Best UGC Platforms To Grow Your Audience

Brands pour their time, energy and resources into sourcing, sharing and employing user-generated content to impact overall marketing goals. In fact, over a quarter — 28.4% — of e-commerce marketers in North America believe UGC impacts purchasing decisions the most, while 26% believe UGC is most effective in building customer’s trust. 

But how do you help center your brand in the online narrative and make the most of UGC? We’re reviewing 10 UGC platforms so you can find the best software for your unique needs and niche.

Without a dedicated UGC platform, your team can miss opportunities to repost content or discover high-performing earned media — or even simply waste time manually sourcing this content from your social platforms. 

The right UGC platform will help your team effortlessly find and vet UGC creators and content to ensure it aligns with your social media and business goals. With that, let’s take a look at 10 popular UGC platforms, including pros, cons and which industries can benefit from them most.

1. Dash Social

Pros:

• Easy to use
• Robust analytics 
• Wide variety of features 

Cons: 

• Some API limitations 

Best for: 

• Fashion and Luxury, Beauty, Retail, CPG

What users are saying:

• "There are many features I love about DH such as multi platform scheduling, ability to easily tag and filter comments and messages, the competitor overview, easy ability to duplicate posts to other platforms and the library function to easily find and organize UGC. I also love the saved replies feature in community." - Meagan S, Community Manager

Curious how to upload UGC? With Dash Social’s UGC platform, social teams can centralize their UGC strategy to discover, source, publish and measure the impact of user-generated content. Social teams can also easily request posting rights, reducing time spent on outreach and managing approvals. UGC tools also benefit from the inclusion of Vision Predictive AI — this tool uses intelligent predictive content analytics to determine which pieces of UGC (and owned content, too) have the best chance to perform based on your past performance. With Vision’s Predictive AI, you can even use visual search to source trends — whether specific colours, shapes or other elements — from UGC to easily find content to support any social media campaign.

What’s more, Shoppable Galleries let social teams leverage their UGC even further, embedding content directly to their website within a carousel or curated gallery or on their LikeShop profile. These galleries let you incorporate social proof to your online presence while offering another shoppable opportunity for visitors to your website.

2. Embedsocial

Pros:

• Easy to use 
• Helpful customer support 
• Wide range of integrations 

Cons: 

• Limited customization options 
• Feature limitations 
• Lacks analytics dashboard to measure performance 

Best for: 

• Travel and Tourism, Agencies

What users are saying:

• "EmbedSocial has been a game-changer for our business! The seamless integration and user-friendly interface made it easy to showcase our customer reviews, boosting our online credibility and engagement. Highly recommend this tool for anyone looking to enhance their social proof!" - Wandi T, Project Manager

Embedsocial’s UGC feature, simply titled ‘Embedfeed’ helps brand embed social media feeds to their websites from Instagram, X, Facebook, Threads, YouTube, Google and LinkedIn. This tool is excellent for businesses with a diverse tech stack seeking a simple tool to embed UGC in a range of styles and formats. 

However, Embedsocial lacks some of the typical features of social UGC platforms, like engagement metrics or ROI calculations — but for businesses seeking a range of website widgets, this is a great option to diversify sitewide UGC.

‍3. Synup

Pros:

• Offers review management 
• Range of features 

Cons: 

• Steep learning curve for some
• Difficult to navigate all features 

Best for: 

• Insurance, Consumer Electronics and Technology

What users are saying:

• "Synup has a very easy user interface. We have a company with many different locations and it is very easy to update individual information for locations. Synup makes the updates very quickly. Using Synup is much better than individually updating Google Business Profile, Facebook, Yelp, and other local listings. The ability to update using an excel of all of our locations is very helpful." - Marelena S, Head of Digital Marketing

Synup is a UGC tool that specializes in helping brands list and optimize their business profiles — this tool is best for brands, particularly those with multiple regional focuses, to aggregate positive reviews to share onsite. They can also respond to queries directly from the platform, making this a great option for brands seeking the ability to pull in reviews from social media, Google Business, Yelp and more.

