How IKEA Turned Its Employees Into a High-Impact TikTok and UGC Engine

There is a quiet shift happening in how the world’s most effective brands communicate. It is not about platforms or algorithms. It is about who tells the story.

For decades, companies have tried to create trust through brand voice, polished visuals, and tightly controlled campaigns. But the market has changed. Buyers now expect something closer to human truth than corporate messaging. They want to hear from real people who use the product, build it, support it, and live it.

This is where UGC has evolved. It is no longer about influencers doing product demos. It is about brands turning the inside of the company into the most credible content engine they have.

IKEA is one of the clearest examples of this shift.

The Real UGC Advantage: Credibility From the Inside

UGC is often misunderstood as “anything made by customers.” That is an outdated definition. The most powerful form of UGC today happens when the people closest to the product become the storytellers.

• Employees.

• Specialists.

• Technicians.

• Designers.

• Installers.

• Engineers.

• Support staff.

• Subject-matter experts.

When these people share how the product works, why it matters, and what problems it solves, the credibility is instant.

This is exactly what IKEA tapped into.

The company realized its employees were already natural storytellers. They understand customer pain better than any agency. They know which products get questions, which solutions actually help, and which setups make people stop in their tracks.

Instead of outsourcing authenticity, IKEA empowered the people who live the brand every day.

The Shift: From External Influencers to Internal Advocates

For many B2B companies, the instinct is to hire influencers, create polished explainer videos, or rely on corporate social channels. The problem is that polished content rarely feels trustworthy anymore.

What people want is:

• A technician explaining why your equipment is built differently.

• A project manager describing the real challenges your solution removes.

• A customer success lead walking through a workflow with real context.

• An engineer opening a product and explaining the choices behind it.

• A designer showing how they solved a real client problem.

Those voices beat corporate messaging every time.

This is the modern version of UGC: employee-driven insight.

IKEA simply operationalized what many B2B companies haven’t dared to do.

The IKEA Lesson: Build a System, Not a Campaign

IKEA created a structure where employee creators receive informal prompts, choose what feels natural, and record content inside the store with their own style. The company then amplifies the best pieces.

The brilliance is in the simplicity:

• No scripts

• No overproduction

• No corporate filters

• No pressure to perform

Just people who know the product showing it in real life.

It is a scalable model that any B2B company can adapt, even without a retail footprint.

Imagine:

• Support engineers making short walkthroughs of real fixes

• Trainers showing workflow improvements

• Product managers documenting micro-features customers miss

• Installation teams showing how long a setup actually takes

• Sales engineers breaking down a complex system in one minute

• Leadership sharing raw internal prototypes and thinking

  
  

This type of content builds trust faster than any campaign.

Why B2B Buyers Respond to This

B2B buyers are overloaded with:

• Overproduced videos

• Corporate jargon

• PDFs nobody reads

• Landing pages that all sound the same

  
  

They are searching for clarity.

And clarity lives with the people doing the work.

UGC in a B2B context is not entertainment. It is evidence.

Evidence that:

• The company knows how to solve the problem

• The people behind the product are experts

• The process is real

• The culture is strong

• The solution is practical, not theoretical

When employees explain something in a natural, conversational way, trust is immediate. This is the psychological advantage IKEA discovered. And it applies even more to B2B purchasing cycles, which rely on credibility and proof over emotion.

The Cultural Shift: Marketing Is No Longer a Department

The most effective brands today treat marketing as a collective behavior, not a function.

IKEA used employees.HubSpot uses educators.Figma uses designers.Duolingo uses its entire internal culture.Snowflake uses its technical teams.Tesla uses engineers on Twitter replying directly to customers.

In all these cases, marketing is built into the company, not layered on top of it.

UGC is simply the modern format for this philosophy.

The Opportunity for B2B Leaders

If you lead marketing, product, or customer experience, the question is not whether UGC fits your strategy. The question is how you will operationalize it.

Key steps:

1. Identify which internal roles customers trust most.

2. Build a simple, repeatable system for them to share insight.

3. Remove the friction, not control the message.

4. Create guidelines that empower, not restrict.

5. Distribute the best content where your buyers already learn.

The goal is not perfection. It is presence.Not big production.Just real expertise, shown consistently.

The Takeaway

IKEA’s model is not about entertainment. It is about trust. They turned their workforce into a network of authentic content creators and discovered something every B2B company needs to hear.

The people closest to the customer create the content the market trusts most.

UGC is no longer an add-on. It is a strategic shift in how brands communicate expertise.And the companies that embrace this shift will own the next decade of B2B marketing.