In 2025, picking the best digital marketing strategy for your business might feel like an impossible task, but having a digital marketing strategy in place can have a lot of benefits for your business, so it’s well worth doing.
As a leading creative agency in Liverpool, Blaze Media makes it our mission to keep up with the latest trends in digital marketing. We also take the time to remember which trends and strategies have stuck and remained consistent, as these strategies are usually going to stand the test of time.
User-generated content is a digital marketing strategy that has continued to be effective even as the world of social media and marketing has changed.
In this guide, we will outline exactly why user-generated content should be part of your digital marketing strategy in 2025.
What is User-Generated Content?
Unlike popular marketing terms like bounce rate, ROI, KPIs, and CAC (yes, marketers spend a lot of time discussing CAC), user-generated content is precisely what it sounds like.
This content style is highly valued by customers. With more people becoming less trusting of brands, user-generated content is maintaining its position as a prime marketing tool. Having already earned its place in our 2024 digital trends, user-generated content looks like it’s going to stick around.
What Counts as User-Generated Copy?
User-generated content isn’t just a fancy marketing term; it’s the media produced by the people, for the people, and often about the people.
Think pictures that make your favourite sandwich look gourmet, videos that capture your pet’s quirky antics, or reviews that make you question whether that gadget is worth the hype.
Essentially, it’s any media, whether photos, videos, or reviews, that’s created by the general public rather than the brand or platform itself. It’s the digital equivalent of word-of-mouth, but with a lot more pixels and a potential viral twist.
Why User-Generated Content Matters More Than Ever in 2025
Though user-generated content has been around for a while now, it matters more than ever in 2025.Here’s why.
Consumers Trust Peers Over Brands
In a world full of false advertising and products that don’t match their pictures, you can’t blame the world for developing trust issues. How many products have you received that didn’t match the description?
It’s not that customers don’t trust brands; it’s that consumers trust their peers more than the brands. Other consumers have no reason to be dishonest with their reviews, and they will give a full picture of whether the product or service matches what the brand has claimed.
Cost-effective Content Creation
User-generated content isn’t just a cost-effective marketing trick; it’s also your secret weapon in the battle for attention. Customers love to see themselves in the spotlight, and when they share their experiences, they’re doing your marketing for free.
User-generated content is not only free but also perceived as authentic by potential customers, which positively influences your business. So, let your customers share their experiences; it’s cost-effective, cheerful, and highly impactful.
Improved Brand Loyalty and Community
With so many businesses competing for the spotlight, people want to support the businesses that they can trust and encourage brand loyalty.
User-generated content is a blessing in disguise for businesses. When customers see their peers sharing experiences, it’s like getting a personal recommendation from a friend. more believable than any polished ad. It builds authenticity and trust faster than you can say “social proof,” turning casual browsers into loyal fans.
Think about it, who’s better to vouch for a business than the ones who’ve actually used it?
Boosted Engagement and Reach
User-generated content essentially authenticates your business and provides social proof, which consumers highly value. People are also sick of seeing polished, perfect marketing, and people no longer engage with marketing that doesn’t feel authentic.
We’ve made this clear to our clients at Blaze, encouraging them to repost any user-generated content made by clients to increase engagement from their audience. Social media is a powerful tool for reaching your target audience, and when matched with user-generated content, it can be extremely effective.
Supports SEO and Conversion Rate
User-generated content acts as SEO’s hidden ingredient, adding fresh, keyword-rich content that search engines favour. It shows your business is active and engaged, drawing backlinks that improve your rankings. Additionally, UGC builds trust by transforming visitors into fans and fans into customers through peer validation that even your grandma would approve of.
User-generated content can also have a lot of local SEO benefits. often feel more inclined to try a business if they know that local people have vouched for it, and they can see tangible social proof from real customers.
User Generated Content and SEO: A Winning Combination
Engaging with user-generated content is essential for your business to rank well and excel in terms of SEO. Google wants helpful and trustworthy content showcased on businesses’ social media, and with Google now indexing public social media posts, user-generated content might just be the ticket for getting your business showcased on search results.
