You’re scrolling through your feed — flying by polished pictures, broadcast highlights and memes — but then your thumb stops. There’s a video that looks like it was captured on someone’s phone, not from a brand or a big corporation, from a regular person.
The goal of marketers is to get their audience to stop, watch and engage. And one way they are doing that is with user-generated content (UGC).
But why should you care about UGC? The simple answer: it helps build authenticity and relevancy. The numbers* don’t lie either:
- 93% of marketers using UGC in their marketing strategy say it performs significantly better than branded content.
- 60% of consumers see UGC as the most authentic form of marketing.
Knowing this, it’s easy to see how a marketing strategy centered around UGC can generate meaningful results.
We’ve certainly seen UGC make an impact through our work in the college space. Colleges we work with use Greenfly’s +Engage product to enable UGC crowdsourcing at scale, giving them a centralized platform to collect custom media for their campaigns.
Still, you’re here to see how you can leverage UGC, and we’ve got you covered. Here are seven use cases (with real examples) showing how colleges use UGC to engage fans, sponsors, donors and recruits.
Use Case #1: Activate Excitement and Anticipation
While titles aren’t guaranteed before the big championship game — there is an opportunity to capitalize on fan excitement and anticipation before the game starts.
You can leverage that opportunity to get content from fans while they’re most excited. This helps drive engagement on social media in the days and hours leading up to the big game, giving you a strong library of fan-generated content for future marketing campaigns.
Example: Maryland Men’s Lacrosse Team Collects UGC Before Championship Game
The Maryland men’s lacrosse team made it all the way to the NCAA Championship this past season. Unsurprisingly, fan excitement was at an all-time high.
Throughout the days and hours leading up to the game (which they ultimately would lose to Notre Dame), the Terrapins collected and shared content like this:
Although the Terps didn’t win the game, they did manage to collect a large amount of UGC to promote the game.
Use Case #2: Marketing and Promotion
Today’s social media users know how to spot ads in their feeds. This means they often scroll by and tune out polished promotional posts from brands.
And yet, UGC still gets them to stop. Real fans and authentic photos and videos don’t look like ads — they look real (because they are). We’ve seen UGC help a Premier League football club sell season memberships.
This same strategy can work for colleges, too. What better way to get an alum to want to relive their glory days on campus or parents to bring their kids to a game than seeing real people doing just that?
Example: University of Illinois Uses Authentic UGC to Market Gameday Experience
The University of Illinois wanted to convince families that Illini football games are a fun, affordable option for an outing with the kids.
They collected content from families having fun at games, using those submissions to create promotional posts on Facebook and Instagram.
The posts used authentic content to showcase the fun memories fans make on game days.
Use Case #3: Unboxing Reactions
The unboxing concept in social media is well-known and oft-used because it works. Users enjoy the anticipation and genuine reactions from those unveiling whatever’s in the box.
Unboxing UGC doesn’t need to be a large Shein haul — it can work well for many use cases. Athletes can unbox new uniforms or equipment, fans can unveil their season tickets or member gifts and teams or schools can collect content that’ll resonate in the feed.
Example: UCF Uses Alumni Event to Collect Unboxing Reactions
The University of Central Florida (UCF) Alumni do their own 30 under 30 honors each year by sending boxes out to honorees.
They know these reactions are priceless, so they collect them directly from alumni to share on social media. It’s a great opportunity to spotlight their achievements while also collecting compelling content that celebrates UCF alumni.
Use Case #4: Ride the Wave of Your Magic Moments
Sports are all about the big moments. We see it all the time — buzzer beaters in basketball, sudden death OT goals in hockey, walk-offs in baseball, milestone achievements on the field, hitting four home runs in one game — the list goes on.
Without fail, fans’ camera rolls are full of their views or reactions upon witnessing timeless plays. These displays of excitement and memory-making moments can drive engagement and fuel fandom. They also serve as an invaluable marketing tool for social media engagement.
Example: Big Ten Collects UGC to Capitalize on Caitlin Clark Hype
The entire country was waiting with baited breath for Caitlin Clark to claim the NCAA scoring record. When the Iowa women’s basketball star made history, the Big Ten knew these magic moments were being captured by fans.
