Employees have a better understanding of the product, a dedicated follower base and the relatability factor of the person next door. Thus, employee-generated content (EGC) resonates far more with the audience than polished influencer or celebrity marketing.
“EGC is inherently more authentic and grounded in day-to-day experiences,” said Aarshita Verma, senior manager at quick commerce company Zepto’s Brand division. “Unlike influencers, who often tailor their content to market products, employees share real insights, challenges, and successes tied directly to their work. This leads to a more relatable and trusted narrative.”
“Employees are also seen as a part of the brand’s DNA, making their content feel like an inside scoop rather than a staged marketing ploy,” Verma further said. With over 700 employees at Zepto, they post content showcasing their creative process and highlighting fun moments at work, she added.
Since the cost involved in getting employees to create content for the brand is much lower, brands get a better return on investment (ROI) than influencer marketing and celebrity endorsement, even though the employees may not have as many followers as they do.
In India, EGC is a fairly recent concept that is being picked up after its success in Western countries, Piyush Agrawal, cofounder of influencer management agency CREATE, said. “While it is difficult to quantify the return on investment in percentage terms, as of yet, most companies are not providing any monetary compensation for EGC, so since the cost factor is close to none and the engagement is as good as that of an influencer, the ROI is considerably better.”
Powerful support for company
Agrawal added that the traction on employee-generated content is usually higher because people, especially job aspirants, are curious about the work culture at major firms such as Google, Zomato and American Express.
Queries sent to Zomato, Google and Amex remained unanswered till the time of going to print.
According to Premkumar Iyer, chief operating officer at reputation risk management agency Hawk, “Social media platforms naturally give higher organic reach to posts from individuals over branded content.” No ‘paid partnership’ or #ad tag means no automatic throttling, and instead of one influencer’s audience, the firm is tapping into 20 to 50 employees’ warm, trusted networks and their networks’ networks, he added.
“An employee’s friends will engage quicker and for free, that’s exactly what algorithms love,” Iyer added.
However, Iyer has a caveat: it works best when participation is genuine.
“Since there is no additional cost involved, and the engagement in terms of views, likes, shares, and comments is also high, we observe better ROI in EGC,” said Jatan Bawa, cofounder of oral healthcare brand Perfora.
Bawa also highlighted that while influencers may take weeks to work on a campaign, the turnaround time for employees tends to be around three days, and is also cost-effective.
“The content we post lies on a spectrum of things between creating awareness about oral healthcare and talking about the products and how we created them. The team may not have as many followers on social media as influencers or celebrities, but this content looks more real and unfiltered and hence EGC performs better on those metrics, thus helping us build a stronger brand,” Bawa said.
New generation leads
Gen Z workers, particularly, take the lead and get creative when shooting content for the company. For instance, the fitness startup Spectacom relies heavily on this marketing strategy, thanks to its Gen Z workforce. At their product division Zuzumonk, employee-generated content is not treated as an additional task but an essential strategy to grow as a brand, the cofounder, Zeba Zaidi, said.
“Our average team age is 21-26, and everyone’s already fluent in how to tell a story on social,” Zaidi pointed out. “We make sure they have full creative freedom to experiment, and we celebrate their ideas by posting them exactly as they were shot, not watered down by layers of approval.”
On its social media, the brand uploads a series of short videos biweekly, showing “exactly what’s happening behind the scenes of building a brand,” the cofounder further adds. It could be the process of launching a new product, the market research that shapes it, or “highlighting the specific challenges and learnings we face in building Zuzumonk…Some of our most engaging posts have come from spontaneous events,” she said.
Still, EGC is not as easy as it looks. Companies need to have at least some control over the content posted on their websites, a product manager at an investment bank that creates workplace-related content regularly, who did not wish to be named, said. “Every video that we post related to our company has to be vetted by our social media team as per their HR policies. If this is skipped, the video gets flagged and we are asked to take it down,” he said.
Strengthening brand ties
For instance, Zuzumonk’s Zaidi said one of their first product returns turned out to be a ‘swap’ where a customer had ordered a gym bag, kept it, and sent back a completely different bag. “Our team always documents anything interesting that goes on around the office, and it’s really moments like this that humanize the brand and capture the unpredictability of startup life,” she recollects.
When it comes to startups, founders also maximize their participation in content creation to push their brands further. This goes both ways by serving as EGC while also being a stepping stone in the founder’s personal branding.
“The content from founders is not an either-or between EGC and personal branding, it’s both. While founders make content to push their brand, the content punches up their social media fame,” Perfora’s Bawa highlighted.
Industry watchers said that Indian founders are picking up EGC after its success in the West. This strategy works wonders from a marketing standpoint because, unlike influencer or celebrity endorsements, this content is not marked as a promotional video. The YouTube or Instagram algorithm does not support content with brand affiliation as much as it promotes organic content like EGC.
Analysts suggest that employees train in content creation, as it becomes an increasingly important skill in the job market, to maximise their marketing potential.
“Employee-generated content (EGC) is gaining strong momentum for its honest, relatable, and unfiltered content. To harness its full potential, brands should establish clear content guidelines and invest in training employees, empowering them to create authentic stories that drive meaningful, organic reach,” said Amiya Swarup, marketing advisory leader at consulting firm EY.