benefits of it. You can use incentives like:

“Tag us in your Instagram story unboxing your [product name] for a chance to win a free [correlating product]!”

Every time a customer tags you on their UGC from Instagram, you’re going to have more brand visibility, more social proof, and you have the opportunity to save that content to use in the future. (We’ll show you how to ask for permission to use their content in Step Four)

Step Two: Post What You Want To See More Of

Now that you’ve encouraged your customers to create content about their new products, it’s time to give them some examples as inspiration. These examples can come from previous UGC that fits the bill, or in company-created content if you don’t have UGC examples yet. Better yet, if you’re just starting your UGC journey you can lean on your employees to seed the first round of content. 

For example, you can post content to your Instagram feed of high-quality product images taken by customers or your company. This will showcase the level of quality you’re looking for from your images and will help your audience know what you’re looking for. Or, you can post your images in a certain style. For example, you can post images of your customers showing off their new clothes in street style-inspired content that shows them what you’re looking for in their UGC.

Your aim here is to give your audience the template of what you’re looking for them to create for you. You can even caption your post with initiatives like,

  • “Show us how you style your [Brand Name] [product] by tagging us in your street style photos for a feature on our profile.”
  • “Take a video of yourself unboxing your [product name] and we’ll share it with your audience!”
  • “Show us your before and after photos using [product name] for a chance to be featured on our profile and to win a free gift bundle!”

Remember, your audience wants you to tell them what UGC to create—feel free to be exact and specific.

Step Three: Teach Followers How To Share Their Images

You’ll notice a pattern in the example captions and call to actions that we’ve written above—they all tell the customer exactly where to share their images. They tell the customer to share them on Instagram stories or their posts and to tag the brand so they can see them. This is an important part of your UGC process. You need to find UGC after it’s been created, so having your customers tag you in it as they publish it is the hack of all UGC hacks to be able to save it for later use.

A platform like TINT helps you find UGC across social platforms and quickly pull it together into a single interface. From there, you can organize content into collections and take social beyond the network by embedding shoppable content on websites and emails. 

The name of the game is “Let’s make your content life easier,” so by automatically finding UGC and tagging it you’ll be able to streamline your content production process like you haven’t before; turning your customers into content creation engines. 

How should followers share their UGC from Instagram with your brand?

  • Tagging you in their Instagram stories
  • Tagging you in their Instagram posts
  • Using Brand-associated hashtags
  • Sending you their images and videos via DM

Choose how you want to receive tagged UGC and have your team ready to ask permission to use it. (Or use TINT to automate this process and automatically ask customers to use their content)

Step Four: Request Permission To Reuse Their Content

You have UGC now, but technically you’re not allowed to use it outside of the social network. The rights to that image or video still belong to the customer and at this point, they haven’t given your brand permission to distribute it.

No worries, this is the easiest part of the UGC process. Reach out to customers who have created UGC on Instagram with a comment or DM and ask them if you can use their image or video. You can also link out to your Terms & Conditions page, where customers can make sure they agree with the conditions you’ve set for repurposing their UGC.

You’ll either have your team doing this manually or you can use TINT to automate the process of asking for permission and collecting all content at scale. Here’s an example of what that looks like for you as the brand (on the left) and for the customer (on the right):

Once your customer has said “Yes” to your brand using their content and has agreed to the Terms & Conditions, you’ll be able to save this content in your library. Whenever you need to promote a specific product or use this content in a campaign in the future, you’ll be able to grab it and publish it on Instagram, your other social networks, your website, and even in print.

All without spending money on content creation—that’s the beauty of user-generated content.

UGC is a high-performing type of content whose power can’t be ignored. Brands have realized that customers don’t want them to describe how great the product is. They want like-minded people to show that the products deliver on their promises. These brands have taken it a step further by lowering their content creation budget through these 4 steps to generate more UGC from Instagram that they can use for their marketing campaigns.

If you think UGC would increase brand awareness and conversions for your brand (while decreasing content curation costs), schedule a free consultation with the TINT team to learn more.

instagramorganic social mediaugcugc discoveryugc instagramugc sourcing
2
Author Eva Gutierrez

    Related Posts

    Consumers Want Authentic Ratings and Reviews

    February 16, 2023
    TINT team EGC

    You Ask, TINT Answers: Employee-Generated Content FAQs

    April 27, 2022
    types of influencers

    Influencer Marketing in 2022: 3 Types of Influencers To Focus On

    April 19, 2022
    • Twitter
    • Instagram
    • LinkedIn
    • TINT
      • Social Content Aggregator
      • UGC Studio
      • Machine Learning
      • Attention Score
      • UGC Rights Management
      • Experience Builder
      • Social Commerce
      • Digital Signage
      • Events
      • Virtual Events
      • Enterprise Security and Scalability
      • UGC 10x Faster
    • TINT by Industry
      • Hospitality
      • eCommerce
      • Agency
      • Education
      • Comms
    • Integrations
      • Hootsuite
      • HubSpot
      • Widen
      • Slack
      • Facebook Ads
      • Mailchimp
      • Canva
    • Resources
      • Blog
      • Case Studies
      • Webinars/Events
      • Gallery
      • Support
      • Status
    • Company
      • About
      • Careers
      • Contact

    Copyright © 2022 TINT

    Top
    • TINT
    • Blog
    • User-Generated Content
      • Why UGC
      • Tips, Guides, and How-To’s
      • UGC Examples
      • UGC Research & Trends
      • UGC Tools
    • Influencer Marketing
      • About Influencer Marketing
      • Influencer Marketing Examples
      • Influencer Marketing Research and Trends
      • Influencer Marketing Tips and How To’s
      • Influencer Marketing Tools
    • Marketing
      • Organic Social Media
      • Digital Advertising
      • Event Marketing
      • Internal Communications
      • Brand Marketing
      • All Marketing
    • Industries
      • Travel & Tourism
      • Hospitality
      • Retail
      • eCommerce
      • HR & Recruitment
    • Request Demo

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.