Leveraging UGC & Influencers: A Food & Beverage Guide Part I
For a food or beverage business, getting someone else to talk about your product can be more powerful than talking about it yourself.
That is the basic idea behind user-generated content (UGC) and influencer marketing. Instead of relying entirely on branded photography, paid advertising, or posts from your own account, you can get customers and creators to show people what your business actually looks, tastes, and feels like.
But that doesn't mean every restaurant needs to pay an influencer to make a Reel, or that a post from someone with 100,000 followers will automatically translate into sales.
For smaller food and beverage businesses, the opportunity is often much more practical: use creators to generate authentic content, reach highly relevant local audiences, and give potential customers a reason to try you.
UGC vs. Influencer Marketing
The terms UGC and influencer marketing are often used interchangeably, but they aren't exactly the same thing.
User-generated content (UGC) is content created by a customer, creator, or fan that features your business or product. It could be a TikTok showing someone trying your hot sauce, a customer filming their first visit to your restaurant, or a Reel demonstrating how they use your product at home.
The creator doesn't necessarily need a large following. In fact, sometimes the most useful UGC comes from someone with a small but highly relevant audience.
Influencer marketing is more specifically about leveraging a creator's existing audience. You're paying or otherwise partnering with someone because you want their followers to discover your business.
The two can overlap. An influencer can create UGC for you and distribute it to their audience. But the difference between these two strategies requires you to ask different types of questions.
When Is UGC or Influencer Marketing Worth It?
UGC and influencer marketing can be useful, but they're not automatically worth the investment. These strategies tend to make the most sense when they can address a specific business or marketing need.
1. You need more local awareness
If you're a restaurant, cafe, brewery, bakery or other location-based business, you need people in your geographic area to know you exist. A local creator can introduce your business to an audience that already lives nearby and is actively looking for places to eat, drink, and shop
For a San Diego business, for example, a creator with 15,000 highly engaged San Diego followers may be more useful than one with 200,000 followers spread across the country.
2. You have a new product or update
Some products and events are naturally suited to social media, and UGC or influencer marketing can help amplify the news.
This could include:
Announcing storefront opening
Sharing a new seasonal menu
The launch of a new packaged item
The release of a new flavor
Capturing a behind-the-scenes production process
Notifications on a limited-time promotion
A creator can help turn a launch into more than an announcement from your own social account. Instead of simply telling people that you have a new menu, product or location, you can give creators something to experience and talk about. This can be particularly useful when you're trying to create initial awareness and social proof around something new.
3. You need better content
This is one of the most overlooked benefits of UGC. You don't necessarily have to pay someone because you want access to their audience. You can hire them because they know how to make content that looks and feels native to social media.
A creator might produce:
3–5 short-form videos
Product photography
Restaurant walkthroughs
Customer testimonials
Recipe videos
Behind-the-scenes footage
Product demonstrations
With permission to reuse the content, you can then use those assets on your own Instagram, TikTok, website, email marketing and paid ads. In that case, you're essentially hiring a small-scale content studio.
5. Your own content isn't converting
If your social feed is mostly announcements, food photos and promotional graphics, try bringing in an outside perspective. People may be more interested in seeing someone experience your business than seeing your business tell them how great it is. That's one of the fundamental advantages of creator content: it can function as social proof.
When Is It NOT Worth It?
Influencer marketing becomes much less useful when you're paying for exposure without knowing what you're trying to accomplish. For example, paying $1,000 for a post from a creator with 100,000 followers isn't necessarily a good deal if:
Most of their audience is outside San Diego
Their engagement is weak
Their audience doesn't match your customer
The content doesn't fit your brand
You can't reuse the content
You have no way to track results
The creator regularly promotes dozens of competing restaurants
The creator's audience follows them for something unrelated to food
Some obvious blockers to proceeding with UGC or influencer marketing are:
Not having a clear goal or knowing what should be accomplished
Not having fundamentals, such as your own digital footprint, established
Not having a budget to make a campaign effective
Not having a product that is ready, either for being in front of a camera or meeting increased demand
The UGC & Influencer Marketing Checklist
Before reaching out to a creator, run your business through this checklist.
1. Do I have a specific goal?
□ I know what I want this campaign to accomplish.
□ I can identify what success would look like.
□ I have a way to measure at least some of the results.
If you can't answer these: Figure out the objective before contacting creators.
2. Do I have something worth talking about?
□ I have a product, menu item, experience, story or launch that is genuinely interesting.
□ The product is visually appealing or easy to demonstrate.
□ There is a clear reason someone would want to share it with their audience.
If you can't answer these: Creator marketing may struggle because there isn't a compelling story for the creator to tell.
3. Is my target audience actually on these platforms?
□ My customers use Instagram and/or TikTok.
□ I know roughly who I'm trying to reach.
□ There are creators whose audiences overlap with my customers.
If you can't answer these: Don't choose a platform simply because it is popular.
4. Am I ready for people to discover me?
□ My Google Business Profile is accurate.
□ My website works well on mobile.
□ My hours, location and contact information are correct.
□ My menu or products are easy to find.
□ My social profiles represent the business well.
□ Customers have a clear way to purchase, visit or book.
If you can't answer these: Fix the basics first.
5. Can I afford to test it?
□ I have a defined amount of money I can spend.
□ I understand that the first campaign may be a test rather than an immediate success.
□ I can afford to try more than one creator or approach if the first one doesn't work.
If you can't answer these: Consider starting with organic UGC or a smaller creator partnership instead of a major paid campaign.
6. Do I have the capacity to follow through?
□ I have enough product or inventory.
□ My staff can handle an increase in demand.
□ I can respond quickly to customers and comments.
□ Someone on my team can coordinate with creators.
□ I can actually use the content once it is created.
If you can't answer these: Make sure the operational side is ready before generating additional demand.
UGC vs. Influencer Marketing: Which Do You Actually Need?
One final distinction can help determine what kind of investment makes sense.
You probably want UGC if...
Your biggest problem is content. You need more videos, photos, testimonials or demonstrations for your own marketing channels. You may not care whether the creator has 100,000 followers.
You probably want influencer marketing if...
Your biggest problem is awareness. You already have good content and a solid marketing foundation, but you need more people to discover your business. In this case, the creator's audience becomes much more important.
You may want both if...
You need awareness and content. This can be the most valuable type of partnership because you're getting the creator's distribution while also creating assets that your business can continue using.
The Bottom Line
UGC and influencer marketing is something worth considering for every food & beverage brand, but it may not be the best route to go down right now.
For some businesses, the best investment might be improving local SEO, building a loyalty program, creating better email marketing or simply getting their Google and Yelp profiles in order. For others, a few well-chosen local creators can introduce their business to thousands of potential customers while generating content they can use for months.
If you've decided that creator marketing makes sense, the next question becomes much more interesting:
How do you find the right creators, structure the partnership and get as much value as possible from the content they create?
That's what we'll cover in Part II.
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