User-generated content (UGC) software platforms have become an increasingly popular way for media-centric brands to interact directly with audiences and have super fans, customer advocates and micro-influencers promote authentic “on-brand” UGC content. People want to co-create media with the brands they love.
As a media-centric brand (you’re in sports, entertainment, TV, or media) you know that user-generated content is a powerful marketing tool. But with so many UGC platforms to choose from, it can be tough to know where to start.
To help you out, we’ve compiled a list of the 13 best UGC software platforms for media-centric brands so far in 2022. You’re sure to find one that fits your needs.
And don’t forget, UGC doesn’t just have to live on social media. There is easy-to-use UGC software out there that enables you to encourage fans and followers to submit purpose-created content directly to your website or mobile app. This does two things – it gets fans excited and involved in co-creating content with your brand. And, you get the exact content you need. Software like this will also secure usage rights upon submission, so there’s no back and forth asking for permission. You don’t even need to attribute videos or photos in that case, but it’s always nice to let the creator know so they can help promote the end product.
With this information about the best UGC tools, systems and software on the market, you’re well on your way to harnessing the power of user-generated content.
What Is User-Generated Content?
User-generated content (UGC) is content that is created and published by users rather than brands or businesses. UGC can take many different forms, including videos, photos, articles, reviews and more. UGC is especially popular on Instagram, and there are even some native ways to collect share UGC.
UGC is often seen as more authentic and trustworthy than traditional marketing content, as it comes from real people who have used the product or service. In fact, 92% of consumers trust reviews that come from real people more so than they do company ads.
This makes UGC an incredibly powerful marketing tool, especially for media-centric brands.
Key Benefits of User-Generated Content Platforms
User-generated content platforms offer many benefits for brands, particularly those looking to tap into the power of social media and influencer marketing.
Some of the key benefits of using a UGC platform include:
Increased Reach and Exposure
A UGC platform can help to increase the reach and exposure of your brand by making it easier for users to find and share your content.
Improved Engagement and Interaction
UGC software platforms can also help to improve engagement and interaction with your target audience. Users are more likely to interact with content that they can relate to and is relevant to their interests.
Increased Sales and ROI
Ultimately, the goal of any brand is to increase sales and ROI. UGC platforms can help to achieve this by driving traffic and leads to your website or online store.
As you can see, there are quite a few advantages to using UGC platforms. Now that you know what you can expect from user-generated apps, it’s time to take a look at the best UGC platforms on the market.
We’ve carefully selected the top user-generated content platforms to help you get started.
UGC Platforms for Creators
UGC (User-Generated Content) can be beneficial for social media teams and creators in several ways:
- Increased Exposure: UGC allows creators to reach a wider audience as their content is being shared and promoted by their followers or customers. This can lead to increased exposure and potentially more followers, customers, and revenue.
- Authenticity: UGC is often seen as more authentic than content created by brands. It can help social teams build trust with their audience, as the content is created by their fans or followers who have a passion for their club or team.
- It’s Cost-effective: Creating content can be expensive, but UGC can provide a cost-effective way for social teams to generate content without spending a lot of money. This is particularly important for smaller teams who may not have a large budget for content creation.
- Diversified Content: UGC can help creators diversify their content by incorporating different perspectives and experiences from their followers or customers. This can help keep their content fresh and engaging, and can also provide insights into what their audience wants to see.
Overall, UGC can be a valuable tool for creators looking to build their audience, establish authenticity, and generate content in a cost-effective way.
Best Practices for UGC Content Collection
Using user-generated content to engage fans and followers is straightforward. Getting that content in the first place is not always that easy. Start with tested proven methodologies to gather impactful user-generated content quickly and efficiently. The Best Practices UGC Playbook includes a huge list of examples to spark your team’s creativity.
Get The UGC Playbook
For tips and best practices on how to run powerful UGC collection campaigns to collect UGC from fans. Read this free UGC playbook.
The Best UGC Platforms
1. Pixlee
Pixlee has been around since 2012. The company calls itself a “visual marketing platform,” and its software integrates with e-commerce platforms, social media platforms, and web analytics tools.
The software Pixlee uses allows brands to collect user-generated content (UGC) from a variety of sources, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. Pixlee then organizes and curates this content into a visual feed that can be displayed on a brand’s website or social media channels.
Also, Pixlee offers tools for analyzing the performance of UGC campaigns, measuring engagement rates and identifying brand advocates.
