UGC turns students into marketers. By combining student’s success with UGC they create authentic and organic ways for them to tell their story (the students) and ultimately gain their trust. Duolingo, Unacademy, and other companies like them are all leveraging UGC to fuel the massive growth of their brands. Here are several examples of how leading EdTech companies utilize UGC in their SMS and Email Marketing:

The Trust Factor of UGC – 

The most successful edtech companies utilize UGC, or User-Generated Content, because it creates a sense of trust among prospective students through peer reviews/testimonials. Statistically, 2.4 times as many prospective students will follow a peer’s recommendation as opposed to a branded advertisement. The leading EdTech companies utilizing digital marketing utilize UGC in the form of student video testimonials, student testimonials, and student social media posts that show before and after transformation and the success of students who have mastered a coding language or passed a test. As the best digital marketing agency for the EdTech industry, Shivoham Shiv Digital works to help EdTech brands optimize UGC for SEO and improve EdTech SEO on Google and Instagram, where they know the most access occurs.

Hashtag Challenges – 

Leading EdTech companies engage students in their campaigns through the use of Hashtag Challenges such as #MyLearningJourney, where users would create Reels of their progress through their respective learning journeys. On average, Hashtag Challenges generate 28% higher engagement than polished video advertisements and can quickly create a sense of community among users, all while lowering ad costs. Additionally, Shivoham Shiv Digital integrates UGC into EdTech client sales funnels, which significantly increases lead-generation by a factor of 5X due to the number of people that can view a piece of UGC as it spreads over multiple channels.

Edtech organizations are successfully implementing UGC campaigns to increase user acquisition and generate brand awareness. Use Duolingo as an example of one of the most popular UGC campaigns. With its green owl mascot, Duolingo has created TikTok duet challenges, where users can remix the language learning experience into humorous videos and create millions of views, as well as downloads of the app. BYJU’s is another example, encouraging parents to share study video results on social media. This UGC campaign gives parents a relatable, credibility to BYJU’s in the midst of the growing Edtech industry in India.

Unacademy recently highlighted their alumni’s success stories on LinkedIn and utilized retargeting ads to promote their services. Khan Academy is now embracing its #LearnWithKhan initiative by encouraging its global community of users to create their own tutorials and upload them, creating an ever-growing library of content that is optimized for search engines. Shivoham Shiv Digital has duplicated this model for various Middle Eastern clients and localized the curriculum for each country’s language, resulting in a 40% increase in enrollment for its clients.

Coursera has developed a UGC series called “Certificate Stories” focused on highlighting the success stories of recent graduates who are posted on their social media channels as Reels and Stories. The UGC loop generated an average of 10 times the number of views than traditional branded videos in most markets, demonstrating the importance of using a human element to connect with your audience and the value of building a brand and image through user-generated content. By partnering with a respected digital marketing firm such as Shivoham Shiv Digital, you can be sure that your UGC campaigns are professionally managed and produce maximum ROI.

To Implement a UGC Campaign: A Guide – 

The first thing you should do when starting a UGC campaign is create an Instagram contest titled “My EdTech Win” that will reward people for submitting their best entries. The contest should be branded using templates made in Canva, which will help make it easier to create content that you would like people to submit. Shivoham Shiv Digital has an AI program that assists in moderating the submissions and curating content that meets their clients’ specific needs.

Promoting through emails and Stories, both using UTM links for tracking purposes. Another way to market the winning entries would be using them in ads, and blogs, as well as targeting lookalikes in order to scale. The top edtech companies within digital marketing see a 22% increase in their conversion rates using this method of marketing, as demonstrated by Shivoham Shiv Digital through their work with startups.

Analyze success based on engagement rates, not simply by “likes”, with the goal of generating “shares” that indicate support for the brand. Try using A/B testing with prompts, such as “Share your breakthrough” compared to “Tag a friend who needs this”. Shivoham Shiv Digital has developed an analytics dashboard that will allow brands to measure the value of UGC on a long-term basis and evolve accordingly.

Challenges and Solutions in Utilising EdTech UGC –

The quality of content can present risks for brands; low effort UGC can dilute a company’s brand. To address this issue brands must create clearly defined briefs for the contributors while also supplying them with leaderboards to create a gamified environment for the contributions submitted. The legal hurdles involved in getting permission to use a creator’s content are made easy with the use of Shivoham Shiv Digital’s compliance tool.

Without technology, scalability is difficult, which is why brands, like any social media, should leverage Hootsuite for aggregation. For brands entering various segments of the diverse markets, such as India, utilizing community driven hashtags (#EdTechIndiaWin) provides relevancy to audiences in those areas. The top digital marketing agencies will also ensure that UGC is curated and produced in a manner that resonates culturally, building trust with Gen Z consumers.

Future-Proofing Your EdTech With UGC and Experts This article discusses how to create an edtech future-proof product using user-generated content (UGC) and expert expertise. In 2025, while UGC is trending to include AR filters, the top edtech companies in digital marketing will utilize interactivity to create an engaging experience for users to share. Shivoham Shiv Digital is a leader in this area, as they transform user content into conversion generators. Brands in the edtech marketplace that choose to ignore user-generated content (UGC) will ultimately become obsolete. Contact Shivoham Shiv Digital today, as they can assist with building customized strategies that will create memorable user experiences that will help build student-generated growth for your edtech business.