Don’t be afraid to go outside the box to find appealing contentUser-generated content is possibly one of the greatest hallmarks of social media platforms. With the rise of smartphones, every user has become their own publisher.  

The overwhelming popularity of social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter each represent unique facets of your community and offer content that can be used in dynamic ways. Since UGC can be turned into actionable experiences on your website, emails, advertising, and even in-store, there’s no reason to limit your content nurturing to a few platforms, but knowing which social platforms yield the best content for your brand, and how to use that content is key to seamlessly providing the best experience for your customers.

‍Instagram is a great social media platform for harvesting the best UGC. Not only does Instagram provide high-quality photos and videos, but streamlined tagging, hashtags, and high user growth make Instagram the top social media platform for collecting customer content for most brands. This is especially true for brands trying to reach millennials and Gen Z. In the case of Morphe Brushes, consumers frequently tag Instagram selfies with #MorpheBabes in a bid to be featured by Morphe, a tool Morphe turns into shoppable Inspiration Galleries and support to their ecommerce experience.

Facebook can be a fickle source when it comes to sourcing user-generated content. However, UGC can be sourced from other social media platforms and monetized quickly on Facebook. Your best UGC can be streamed into Facebook ads with fresh turnover, automatically displaying approved posts and integrating with your product catalog, ensuring your audience gets some of the freshest, most engaging photos that convert. We’ve found social ads featuring customer content from Pixlee see a 35% higher click-through than traditional ads, What’s more, now it’s easier to send content from your UGC library to the Facebook Ad platform, streamlining your marketing efforts.

‍TwitterWhat can tweets do to promote your product? Tweets actually are some of the most flexible, dynamic pieces of UGC available. A tweet can be the perfect launch point of a conversation with a community member. That sort of unfiltered community engagement is one of the perks of Twitter. But for product and brand testimonial style Tweets, brands can repurpose to add an authentic voice to their product description pages. With popular hashtags and a visible timestamp, relevant Twitter UGC can be timely and quickly revolve around current trends relevant to your brand.

YouTubeHow “large” can your best UGC be? With videos ranging from 30 seconds to 10+ minutes to hours of footage, YouTube provides a serious source of unique “long-form UGC”. From product reviews and unboxing videos to product tutorials and travel videos featuring your brand, YouTube’s content creators can associate your products with the lifestyle and customer profile you are targeting. YouTubers are also excellent influencers, since the platform is monetized, and featuring their videos can spawn an extremely positive and successful relationship generating thousands of unique views. Future PlatformsNew social media platforms are allowing a millennial and Gen Z video revolution, from TikTok to Twitch. TikTok’s uniqueness stems from its massive multicultural reach. In the platform, you’ll find short videos and clips creating engaging and interesting content, powered by a young audience with newer smartphones. Brands seeking to capitalize on TikTok haven’t really cracked the code yet, as the audience is still quite young, and the content producers haven’t reached the influencer status channels such as Vine and Instagram have afforded. But brands shouldn’t rule this out for UGC. As we’ve shown before, sometimes the best UGC comes from a passionate nanoinfluencer, or even just a passionate customer. Twitch.tv was made for streaming video games, a trend made popular by YouTube. With Twitch, streaming is easier than ever. Similar to YouTube, Twitch offers monetization options to encourage a new generation of streamers which could yield user-generated content in the future. Right now, brands are seamlessly permeating the Twitch platform as content creators, offering branded streams. What do these video services mean for brands overall? As they mature, they could offer interactive, high quality, engaging UGC that speaks to a younger audience. But for right now, we suggest you keep them on your radar.

Social media platforms dovetail nicely into UGC collection because they have the power of a massive network behind them. But the main draw that connects this content with the network is the community aspect of these platforms. By positioning your brand at the center of content, community, and of course, commerce, you’ll be able to leverage the power of these networks to make your brand the one that your customers want it to be.