2. Curalate
Curalate is a visual marketing platform that allows brands to discover, collect and curate user-generated content (UGC) from social media for the purpose of using that content on e-commerce websites. With Curalate, brands can easily turn UGC into shoppable images and track the performance of your visual content across social media and digital channels.
Thanks to Curalate’s visual recognition technology, the platform can automatically identify photos that feature a brand’s products and then curate them into a branded gallery. Brands can also manually add images to the galleries and moderate content to ensure that only appropriate images are featured.
This capability ensures a consistent look and feel for a brand’s UGC. It also gives brands the flexibility to feature the best content. In addition, Curalate provides detailed analytics. Brands can track the performance of UGC and see which images resonate with audiences.
3. Olapic
Olapic is one of the pioneers in user-generated content marketing. Their platform helps big brands like Sephora, Chico’s and Coach collect, curate and publish user-generated content across digital properties.
Olapic’s platform is designed to make it easy for brands to find the best user-generated content, and they offer a variety of features to help brands curate and publish content, including:
- A content discovery tool that helps brands find the best user-generated content across social media.
- A content curation tool that helps brands select the best user-generated content for your needs.
- A publishing tool that helps brands publish user-generated content across digital properties, including websites, social media channels, and email newsletters.
Also, Olapic offers a suite of analytics tools to help brands track the performance of user-generated content campaigns. Together, Olapic’s standout features help users maximize the impact of user-generated content.
4. Greenfly
Greenfly is one of the top platforms for user-generated content collection and is known for its ability to automate digital media delivery. to internal teams and external partners, to athletes, to talent, ambassadors and other brand advocates. With Greenfly, you can quickly and easily give everyone access to limitless libraries of photos and videos to share authentic moments on social media.
The Greenfly platform enables you to expand your brand’s digital footprint and other platforms by leveraging a group of people, rather than just your social media team. And in the same way, also provides the functionality to collect and leverage user-generated content. Greenfly has proven that social teams can do all this to boost engagement, extend reach, and directly drive new revenue.
Greenfly +Engage is an add-on to the Greenfly platform that enables digital teams to ask fans and audiences for specific, purpose-created UGC. It makes it easy to request the photos or videos you want that match your exact requirements. Instead of hunting and sourcing UGC, you simply ask your customers and fans to create it for you.
UGC software platforms & tools provide a great way for media-centric brands to interact with their audiences and empower them to promote authentic content. Here are the best UGC software platforms in 2022.
“Instead of hunting and sourcing UGC, you simply ask your customers and fans to create it for you.”
Every UGC submission you receive through Greenfly includes all the permissions you’ll ever need to edit or distribute the media, royalty-free. And you can review dozens, hundreds, or thousands of submissions quickly. Discard the ones that don’t work, share the ones you like with the creative team or editors with a click.
You can leverage all of that custom-created UGC and bring audience engagement to the next level. Best of all, when you publish the content, you’re giving the creators a reason to talk about your brand as they share the work they co-created with your brands. Give your supporters an easy way to submit original photos and videos directly to you through a custom webpage you control and can embed in your website or mobile app.
Together, your brand marketing, entertainment marketing, or sports marketing efforts will flourish like never before.
5. Taggbox
Taggbox is a social media management platform that helps you curate and display user-generated content from 15+ social media networks on your website, blog and social media channels. It’s one of the most popular UGC platforms used by 10,000+ brands worldwide.
What’s more, Taggbox provides a wide range of features to help you easily curate and display user-generated content from social media. These include:
- Hashtag, keyword, and username search
- Automated content moderation
- Customizable display widgets
- Social media post scheduling
- Embed options for website and blog
- And more
Together, users and brands can use Taggbox to create beautiful UGC displays that tell powerful stories and connect with audiences on a deeper level.
6. Yotpo
Yotpo is a user-generated content (UGC) platform that helps brands collect and showcase customer reviews, photos and videos on websites and social media channels.
With a focus on e-commerce marketing, Yotpo aims to increase customer loyalty and conversions with its suite of tools. These include product reviews, photo galleries, user profiles, coupons and loyalty programs.
Some features include:
- Collect customer reviews, photos and videos
- Showcase UGC on website and social media channels
- Run social media campaigns
- Do SMS marketing
- Integrate with e-commerce platforms
- Generate product recommendations
Yotpo’s UGC platform integrates with a brand’s e-commerce system, making it easy to collect customer photos and videos. The platform also offers a number of features to help brands showcase UGC. These features include social media widgets, email marketing integrations and support for multiple languages.
