Organic Social Media Content Vs UGC (User Generated Content)

It’s fair to say that UGC, or User-Generated-Content, has seen a huge growth in the past couple of years. So much so, that traditional organic social media content campaigns seem to have become a thing of the past.

Whilst we don’t believe that the need for organic social media content campaigns has fully gone away, we do believe that UGC is very much the present and future of the creator and influencer marketing space on a mid-tier and micro level.

If your brand hasn’t yet fully or partly switched from traditional organic social media campaigns with creators to UGC, then we’d strongly advise that is something you add to your digital marketing to-do list for 2025. We’ve put together a handy guide to help prepare for that switch and to aid in better understanding the key differences between organic content and UGC.

What is organic social media content and why is it no longer as effective?

Organic social media content campaigns are your traditional way of working with influencers. You contract the influencer to create content, they create said content and post it organically to their social media channels. This is very much the way the influencer partnership industry has played out since its inception.

However, with the rapid growth in short-form content platforms like TikTok, the overall rise in importance of paid content usage and the steady decline in organic engagement across the traditional social media platforms, organic social media content is quite simply no longer as effective as it once was.

This is particularly prevalent on a mid-tier and micro-influencer level when the cost of organic content production and uploading remains high and the returns have for the most part decreased year on year due to the aforementioned factors.

What can your brand do to counteract that?

This is where UGC comes in. Whilst we fully believe in paying all creators a fair rate for their work, it’s a fact that not having to pay a creator for the organic uploading of content they produce for you brings the overall cost of working with a creator down significantly. These savings can be put into paid ads and boosting for content produced by creators, meaning you are able to reach a much larger audience for much less of the cost.

UGC should therefore be an essential part of your marketing strategy for 2025. It’s a relatively low-cost way of working with influencers and creators and generally drives more results than organic content. The majority of brands have either partly or fully switched to UGC creator work and we firmly believe that if your brand haven’t done so already then now is the time to get involved in the UGC shift.

Is UGC predicted to continue growing in 2025?

Yes. We’ve been formulating and running influencer marketing campaigns for brands here in the UK and globally since 2018. In that time the overall number of UGC campaigns compared to organic posting campaigns has grown year on year. Last year, for the first time, we saw the number of UGC campaigns we worked on overtake organic campaigns and we fully expect that trend to continue in 2025 and beyond.

The factors that have caused the rise in UGC; so the growth of short-form video content, the increased importance of effective audience targeting through paid ads and the slow decline of organic engagements on traditional platforms, are all things that are going to continue in 2025. UGC is here and it’s here to stay.

What is the best way for your brand to begin working with UGC creators?

Knowing where to start can be tricky. With all influencer campaigns, creator selection is incredibly important, but this is particularly the case when it comes to UGC. As the UGC space is still growing, things like quality of content, rates and delivery can vary greatly. It’s therefore vitally important you fully understand UGC and know what to look for when it comes to creator selection.

We fully believe in the power of UGC when done right and love to see the UGC industry grow. We offer a completely free 30-minute Intro To UGC call to all brands who are looking to get involved in UGC and would like to learn more about it.

If you and your brand are looking to work with content creators in 2025 then we highly suggest you embrace the power of UGC over organic content and fully step into the new era of influence.