One of the top UGC trends to watch in 2025 is the domination of short-form content on platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts. Today 75% of people are fond of watching short-form videos. Because of the decline in attention spans, quick and eye-catching user-generated video content has proven to be the most effective way to capture audience interest. For instance, the Starbucks #StarbucksStories campaign invited users to share 15-second videos about their favorite drinks or fun moments at Starbucks. These real, short videos not only helped to go viral but also contributed to a stronger community focus reinforcing the brand's identity.
As UGC continues its trajectory, it is becoming a reliable and economical method of cultivating trust and credibility. Following the UGC trends helps you tap into real-time customer insights, enhance brand loyalty, and create content that will engage with your target audience.
In this blog, explore the most influential Top UGC Trends To Watch in 2025 that will help you to utilize the customer's content potential. Each of these pieces of information will be of great assistance to the brand in making the best marketing decisions in the dynamic digital world.
Let's unfold the UGC trends of 2025 separately!
Top UGC Trends To Consider in 2025
Best Practices for Brands to Utilize Short-Form UGC:
81% of consumers preferred brands to create more short videos in 2024. Want to know why?
Shorthand video content provides a prime chance to connect with the audience on a more direct and captivating level. Short-format video enables the imaginative story of the product or service, the exhibition, and the propagation of the brand all to take place in mere seconds, directly in the sights of the people who spend a large part of their time.
As one of the biggest UGC Trends of 2025, brands can benefit from this format by creating authentic, concise content that connects easily and effectively with its target audience.
Collaborate With Influencers For UGC:
UGC will move from mass social media outreach to niche influencers. Businesses are more likely to come in contact with these driven little sets that enable them to forge stronger human connections and deeper interactions with their audience.
For instance, the skincare company Mario Badescu worked with smaller influencers to make content that is more relatable and authentic and everybody can see different people's skincare routines. The partnership with these influencers has proven to be an efficient way for the brand to be on the radar and therefore a place where the recommendation of the brand becomes the main source of the trust.
AI-Driven UGC Personalization:
One of the best UGC trends in 2025 is the utilization of AI-driven UGC for personalization. AI algorithms have the capability of analyzing an enormous amount of user-generated content to find the most relevant and good-quality content for brands.
These algorithms can effortlessly classify, label, and filter content according to some predetermined criteria and will save marketers time and energy. Additionally, brands can ensure that they have control over any inappropriate or offensive content and also protect their image by using AI-powered moderation to flag such content.
Also, AI algorithms analyze UGC to understand a user's interests and preferences and to make relevant product or experience recommendations. This personalization leads to successful engagement and increased conversion rates since customers feel recognized and valuable.
UGC in Ads:
UGC advertisements, which can be considered one of the top UGC trends to watch in 2025, are advertising campaigns on social media that contain content originally produced by creators rather than that being produced by brands.
The predominant types of UGC advertising comprise video, photo, and review posts on TikTok or Instagram; these posts can be either repurposed organic posts or promotional content used by influencers or UGC creators.
Spark Ads are part of TikTok's native user-generated content. It involves UGC's utilization of your followers to craft compelling ads on the TikTok platform. There is an instance of user-generated TikTok content prepared for Kiala Nutrition. It was reported the brand has raised over 75 million impressions and over 10.000 conversions, from its Spark campaign.
UGC advertisements on Instagram are a form of advertising that makes use of UGC provided by your followers to develop captivating ads on Instagram. Company IBM uses community members UGC mainly on Instagram, where customers are asked to share their stories through the hashtag #IBM. The UGC strategy, which is used by IBM is more straightforward compared to others, and it's a great way to present how one of the biggest technology companies in the globe.
UGC in Email Marketing:
Given that visual content is becoming more popular—with 91% of consumers preferring it over written content—user-generated content (UGC) emails can become more tailored and pleasing to customers, hence the arrival of UGC is considered the best UGC trend in 2025.
The incorporation of UGC in email marketing campaigns can ensure that the potential clientele gets the perception of a credible brand and the fact that it has a loyal following. In particular, customer reviews or testimonials in emails can be important content to emphasize other customers' positive experiences with the brand, which can lead to increasing the customers' trust in it.
When the UGC is paired with the customer's photo, videos, or name, it gets more impact, since it makes the content more personal and therefore genuine content is reinforced. By creating brand authority via UGC, companies can increase customers' loyalty and brand sales.
Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) Experiences:
Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) provide engaging experiences that can help boost customer response and UGC. Using a fusion of the digital and physical worlds, AR and VR can provide the opportunity for businesses to connect with their audience in creative ways.
For example, a clothing brand might introduce an AR app that users are encouraged to use to see how clothing fits and thus share their selfies on social media. A travel agency may have similar aims opting for a virtual reality experience that will take the user around beautiful destinations inspiring them to become a traveler content creator. Such all-encompassing experiences will entertain the people and create a feeling of being attached to the brand, therefore, it will be more possible for customers to become loyal users, and even word-of-mouth marketers.
Therefore, companies claim that the combination of AR and VR is one of the key UGC trends for 2025 to make their audience's creativity come to life with a great degree of UGC authenticity and engagement.
Boosting Engagement with UGC on E-Commerce:
By merging UGC into online stores, retailers can create a more genuine and interesting shopping experience for consumers. UGC, like customer feedback, photographs, and videos, can contribute to trust and credibility, besides being a great way to get insights about what customers prefer. Apart from this, this type of marketing can be of benefit to the company as it can attract more visitors to the website, set the page higher on the search results, and, at last, have a higher conversion rate.
Brand Skullcandy has posted these customer reviews on the product page. The contents of a page are arranged starting from the product images to its key features and finally the social proof from reviews, this helps the customers to make an informed decision.
Conclusion:
Unquestionably, user-generated content (UGC) will continue to be a significant force in digital marketing. The transformation from shoppable UGC and AI-driven content curation to real influencer partnerships will be the way to reach potential customers. Brands must watch the top UGC trends in 2025 which will help them build trust among customers, create brand communities, and raise their sales through authentic customer experiences.
If a brand wants to utilize such trends and form a strong UGC campaign, the UGC agency can act as guidance in constructing approaches to the target audiences. Moreover, with the proper UGC campaign, your company can survive in the increasingly crowded 2025 market.