And thanks to featured analytics, brands can track the performance of UGC campaigns and adjust your strategies accordingly.
7. Trend
Trend is unique from many other UGC platforms. It connects content creators with various brands, thus establishing a network of creators. The connected brands then directly pay creators that they work with, who act as influencers to promote these brand partnerships.
With its robust creator network of nearly 3,800 strong, Trend is one of the best UGC platforms for finding high-quality content for your brand.
Plus, if you’re a creator, you can join the network and get paid to promote various brands you love. Moreover, Trend is customizable. You can set it to determine what kind of content complements your marketing objectives.
8. CrowdRiff
CrowdRiff is the visual marketing platform built for media-centric brands. As such, it helps you discover and curate user-generated content (UGC) from across the web. And then it gives you the ability to publish it on your own channels.
One of the appealing things about CrowdRiff is that it’s built specifically for the travel industry. This means that it has all of the tools and features you need to find and curate UGC relevant to your brand.
Plus, CrowdRiff integrates with a number of other travel-related platforms, including TripAdvisor, Skyscanner and Google Street View.
9. TINT
TINT differs slightly from most of the other UGC platforms on this list. Rather than being a platform for finding and curating UGC, TINT is a platform that helps you create it.
With TINT, you can create UGC campaigns and then embed them on your website or blog. You can use these campaigns to encourage your audience to submit their own UGC.
Once you’ve collected the UGC, it will be automatically curated and organized in TINT’s interface. From there, you can publish it on your website or social media channels.
10. Snapwire
Snapwire is a UGC platform that helps brands find, curate and license user-generated content. However, it differs from other platforms on this list because it’s geared more towards professional photographers.
With Snapwire, you can search for UGC by keyword, location or license type. And, if you can’t find what you’re looking for, you can put out a request to the Snapwire community, and photographers will submit their best work.
One of the benefits of using Snapwire is that you can be sure that the UGC you’re licensing is of high quality. And if you need help finding the right content, Snapwire’s team can assist you.
11. Stackla
Stackla is another UGC platform that helps brands find, curate and publish user-generated content. And like TINT, Stackla also has a number of tools that help you create UGC.
With Stackla, you can create UGC galleries, embed them on your website and then share them on social media. Plus, Stackla integrates with several marketing platforms, including Hootsuite, Salesforce and Adobe.
One of the things that sets Stackla apart is its ability to track the performance of your UGC. With Stackla’s analytics tools, you can see how your UGC is performing and what kind of impact it’s having on your business.
12. Bazaarvoice
While Bazaarvoice primarily centers on reviews, they support other types of user-generated content, like questions and answers, stories, photos and videos. Brands in a variety of industries use Bazaarvoice, including retail, travel and automotive.
The benefits of real, user-generated reviews are many:
- Increased trust and confidence from prospects
- Better search engine visibility
- Improved social media engagement
- And more
User reviews are a necessary part of the buyer’s journey, and Bazaarvoice helps brands harness them in the most effective way possible. And as we pointed out earlier, an incredible 92% of consumers trust user-generated reviews over traditional marketing ads, as reported by Nielsen.
So be sure to use Bazaarvoice and curate those natural reviews for your brand’s benefit.
13. ShortStack
Whereas other UGC apps mainly focus on either eCommerce or social media, ShortStack is different in that it helps you create campaigns for any digital platform imaginable.
Pair this with their easy-to-use (yet robust) platform, and you have a tool that can help create UGC campaigns for any brand — in any industry.
With ShortStack, you can easily create any number of contests and promotions. Then, you can embed them onto your website, social media channels or email marketing campaigns.
All of this makes ShortStack an excellent platform for media-centric brands looking to generate user-generated content.
Best UGC Platform for Sports
We took a look at the pros, cons, and differences in these 13 different tools and UGC platforms listed above. None were designed specifically for sports or entertainment organizations — except for Greenfly. There are some that are better for e-Commerce, like Curalate and Yotpo, and some that are generic. If your organization depends on media and audience or fan engagement, Greenfly is clearly the best UGC platform.
Request a Free UGC Platform Demo and See +Engage In Action
If you’re ready to take your brand to the next level, request a demo from a Greenfly expert today. We’ll show you how easy it is to use Greenfly +Engage software to quickly and easily collect user-generated content, and how it can give you the best authentic content and save your digital and social media teams a ton of work.
