UGC vs influencer marketing
The short answer
Influencer marketing pays a creator to post to their audience. UGC is content made by customers or creators that the brand reposts to its own audience.
| UGC | Influencer marketing | |
|---|---|---|
| Whose audience | Mostly the brand's, through reposts and ads | The creator's |
| Paid? | Organic UGC is free; UGC creators are paid per asset | Paid in money or product |
| Follower count matters? | No | Yes, it is what you are buying |
| What you get | Content | Distribution and an endorsement |
| Typical use | Ads, product pages, the brand's feed | Launches, awareness |
What is the difference between UGC and influencer content?
What you are paying for. With an influencer you are buying their audience's attention and their recommendation. With a UGC creator you are buying a video or a photo that looks like a customer made it, and you decide where it runs. A UGC creator can have 300 followers and still be the right hire.
Then there is organic UGC: posts customers make with no deal at all. It is the most credible of the three and the only one you cannot commission.
Is UGC cheaper than influencer marketing?
Per asset, usually, because no audience is being rented. But UGC needs paid distribution to be seen, so the saving moves to the ad budget rather than disappearing.
How to find organic UGC about a brand
Search the brand's hashtag, check the tagged tab on its profile, and search the plain name, because a lot of customers write the name without tagging anything. Each method finds posts the others miss.
Organic UGC, collected
Monitor Mentions collects posts by other accounts about each tracked brand, from all three of those places, and lists the creators who post about each one. It is the organic layer: what people posted without a brief.
UGC vs Influencer marketing: questions people ask
Is a UGC creator an influencer?
Not necessarily. A UGC creator is paid for content the brand will use. An influencer is paid for posting to their own followers. Some people do both.
Does UGC have to be disclosed as an ad?
If the brand runs it as an ad, the ad platform marks it as sponsored. If a creator posts paid content to their own account, most markets require it to be labelled as a paid partnership.