Why does UGC work?

This might be a bit of a blow to a lot of people’s egos… but it’s working. While there’s still a lot of value to being the face of your brand, the other trend that is working doubles down on social proof and recommendations. User-Generated-Content. 

A few things to consider:

• Social platforms are focusing more on engagement with good content not timely content

• The power of the follower is less than the engaged viewer 

• Social proof matters more than ever… UGC is beating out big creative budgets

These are good things for people who are looking to grow their brand, product, or service. It works against people who are looking for fame, unless they can be very relatable and understand exactly who their audience is.

Good Content > Timely Content

Good content often has a much longer shelf-life than most content that’s posted. For example, I recently looked back on our first blog post from when we launched 323 in 2019 (and it talks about engagement). It’s still relevant. Hasn’t been updated, but there’s sill gold in that post.

Two key things are happening online. Maybe you’ve noticed it.

1. Instagram has made it very difficult to see WHEN things have been posted. There’s ways you can tell, like the comment dates, but the post date is now hidden. They don’t want to ruin the engagement because something isn’t “fresh enough” in the viewer’s mind after seeing the date. Think of someone believing that last year’s “Summer sun skincare tips” are no longer relevant. It’s still summer. Still the same sun. And… probably the exact same products still exist. They are trying to extend the shelf-life of content so there’s more quality, rather than quantity being pushed out.

2. The amount of “watch again” or “in case you missed it” now goes deeper on YouTube. WAY deeper. The number of resurrected videos that are now being recommended on the home page from years back is staggering. There are videos I’ve watched, and ones that are relevant to others that I’ve recently watched even though its a different creator from the past. This is building on topic targeting rather than creator following to see how much we will all watch something that is topical rather than wait for our favorite creator. It should develop some interesting data for creators to better figure out what to make next.

What I’m most interested in with all of this is how it’s paying dividends to create consistently because you never know when something will pop! I remember this happening with one of my first blogs and getting a shoutout from one of the largest automotive sites about 10 months after posting because they were digging up some history and referenced what we had documented at the time. It was “just another blog post” until it became super relevant for their research. This is going to happen more, but with people’s interest as an audience, not necessarily as global topics happen.

The trend reminds me of what happened as music of all generations became available on streaming sites, particularly Spotify. Called Nostalgia and Discovery the current most played song on the radio was less relevant to the hits of 40-year-olds hearing the songs from their teenage years at the push of a button. And then the next generation finds it without barriers (like needing to dig through your Uncle’s vinyl collection to find some gems). We’re seeing this with movies as well, instead of remastering, the originals are getting more watch time.

Engagement > Following

Funny enough, some of your favorite online personalities built their audience by doing just that — starting by making engaging content to build their following. Why was it engaging?

• Maybe you had epic visuals, unbelieveable storytelling set in NYC, like Casey.

• Maybe you set records in X games, was one of the first faces of RedBull stunts and showed up with wildly cool builds on Gumball 3000 and everyone wanted a peek into your life, like Jon Olsson.

• Maybe you have incredible talent, but bad timing (pre-NIL) meant you had to choose: should double down on your golf for content or for college, like Garrett.

We all know who we look forward to seeing, online, on TV, or in-person. The people we connect with and relate to most. It’s magic, it’s authentic.

If you take the time to figure out who’s engaging with you, it’ll make the rest of the formula a lot easier. Heck, I still don’t have it down of who’s the right audience for our agency or me sharing what I’ve learned building our businesses.

Social Proof > Perfect and Produced

For things that people like, they will continue to consume everything. Behind the Scenes, uncut versions, even bad sequels. The feeling of extra or exclusive access has been a cornerstone of selfies, vlogging, and now advertising.

I’ve spoken with 5 brands in the last week who have all said the same thing, “our UGC is outperforming everything else. It’s raw and its converting.”

The bottom line, you’ve got an opportunity to grow with a smaller budget. It might have started with Dollar Shave Club, but the “raw, uncut” style is now something you can easily source with a quick search on Upwork or by simply asking someone on instagram that you think will connect with your prospects.

The Evolution of Influencer Marketing

In this video, I breakdown how we’ve evolved from Hollywood endorsements, to athlete sponsorships, to the influencers that we’ve seen grow with different content and tactics over the past 10+ years.

There’s more behind the scenes that we’re excited to release soon… look for these below to become links when they are ready!

• Content + AI Engagement is available now - where we can add AI agents to your website, and have sequences in your social media inbox. It’s also optimized for ChatGPT search results.

• Tactics of Marketing Roadmap - a growing list based on industry, goals and budgets to achieve your goals (or at least get some ideas).

• Neighborhood Marketing Experts - we’ve built a formula over the years for local services that can win with a small radius. We can help get new clients, build your authority in the area and scale your business. Learn more here.

• Content Machine Course - a refresh on our course for 2025, this course walks you through the way we do content marketing for clients.

• Content Waterfall Course - an expansion to our Content Marketing course, this breaks down the full process from podcasts becoming articles, guest posts and newsletters.

• Done for You Content Marketing by 323 Media - book a call now. We are opening up a few spaces for full-service clients that need a turn-key option to run their marketing.

• Podcast Production is now open to start your show! Limited spots are available until we ramp up the team with more audio producers.