The UGC (User-Generated Content) industry is on fire.

Some stats that will blow your mind:

1. 97% of consumers trust reviews from other consumers more than brand descriptions. (Source: Bazaarvoice)

2. 79% of consumers say UGC is more trustworthy than brand-created content. (Source: TrustRadius)

3. UGC-driven eCommerce websites have 32% higher conversion rates than websites without it. (Source: Tellos)

But it’s not until you break each of these down that you realize how quickly the UGC industry is really growing:

1. 97% of consumers trust reviews from other consumers more than brand descriptions.

This is an impressive stat at face value. But what’s 10x more impressive is the growth in the number of reviews being posted online. That’s 2.5 times bigger than the growth of e-commerce sales.

This is a signal of where things might be headed.

2. 79% of consumers say UGC is more trustworthy than brand-created content. The last time an industry saw growth like this, it was in the early 2000s when social media was taking off. (Fun fact: YouTube was founded in 2005.)
3. UGC-driven websites have 23% higher conversion rates than websites without it.

As if the above wasn’t impressive enough, this stat is just amazing. To give you a sense of how big that is, that’s like increasing your sales by 23% overnight. Just to put things in perspective.

Final Prediction

My guess is that the UGC and Video Commerce industry will eventually overtake traditional marketing, just as social media once overtook print advertising.

What do you think? Do you agree? Disagree?

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