User-generated content (UGC)
What is user-generated content (UGC)?
User-generated content, or UGC, is photos, video and reviews made by customers rather than by the company. Shops use it in posts, in ads and on product pages because it shows the product in a real kitchen, a real car, a real size. Using it in an ad needs written permission from the person who made it, and any incentive behind a review has to be disclosed.
Example
A home textiles shop asks customers for a photo of the duvet cover in their own bedroom, in exchange for a voucher on their next order. Thirty-four photos arrive in a month. Eight go on product pages and six into ads, each with written permission from the person who took it.
The comparison is honest: the product page with studio photography converts at 1.9%; the same page with four customer photos under the gallery converts at 2.6%. At 4,000 visits a month that is 28 extra orders (4,000 × 0.7%), and at an average order of €45, roughly €1,260 of additional turnover.
Why it matters for a business
Customer content does two jobs at once. It shows scale and context that a studio shot cannot: how the mug sits in a hand, how the jacket hangs on an ordinary body, what the colour looks like in a real room. And it carries proof, because a buyer trusts someone with nothing to sell.
For a small business it is also a production answer. A shoot costs money and planning; thirty customer photos cost a request and a voucher. That is the difference between posting new material every week and reusing the same six images until everyone is tired of them. The two are not rivals: a shoot supplies the core images of the product and the brand, and customers add the real settings and the trust.
What to ask
- Do we have written permission for every photo and video that goes into an ad, and for how long?
- If a voucher or discount was given for a review, is that disclosed? Submitting false reviews is a prohibited practice under EU consumer law, and an incentive nobody mentions makes the review misleading.
- Do we say how we check that reviews come from people who actually bought?
- Is anyone identifiable in the image, and do we have their consent for that under the GDPR?
- Who collects and files the material so it does not disappear into an inbox?
Collecting customer content, and the rules around using it, are planned as part of social media management. We shoot the images customers cannot supply, such as the main product shots or the video for an ad, as part of photo and video production.