The conference recognized this opportunity, asking fans to share plays, reactions and other Caitlin Clark content. They used the many videos already on fans’ camera rolls to splice together and share with fans.
Collecting this content the traditional way would have been too slow, but with the right platform, it was no challenge at all.
“In the ten plus years I have been working in social media, [Greenfly’s] Engage tool has been one of the most impactful tools for my job, making UGC collection as simple as possible. No more tracking hashtags or ripping video off social platforms. You get authentic content from your fan base at the highest quality.”
Tim Shanahan Senior Director, Digital & Social Media, Big Ten Conference
Use Case #5: Show Game Experiences Through Fans’ Eyes
It’s hard to describe the amazing feeling and atmosphere of being at a live game. For sports marketers, it’s a constant battle to get prospective attendees to understand that.
UGC — mobile, immersive content from fans’ phones is one of the best ways to bring that live game experience to the social feed. Whether it’s from a packed football stadium, a tennis court, or a volleyball arena — getting authentic content from fans is the best organic (and even paid) promotion you can have.
Example: UCF Builds Hype with UGC Showing Game Day Experiences
UCF created a cool compilation of fan videos from UCF’s Space Game during the 2023 season. This brought the experience to life, showing potential attendees what they were missing out on.
Who wouldn’t want to go to a game after seeing this? Effective UGC can inspire and create a fear of missing out (FOMO) that drives even more sales and engagement from fans.
Use Case #6: Create and Showcase Human Stories
Some of the most impactful content comes from humanizing student-athletes. Making fans feel closer to the athletes they cheer for each week builds fan affinity. Even better, it’s fulfilling and rewarding for student-athletes, too.
UGC creates many opportunities to make fans feel more involved or invested. Whether you use surprise and delight moments, feel-good stories, or had-to-be-there experiences — this type of UGC creates stories and memories that’ll last a lifetime — for fans and athletes alike.
Maybe you ask for messages of love and appreciation. Perhaps you ask fans to shout out their favorite player and why they like them. Or you could solicit stories of fandom and family. The stories you can create through UGC are more authentic and powerful than the overpolished content brands spend months designing and editing.
Example: Cornhuskers Ask Family Members to Send Encouraging Messages to Athletes
For National Girls and Women in Sports Day, the Nebraska Cornhuskers had family members create videos remotely to send messages to female student-athletes competing at Nebraska.
The result was several emotion-inducing moments that drove engagement, emotional investment, a celebration of female Huskers on NGWSD and a memory for student-athletes and their families that they’ll carry with them forever.
Use Case #7: Let Students Tell Authentic Students’ Stories
Understanding the student experience is important for anyone working in college administration, let alone college athletics. You want students to be the star of your content, offering their authentic, original POV.
When the content comes from students themselves, it stands out and is more credible and meaningful than most overpolished marketing videos.
It’s important to keep track of big games, events, and marketable moments where students will already be capturing their experiences. You can use these opportunities to collect and share as much of that content as possible to raise awareness and boost engagement.
Example: UCF Taps Into Nostalgia with Graduation UGC
There’s no better time to collect videos and photos from students than when they’re excited and reflecting on their college experience around graduation.
UCF knew this, which is why they collected tons of great content from graduates around commencement this past year. They saw it as a chance for students to connect with UCF’s Alumni group the day they officially become alumni themselves and an opportunity for past grads to feel nostalgic seeing the newest entrants into the alumni family.
Create More Authentic Moments with UGC
UGC is one of many tools in the short-form content game. Done right, it’s a powerful way to engage all users.
But you already know short-form content is the most powerful fuel for driving engagement and business outcomes across your social, digital and mobile channels. You’re likely already producing a ton of short-form content (and so are your fans). The challenge is deploying, effectively managing and activating it.
25 Examples of Colleges Using Short-Form Content
Download our ebook for 25 ideas to engage your audience with short-form content.
That’s all we think about. How to create best-in-class, AI-driven technology to automatically organize, distribute, and monetize your school’s short-form content.
Interested in seeing how Greenfly helps colleges automate the hardest parts of short-form content collection and distribution? Book a demo today and see how The Big Ten Conference and top colleges use Greenfly to create a short-form content infrastructure that gets content from anywhere to anyone in seconds.