4. Tagshop

Pros:

• Shopify integration 
• Decent range of features 

Cons: 

• Limited integrations 
• Technical issues 

Best for: 

• Consumer Electronics and Technology

What users are saying:

• “What I like best about Taggbox UGC Suite is its ease of use in managing and securing user-generated content. You can quickly get permission from content creators and use their work legally. The platform's smart features help you find and organize content effortlessly. Plus, the ability to add user content to your website and download high-quality images makes it a great tool for making your brand look authentic and trustworthy.” - Vaibhav K, CEO

Tagshop provides UGC software to help e-commerce brands source authentic customer content that matches a brand’s niche. With Tagshop, brands can find UGC from social media and online reviews and ratings, streamlining the collecting, curating and posting process for UGC.

5. Walls.io

Pros:

• Simple to set-up
• Easy for customers and users to engage with 

Cons: 

• Lack of new visual options 
• Less options for Facebook and LinkedIn

Best for: 

• Non-profits

What users are saying:

• “Our team loves the interactive features Walls.io provides, especially polls. Having people vote right on the social wall and like their favorite posts makes the wall so much more than just a content aggregation tool. We love how it helps connect attendees with the brand and each other.“ - Sara S, Content Manager

Walls.io is a dedicated platform that helps social teams embed stylized social media walls of UGC to their websites. It can aggregate UGC from social networks including Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. It also provides real-time updates and lets brands curate and moderate content before displaying it on websites, event screens or other digital displays. 

6. tagembed

Pros:

• Great customer support
• Robust customization options 

Cons: 

• Expensive
• Complex for some users to learn

Best for:

• Automotive, Agencies 

What users are saying:

• “During my first week using tagembed I had a problem with some javascript conflicts on one particular page where I was embedding a widget that was working perfectly on two other pages. I asked for help in chat, and it wasn't more than a half hour later that the tech team figured it out, added something to my account to fix it, and I'm all set. I'd love it it every 3rd party tool vendor delivered like this.“ - Amy B, Mid-Market 

The tool tagembed helps brands collect and curate UGC to embed on their websites — they offer a large range of templates that include different styles, from horizontal carousels, to list views and sliders. This tool is ideal for agencies, since there’s no limit to how many websites you can embed content on and even includes Slack widgets for internal communication.

7. Loox

Pros:

• Relatively low-cost 
• Easy to use 

Cons: 

• Lack of customization 

Best for: 

• Fashion, CPG, Food and Beverage

What users are saying:

• “The flexibility and customization of our brand and product reviews, providing transparency and UGC contents in the same time at a very competitive pricing with the features that a business needs“ - Chin J, Senior Marketing

Loox is built specifically for Shopify, letting brands collect and display customer-generated visual product reviews, including UGC video. The platform incentivizes customers to leave visual testimonials by offering discounts or rewards, which can be helpful to build relationships and loyalty with customers.

8. Social Walls 

Pros:

• Easy to use 
• Great customer support 

Cons: 

• Some users report technical issues 
• Limited customization options 

Best for: 

• Beauty, Education 

What users are saying:

• “The best thing we liked about Social Walls was the number of things we could do with the UGC we collected. Showcasing content from Instagram as well as Facebook at one place surely worked in our favor. As a bonus, we also found a perfect theme to showcase the content which made it look even better.“ - Nadz R, Sr. Strategic Planning Manager

Social Walls is a UGC platform created by Taggbox, perfect if you require a simple solution to embed galleries on signs or screens. Their software lets you embed UGC on digital screens for private events — think webinars, large digital screens at in-person events, digital billboards and more. Many social walls include moderation features and customization options to ensure that displayed content aligns with brand messaging and drives conversions.

