How It Works

The big picture

Socialphotos helps you turn real customer content into social proof that increases trust and drives sales on your Shopify store.

At a high level, Socialphotos works in four simple stages:

  1. Sources – where your content comes from
  2. Curated / Favorites – saved copies of the content you choose to use
  3. Galleries – where UGC is displayed on your store
  4. Sales – tagging products to turn UGC into shoppable content

The content flow is Sources → Curated / Favorites → Galleries. Product tags make your curated content shoppable.

1. Sources: where UGC comes from

Socialphotos starts by collecting content from different sources. These sources all feed into the app in the same way.

  • Instagram – posts, reels, tagged content, and hashtags that Instagram allows third-party apps to access
  • Customer Uploads – photos or videos submitted through an upload button in a storefront gallery
  • Bulk Uploads – content you upload yourself, such as past customer photos or brand-approved visuals
  • Upload Pages – photos or videos submitted through a dedicated page you share by link. These appear in Upload Pages, with the page name shown as their source.

Regardless of the source, once content enters Socialphotos it becomes UGC that you can use across your store.

2. Curated / Favorites: your saved content

Your sources contain the photos and videos available to curate. When you add source content to a gallery or tag it to a product, Socialphotos saves an independent copy in Curated / Favorites.

From here, you decide how that content is used:

  • Add it to one or more galleries
  • Tag it to products
  • Reuse the same UGC across multiple pages

The same saved copy can appear in multiple galleries or be tagged to multiple products. You do not need to upload it again for each placement.

What happens when you delete content?

  • Delete from a source: the source item is removed. A copy already saved in Curated / Favorites stays there, along with its gallery placements and product tags.
  • Remove from a gallery or remove a product tag: only that placement or tag is removed. The saved copy and its other placements remain.
  • Delete from Curated / Favorites: the saved copy and its gallery placements and product tags are removed. The original source item remains if you have not deleted it separately.

For example, after you add a customer photo to a UGC Page Gallery, deleting it from Customer Uploads does not remove it from that gallery. To remove the saved photo from all its curated placements, delete it from Curated / Favorites.

3. Galleries: where UGC appears

Galleries control where UGC is displayed on your Shopify store.

  • UGC Product Gallery – embedded on product pages to show real customer content for that product
  • UGC Page Gallery – embedded on any page, such as your homepage, landing pages, or blog posts
  • Instagram Feed Gallery – automated galleries based on Instagram feeds or hashtags

Want to see real examples?

A gallery must be embedded on a Shopify page for its content to appear. If a gallery is not embedded, its UGC will not be visible on your site.

4. Sales: turning UGC into shoppable content

Tagging a product to UGC is the key action that connects content to sales.

When you tag a product to a piece of UGC, two things happen:

  1. If the UGC Product Gallery is embedded, that UGC appears on the tagged product’s product page
  2. Anywhere that UGC appears in a gallery, it becomes shoppable by showing the tagged product

“Shoppable” is not a separate gallery. It is a behavior that happens whenever UGC has products tagged to it.

This allows customers to discover products through real-world usage and purchase directly from the content.

See shoppable behavior in action: View live product example – click any photo to shop the look.

After choosing content and adding your gallery to the store, open Customize in Socialphotos. Page Gallery and Product Gallery describe where content appears; the layout controls how shoppers browse it.

  • Vertical Grid: rows of content down the page, with optional infinite scrolling. Useful for a full customer-photo page.
  • Horizontal Carousel: browse left and right through one or multiple rows. Optional slideshow timing advances the gallery automatically.
  • Portrait Carousel: one row of tall photo and video cards. Photos stay still; merchants can enable muted video autoplay or show still video posters.

All three layouts support photo Page Galleries on Basic and above. Product Galleries and product tags require Advanced or Premium; videos require Premium. Clicking a card opens the same media pop-up with its caption and any available tagged products.

Each Page Gallery has its own customization. Product Galleries share a template while displaying content tagged to the product being viewed. The separate Instagram Feed editor has its own options.

Adjust spacing, headings, colors, upload options, and the pop-up. Settings that do not apply to a layout stay visible but disabled, and their saved values are kept when you switch. Changing the layout does not replace your curated content, ordering, or product tags.

Save and check the result on desktop and mobile. See the Customize Gallery Guide for every option, defaults, and examples.

What to do next

Now that you understand how Socialphotos works, the next step is setting it up on your store.