5 best tools for efficient UGC management and curation
In This Article
Social media is everywhere and there is a constant flow of fresh, user-generated content (UGC). For brands, this is an open invitation to tap into authentic voices and create meaningful connections with audiences.
UGC is not just a trend—it is a practical solution to several challenges. User-driven content is more relatable than traditional ads, fits into tighter budgets, and serves as social proof that builds trust. Yet, without the right tools, keeping up with this constant stream can feel like an uphill climb.
This blog breaks down the benefits of using UGC for your marketing campaigns and uncovers the five best tools for managing and curating UGC campaigns. From content aggregation to legal compliance, we will cover how these platforms simplify the process and address common challenges, so you can focus on building genuine connections with your audience.
Why run a UGC campaign?
Powerful brands and businesses thrive on establishing long-lasting engagement with the audience, by leveraging authentic curated content made by the users to the user.
Running a user-created content campaign can be a strong tool to steamroll your business engagement and you should know why:
1. Authenticity
User-generated content is always perceived to be more reliable and authentic and has been proven to be more in tune with what the users want, over branded content. 90% of consumers trust UGC more than traditional advertising, making it a powerful tool for conversions.
2. Cost-effectiveness
In-house, large-scale marketing campaigns can be expensive and sometimes struggle to resonate with a wide audience. Crowdsourced content not only is cost-efficient but also caters to a large pool of diverse audiences, allowing you to save creative costs while gaining knowledge on what the consumers want.
3. Social proof
UGC serves as solid testimonials showcasing real users who have benefitted from your said product and brand, where customers are more likely to trust your brand seeing other positive experiences.
4. Encourages long-term engagement
Real-world user participation encourages more users to participate which helps create a self-sustaining cycle of content creation. This often leaves a lasting impression, which further engages and helps you to establish a core loyal user base.
5. Scalability across mediums
A well-executed UGC campaign can span platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter, as well as offline media such as digital billboards. This broadens its reach to a diverse audience of all age groups.
Examples of solid UGC campaigns
1. Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke”
The Share a Coke campaign printed 150 of the most common and popular names on the bottle and asked people to share the Coke with their loved ones. The campaign quickly became a success and people were sharing pictures with their names on the bottle on social media.
Subsequently, this campaign was adopted and marketed to over 80 different countries according to each country’s customs, culture, and background.
2. Apple’s Shot On iPhone
Apple’s “Shot on iPhone” campaign promoted the launch of the iPhone 6s and encouraged users to share the photos they took, aiming to showcase the device’s photography capabilities. The campaign generated significant buzz, raking over 70 million interactions all throughout social media.
5 top UGC platforms for content curation
Here are the top 5 UGC platforms for content curation:
1. Idukki
Idukki stands out because it differentiates the ability to fit smoothly into most social platforms. We offer customizable features that will meet specific brand requirements. The platform’s dashboard is intuitive so controlling and moderating content is easy for you.
You have more flexibility to customize the view of UGC on a website, emails, or social campaigns. With Idukki, you may focus on making real and meaningful customer connections by enabling user stories to speak for the brand.
Key features:
- Highly customizable
- Seamless social integration across multiple platforms
- Auto-tagging and shoppable UGCs
- User-friendly and customizable widgets, showcasing reviews from multiple platforms
- Simplifies consent management and legal compliance
- Automatically collects marketable UGC from social media and review sites
- Instantly creates shoppable social feeds or galleries with a no-code platform
- Tags products for faster, one-click checkouts from UGC galleries
- Removes irrelevant content and automates rights requests for compliance
- Tracks UGC performance with advanced analytics to scale and repeat
2. Social Native (Olapic)
Social Native, formally known as Olapic, is a UGC platform that focuses on creating shoppable galleries UGC collection and curation. Social Native is your go-to if you want to automate UGC processing as their platform removes 90% of manual work. It also has various tools with their prime focus on content discovery, influencer management and UGC curation using various AI backed tools.
Key features:
- Influencer content discovery
- Streamlined rights management
- Various artificial intelligence tools and performance analytics to showcase your engagement data
3. Trend.io
Trend.io is one of the popular UGC platforms that is backed by solid investing companies such as Twitch, Rotten Tomatoes and many more. It is a UGC platform that has its niche in content production like unboxing videos, testimonial videos and product showcases, all of which come with 100 percent licensing rights with unrestricted use across multiple social media platforms. It has a large pool of vetted top tier content creators with quality content to showcase for and comes with various advanced tools to help you.
Key features:
- Automated project management
- Customizable content
- Diverse creative pool
4. Smash Balloon
Smash Balloon is a popular suite of UGC friendly WordPress plugins supporting various platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to allow seamless display of user generated posts, reviews and media content. They are widely used by businesses, influencers and marketers to enhance social engagement, enrich social following – efficiently managing content as a whole.
Key features:
- Customizable feeds
- Multiple platform integration
- Beginner friendly
5. Yotpo
Yotpo is an all-rounded User-Generated Content (UGC) and eCommerce marketing platform used for the purposes of influencing the brands by increasing consumer engagement and boosting sales. The tool enables managing of reviews, UGCs, loyalty programs, as well as SMS/email referral campaigns in a single system.
Key features:
- UGC and reviews management
- Loyalty and referral programs
- Analytics and insights
- SEO and social media boost
7 key features to look for in a UGC platform
The best UGC platform is determined by the goals of your brand, the preferences of your audience, and the requirements in terms of technical functionalities. Here are the key parameters to evaluate when selecting a UGC platform:
1. Content aggregation
The software should gather content easily from review sites, other sources, and popular social media platforms, such as Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook. It should be easy to find material by tracking branded hashtags, mentions, or specific keywords. This ensures constant aggregation of new and relevant content.
2. Copyright management
The platform should be able to manage user rights for content usage and ask for them. Ensure that the platform respects privacy rights like CCPA and GDPR and copyright issues. There is built-in functionality to promote openness and give credit to creators.
3. Customization
The ability to alter UGC displays to fit the aesthetics of your brand (e.g., fonts, colors, logos). It provides a variety of styles for adding slideshows, widgets, or UGC galleries to websites or applications. Good UGC platforms provide various tools that are available for adding captions or information that match the tone of your brand.
4. Content moderation tools
There are advanced tools that automatically delete irrelevant, inappropriate, or spam content. Quality UGC platforms offer more quality control of the information via human curation. You should also look for functionalities that enable UGC to be sorted by product lines, promotions, or themes.
5. Multi-channel integration
The integration of social media allows you to schedule and share UGC directly to platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook. Website embedding enables users to easily embed user-generated content galleries or widgets directly into their website.
6. Audience engagement tools
There are various campaign management tools for creating, managing, and promoting UGC challenges and contests; and various community features that encourage user participation via comment areas and content exchange.
7. Flexible pricing plans
You can look for pricing structures that fit your budget, whether you are a small firm or a big corporation. You should make use of services that provide free trials or demonstrations so that you can assess functionality before committing. Look for features given at each pricing tier to ensure a greater return on investment.
Manage and curate UGC campaigns with Idukki
While choosing the perfect UGC platform might be a hassle, the right platform that caters to your brand values and your business needs can help you a long way to grow your engagement and provide optimum conversions.
Idukki makes things simple. It works seamlessly with your existing tools, adapts to your requirements, and lets you integrate social media details, manage reviews, and display user-generated photos on your website without hassle.
Want to see how it works? Get a demo today!