# What is user-generated content (UGC)? User-generated content is what your customers make about your product: reviews, photos, videos, posts. What counts, what to ask first, and what to watch for. Author: Formgong Published: 2026-11-03 Language: en Canonical: https://formgong.com/en/blog/what-is-user-generated-content/ User-generated content, or UGC, is anything your customers make about your product instead of you: a written review, a photo of the mug on their desk, a short video, a post that tags you. Loox's article on e-commerce UGC counts pictures, video, text and audio. For a shop the most useful kind is a review with a photo or video, and Formgong accepts up to 5 photos and 1 video with each review on its free plan, plus voice messages that become the review text. ## Why does a customer's photo sell better than yours? Your product photos are lit, cropped and edited, and every visitor knows it. What they can't tell from them is how the jumper fits a normal person, how big the vase really is next to a kettle, or whether the colour looks the same in a dim kitchen. So they scroll past your pictures and look for someone else's. That someone else's picture, or review, or video, is user-generated content. You can't make it yourself, which is exactly why people believe it. ## What counts as user-generated content? The definitions agree on one thing: it is made by the people who use the product, not by the brand. Loox's article on e-commerce UGC, which we read on 3 November 2026, describes it as content “posted by users of online platforms” and lists pictures, videos, text and audio. Trustindex's article of UGC examples names social media posts, videos, pictures, reviews and testimonials. Two edge cases are worth knowing. A “UGC creator” you pay to film a video of your product makes an advert in a customer's style, not content from a customer, and it should be presented as paid. A review written in return for a discount or a free product is still a customer's review, but it should say it was rewarded, which our article on [offering a discount for a review](/en/blog/discount-for-review/) explains. ## Is a customer review user-generated content? Yes, and for most small shops it is the main kind they will ever get. Few customers post about a ceramic mug on social media, but some will leave a few sentences and a photo when you ask them by email a few days after it arrives. Reviews also have an advantage that social posts lack. They sit on your own product page, next to the button, where the visitor decides. A post on someone's feed scrolls out of sight within a day or two. If you also want longer pieces, our guides to [asking for a testimonial](/en/blog/how-to-ask-for-a-testimonial/) and to [collecting video testimonials](/en/blog/collect-video-testimonials-free/) cover those. ## What can a customer's photo give away? More than the customer meant to. A photo taken on a phone often carries the exact place it was taken, and for a picture of a product in someone's living room, that place is their home. On 2 November 2026 we tested this on our demo WooCommerce store. We uploaded a test photo with a location in it to the WordPress media library, which is where review plugins such as CusRev keep them. The original and all 8 resized copies, 9 of 9 files, still carried the location when we downloaded them. The same photo through Formgong's upload step came out with the location blank. Our article on [photo reviews in WooCommerce](/en/blog/woocommerce-photo-reviews/) has the full test. ## Can you reuse a customer's post or photo? A review left on your own site, under terms the customer saw, can be shown on that site. Taking it further, onto Instagram, into an advert or a printed flyer, is a different use, and the decent and safe thing is to ask first. Keep their words as they wrote them and credit them the way they agree to. A photo someone posted on their own account is theirs. Ask in a comment or a message before you repost it, and keep the answer. Our guide to [turning a review into an Instagram post](/en/blog/customer-review-instagram-post/) shows how to ask and which image sizes work. ## How do photo, video and voice reviews work in Formgong? Customers add files on the same review form they rate on. Here is what each kind allows: What a customer can send with a Formgong review, read from our code on 3 November 2026. Storage is 5 GB per account on every plan, the free one included. KindWhat a customer can sendWhat visitors see PhotosUp to 5 per review, 5 MB each, JPEG, PNG or WebPThumbnails in the review; the location is removed before it is stored Video1 per review, up to 50 MB, MP4, MOV or WebMA player in the review, after you approve it Voice messageThrough the voice field on your review formThe transcript as the review text; the recording is played to you only Text and starsNo limit on the number of reviewsThe review itself, with your public reply under it A review with a photo waits for you to approve it unless you use the AI check, which looks at the photos itself, and a review with a video always waits. In our test site's public review feed, a photo review comes with its type, address and size, and the widget draws it as a thumbnail. The voice message is where we differ from the apps most shops compare us with. Judge.me's page on photo and video reviews and Loox's information page, both read on 3 November 2026, describe photos and videos and say nothing about voice. Some customers would rather talk for twenty seconds than type, so Formgong's review form can take a voice message. What it publishes is the text the customer checked, and the recording stays private, played only to you in the dashboard. The [photos and video docs](/en/docs/reviews-media/) and the [voice field docs](/en/docs/voice-field/) show the setup. ## What do your customers send you? If your customers send photos, videos or voice notes with their reviews, or never do, tell us at [support@formgong.com](mailto:support@formgong.com). We would like to know which kinds small shops actually get before we build more. ## What Formgong Reviews includes for free - **Unlimited review sites and reviews.** Text, [photo, video and voice](/en/docs/reviews-media/) reviews on Free. - **A widget with no view limit.** The [review widget](/en/reviews/), carousel, badge and stars in product lists load as often as your pages do. - **Review emails in your store's name.** Sent after each order with your logo and colours, replies to you, no email service to set up; buyers can rate inside Gmail without leaving the email, and get one reminder ([how it works](/en/docs/review-emails/)). - **Bring your old reviews.** [Import](/en/docs/reviews-import/) from Judge.me, Yotpo, Loox, Shopify Product Reviews, WooCommerce, Etsy or a CSV. - **You decide what shows.** Approve each review or choose a [publishing mode](/en/docs/reviews-moderation/), reply in public or in private, and let shoppers ask the author a question. - **Google.** A Merchant Center review feed, and product rating markup through the WordPress plugin. - **Reviews from your form.** People who filled in your contact form can get a review request automatically. - **One account for the rest.** Contact forms with Telegram and Google Sheets, an [AI help chat](/en/docs/help-chat/), and free [website templates](/en/website-templates/). ## Frequently asked questions ### What is UGC in simple words? Content your customers make about your product: reviews, photos, videos and posts. It is believable because you didn't make it. ### Are product reviews user-generated content? Yes. For most small shops they are the main kind of UGC, and they sit on the product page where visitors decide. ### Is paid creator content UGC? Not in the sense shoppers trust. A video you paid for is an advert in a customer's style and should be presented as paid. ### Can I repost a customer's photo from Instagram? Ask them first, keep their answer, and credit them as they agree. The photo is theirs even when it shows your product. ### Does Formgong remove the location from review photos? Yes. Location data is blanked before a photo or video is stored; in our 2 November 2026 test the stored copy had no location. ## Sources and documentation - [Formgong: Photo reviews in WooCommerce](https://formgong.com/en/blog/woocommerce-photo-reviews/) - [Photos and video in reviews](https://formgong.com/en/docs/reviews-media/) [Get a form key](https://formgong.com/en/#top)