When your followers create content, they naturally incorporate niche and relevant keywords into their reviews and posts, which creates valuable content for search engines to index.
How to Encourage and Collect User-Generated Content
By now, you’re probably more than aware of how beneficial user-generated content can be for your business, but in a generation of socially anxious business owners, we understand that it might be challenging to try to request user-generated content.
Lucky for you guys, you don’t have to ask at all. There are clever ways to get user-generated content, and here are some.
Create Brand Hashtags and Social Media Challenges
We don’t like nor understand the current hate train on hashtags. We have noticed that fewer and fewer businesses are using hashtags, which means they’re missing out on a vital opportunity to connect with consumers.
Creating hashtags and social media challenges creates opportunities for your business to connect with a wider audience.
For example, if you are a beauty brand, you could create a challenge with one of your products to create an out-there makeup look with the promise that you will post your favourites. By doing this, you aren’t only providing a platform to showcase your clients, but you’re showcasing your own products through user-generated content. It’s a win-win situation, really.
Run Contests or Giveaways
A surefire way to get some user-generated content is by running contests and giveaways. We all love a freebie, so we don’t mind resharing a post or getting involved in a social media giveaway. We don’t think that general consumers would either.
A good current example of a business doing this is Rodd’s, an iced coffee brand that is taking the power of user-generated content very seriously, offering the value of their marketing budget as prizes for some of their customers who purchase their drink as part of a meal deal and prove it online. This method is really simple, and it’s already proving to be a success.
Showcase User Generated Content
When you spot user-generated content that could benefit your business, it is important to showcase it as soon as possible. This doesn’t just ensure that your marketing is up to date with your business, but if your customer base sees that you are engaging and responding to their user-generated content, this will only encourage more people to create content and tag your business.
Always Ask Permission and Always Give Credit
When you use user-generated content produced by your customers, make it clear to them that the content might be used for social media. If you do use the content, make sure that you’re giving your followers credit. This can boost your consumers’ social following and encourage them to create the content if they know they’ll get credit from a brand with a following.
It really is about fair exchange in the magical world of user-generated content, and if done correctly, your customers can substantially boost your social media advertising.
How You Can Integrate UGC into Your Strategy
Once you have user-generated content, you might wonder how you can use it in your marketing strategy. Here are some ways to integrate UGC into your digital marketing strategy.
Use UGC in Ads and Organic Campaigns
User-generated content (UGC) is a goldmine for marketing because it’s authentic, relatable, and builds instant trust. For organic campaigns, you can showcase customer photos, reviews, and stories on your socials, run hashtag challenges, or spotlight fans to create a sense of community.
For ads, turn testimonials, unboxings, and real-life product snaps into high-performing creatives that feel less like marketing and more like recommendations. Whether in a carousel, a quick TikTok-style video, or a retargeting ad, UGC works because people trust people, and seeing real experiences drives engagement and conversions.
Embed UGC on Your Website
If you feel your website lacks personality, incorporating user-generated content could make a world of difference… as would getting some fresh web design from our team.
Instead of focusing on professional content and stock imagery for your website, make the most of your user-generated content and showcase it on your website. If you sell individual products, include some images of your customers enjoying your products and include some comments about the products on the page.
Combine UGC with Influencer Marketing
Combining user-generated content with influencer marketing is a smart way to build trust and reach. Influencers can spark the conversation with authentic reviews, tutorials, or challenges, while encouraging their followers to share their own experiences.
As customers create content, influencers can amplify it by resharing or reacting, turning everyday voices into part of the campaign. The result is a mix of credibility and community; your brand gets the spotlight and the social proof at the same time.
Make User-Generated Content Part of Your Core Strategy With Blaze
Now that we’re at the end of this guide, it should be clear to you that user-generated content is a must-have for every business looking to survive and thrive in the digital age. We hope that all businesses reading this have been motivated to make the most of user-generated content and utilise it to improve reach and engagement.
Want to make the most of user-generated content, but feel like you need some help? You’re in the right place. As a leading agency in Liverpool, we have the know-how and resources to help you make the most of user-generated content.
Get in touch to find out how we can help you today.
