How to Find Viral UGC Videos for Your App

User-generated content is a video or post about a product made by someone who is not the brand: a user showing what they use, or a creator paid to make something that looks like it. For an app it shows the product in use, for a real reason, by a real person.

It reads as a recommendation rather than an ad, and short-video feeds show it to people who do not follow the account. The same videos can later run as paid ads through the platforms’ creator ad formats.

TikTok

The largest source. Search the app’s name, the kind of app (“budget app”, “habit tracker”) and phrases like “apps that changed my life”.

Instagram Reels

Similar formats, with more lifestyle and productivity creators.

YouTube Shorts

Search-friendly, so a good Short keeps getting views for longer.

Facebook

Reels and video posts that reach an older audience.

1. Search the app and the category. Search the app’s name and two or three words for its kind of app on each platform.
2. Sort by what travelled. Scan for videos with far more views than the ones around them.
3. Check the date. A video from last month says more about today than one from two years ago.
4. Open the creator’s page. See whether they post about apps often, or whether this was a one-off.
5. Keep a sheet. Link, views, the hook, the format and the app, for every video worth keeping.

Where it falls short: each platform’s search mixes in ads, old posts and unrelated videos; there is no view across platforms; and many videos never name the app they show.

Appleak’s UGC videos page lists organic TikTok, Instagram and YouTube videos about apps, each matched to the app it is about, with its views.

1. Browse today’s videos. Open UGC videos, or the trending rows on the dashboard, which are free.
2. Search a kind of app. Type it, and choose which platforms to search with the keys in the box.
3. Read the matches. Each video shows the app it is about and its views, and plays where it is.
4. Go further. Press Find more under the results for the next page from each platform. It counts as one more search.
5. Keep the good ones. Bookmark them. They wait in Saved Searches.

tiktok videos about habit tracker appsviral videos about budgeting apps

• The hook in the first two seconds: text on screen, a question, or the result shown first.
• The format: “I found an app that…”, a screen recording with a voiceover, before and after, a day in the life, a list of apps, or a reaction.
• Repeats. When several creators use the same format for the same kind of app, it is the format that works, not one creator’s audience.
• Views against the neighbours. A video far above the others about the same kind of app reached people they did not.
• Comments that ask for the app’s name, or say “downloaded”, are the closest public sign of installs.
• Recency. Formats wear out; what worked last month is a better guide than last year’s hit.

1. Write down ten to twenty videos. For each: the hook, the format and the payoff at the end.
2. Pick three formats that fit your app. Choose ones where your app’s moment of value can be shown on screen.
3. Brief the format, not a script. Creators make better videos in their own words. Appleak’s Influencer Search finds creators who already post about your kind of app.
4. Draft hooks. Research Lab writes hooks and video scripts for your app from what Appleak has read, as drafts to edit.
5. Post, measure, repeat. Keep the formats that hold, and drop the rest after a few tries.