9. Taggbox

Pros:

• Easy to use, simple interface
• Great customer support 

Cons:

• Limited filtering options 
• Some users report technical issues 

Best for:

• ‍Health and wellness, Real Estate

What users are saying:

• “The Taggbox display is easy to use and set up, but looks professional. I appreciated that there was a free version to try out and use before deciding to purchase. Customer service was also very helpful.“ - Sheila M, Information Literacy Specialist

While Taggbox has Social Walls specifically for events, Tagbox’s UGC tool is best for digital marketers. Their tool works similarly to Social Walls, but is meant for embedding on websites and other online platforms. Taggbox supports different content formats, including images, videos and online reviews, to help brands create visually engaging social proof. 

10. CrowdRiff

Pros:

• Makes it easy to find and get rights to UGC.
• Creates eye-catching galleries for websites.
• Connects with social media for easy content sharing.

Cons:

• Can be expensive for smaller teams.
• Has fewer analytics and customization options than some tools.

Best for: 

• Travel industries, PR and Communications

What users are saying:

• “I love using Crowdriff because it saves me HOURS of time looking for UGC for our tourism account. We couldn't thank Crowdriff more for the benefit this application has had on our digital communications strategy. Crowdriff is a fantastic application to use as storage for your photo database, sharing photos with partners, getting rights to photos and more. We love using CrowdRiff in order to get our eyes on more potential assets to use in our marketing plans. Without CrowdRiff, we would have to spend more time and energy to get the magnitude of images that we do. The customer support team is unparalleled! They have fantastic workers who genuinely care about their clients and want to see them succeed and use their platform in the most effective way.“ - Randa H, Manager of Media Relations

Crowdriff is built specifically for travel industry marketing, using AI search tools to recommend brands the best UGC to showcase a variety of destinations. From there, you can request licensing, track your requests in the platform and finally, post to your website or social media accounts. It also has auto-tagging to tag content with relevant keywords, and integrations with Google, so you can include Google location information to encourage users to take a trip.

Selecting the best UGC platform for your brand’s needs requires an in-depth understanding of your marketing strategy and precisely what you need your tool to do — for example, if you’re primarily concerned with social media UGC, you’ll want to look for a tool with more features for social, while a strategy focused on user reviews will want a platform that pulls in reviews and ratings from your Google Business Profile and other platforms. 

Here are some additional things to consider when sourcing a UGC platform:

Audience

It might go without saying, but we must stress that knowing your audience makes a significant difference in nailing your UGC strategy. The UGC creators you choose should either relate to your target demographic or resonate with their interests. This might be UGC from a creator that matches your demographic’s criteria, or an influencer they overwhelmingly follow or engage with. 

Short-Form Video Strategy

If short-form video is a core part of your plan, your user-generated content platform should support video collection and even editing, if necessary. If you plan to use video in advertisements, finding a tool with both capabilities — to source and repurpose this content for paid ads — will be helpful to streamline the process.

Integrations

Having the right integrations in your UGC platform is key. For example, if your brand is more focused on brand reputation management, you might look for integrations specific to online reviews, while brands seeking creator UGC require social media integrations for the platforms they’re most active on. 

Performance Tracking

Social media analytics tools are another crucial component of UGC platforms — without these, how can you truly determine whether your content is performing well? Social media analytics and monitoring features allow you to measure engagement, conversion rates, ROI and more to determine which UGC performs best.

How to get UGC for your brand?

There are a few different ways to source UGC for your brand. To find UGC, you can use a tool like Dash Social’s UGC platform to source and post UGC. Alternatively, you can manually look through branded hashtags, tagged content or use social listening tools to discover content users are creating about your brand. 

How to encourage user generated content? 

One simple way brands can encourage UGC is to share UGC — by sharing this type of content, users and fans of your brand might be excited by the prospect of being featured on your social accounts. Another common way brands can encourage UGC is to create branded content, like hashtags, and engaging with creators who use them on social. Some brands tap into contests or giveaways to source UGC — however, while this is a great way to give back to fans and customers, it might not seem as authentic as other forms of UGC.