For some individuals, creating short reels on TikTok and Instagram has helped them pay off student loans, buy houses, leave their 9-5 jobs, and even start other business ventures. These success stories have inspired many young people to seek out content creation as a viable career path, enough so that universities have launched new degree programs hoping to capture a piece of this booming market, estimated to be worth nearly $500 billion next year.
With that in mind, today let’s talk about influencers, and in particular, what is referred to as “user-generated content (UGC) creators.”
User-generated content
UGC refers to “any type of content that is created and shared by users, rather than by brands or companies.” This can include text, photos, or videos of someone sharing a story about their day, explaining a painting technique, or just doing a fun dance. UGC is truly what puts the “social” in social media, and when it comes to discussing products or services, UGC is “often made by customers, fans, or other members of a brand’s community.”
Marketing research has found that young people are more likely to trust recommendations by people they follow on social media than branded advertising or celebrity endorsements. Therefore, positive UGC can be very beneficial to brands. However, true UGC content is not paid for. Rather a brand may hope to inspire users to create positive content about their products through campaigns, such as Coca-Cola’s #ShareaCoke campaign, where it asked customers to share videos and photos of who they like to share a Coca-Cola product with. Similar campaigns include Apple’s Shot on iPhone Challenge, Dove’s #RealBeauty, and Sephora’s “Beauty Board.”
The blurred line between UGC and influencing
Most influencers first began their social media careers by producing UGC and may have eventually attracted a brand’s attention because of the virality of their posts, which subsequently may have landed them high-dollar sponsorship deals. However, new creators first starting out are also looking for ways to start getting paid for their creative efforts even if they haven’t reached influencer status yet. This supply has inspired a whole new line of specialized marketplaces connecting companies and campaigns with these smaller UGC creators.
Additionally, some brands have found that they can get a lot more bang for their buck with this style of marketing. As the co-founder of a popular UGC marketplaces noted, “Why spend $1,000 on one video, when you can spend $1,000 on 30 videos?” In particular, political campaigns have found UGC creators useful at getting their message out to a larger audience, especially since many laws related to disclosing paid advertising don’t apply to political topics.
When does it become digital astroturfing?
Astroturfing is defined as “organized activity that is intended to create a false impression of a widespread, spontaneously arising, grassroots movement in support of or in opposition to something (such as a political policy) but that is in reality initiated and controlled by a concealed group or organization (such as a corporation).”
The website of one UGC marketplace, People First, advertises its services as “Real people, ready to champion your cause” and states it “combine[s] technology and grassroots organizing to connect with creators no one else is reaching.” However, considering that businesses are paying individuals to share their opinions, it’s important to ask how authentic those opinions really are. As one creator told the New York Times, “While I do think that people should be 100 percent honest in these things, it’s hard not to acknowledge the role money plays.”
For example, the Times looked into a campaign that sought out UGC creators to speak on affordability issues in the United States ahead of the 2026 Midterm elections. The reporters found that many of the creators failed to mention they were being paid for their posts, and as many as two-thirds were either living in a different state than they claimed or somewhere outside the U.S. entirely. Meaning their content was far from authentically user-generated and what was framed as individuals earnestly discussing their experiences was anything but.
As the article explained, such campaigns “can help game social media network algorithms so that they treat coordinated content as organic, spreading the message even wider. Built from dozens or hundreds of posts from accounts you’ve never heard of, they amount to an echo chamber on a budget.” And as one professor bluntly put it, “This is digital astroturfing, plain and simple.”
