User generated content, or UGC, has become an increasingly powerful tool in marketing among both small and large brands. These brands know that social media users are more prone than ever to ad blindness, and UGC subverts that by appearing like a regular video that would appear in their feed made by consumers, not the company itself.
Typically, marketers know about UGC in terms of begging their own customers to create something they can use to promote their products. But you can turn the tables and be on the other side of the coin by becoming the UGC creator that other brands reach out to for videos so you can get instant profits from companies hungry for content.
If you can consistently create high quality UGC, you can reach out to brands (or let them come to you) and see if they’d like to buy them. They know that UGC content has a heavier weight with consumers than a professionally-crafted advertisement with obvious bias.
Some people do this as a side hustle, while others have created entire businesses revolving around this arrangement, earning sizeable incomes from home on their own schedule.
The best part is, you don’t need a single follower to get the deals. You can also sell these direct to businesses or list your services or readymade content available in online UGC marketplaces that are growing in popularity.
What Is UGC and How Can You Profit?
Anything that you create as opposed to a marketing team is technically user generated content, but more specifically in this case, we’ll be talking about things like short-form videos and even images about any given product.
You may have seen such advertisements before without realizing it. Official brand accounts will post videos that look like any other product review, a video of someone reviewing a product and talking about why they like it and what it does better than others.
Since these seem less like traditional advertisements, brands consider them to be much more effective. Users will likely watch them for a longer amount of time, and be more likely to buy the product.
Since brands find these kinds of videos to be superior in many ways for social media advertising, they’re willing to pay people directly who make them for the right to use them as an ad.
With little to no upfront investments in the equipment required, depending on what you have on hand, you can start making these videos with relative ease. With a few videos made, you can start reaching out to brands and offering to sell these videos if you get in touch with their marketing team.
This can be done fairly quickly in your spare time, especially once you’ve gotten over the slight learning curve that comes with editing and creating high-quality videos. A quick, poorly-made video won’t appeal to advertisers, but a regular good looking video like you might see on TikTok or Reels will.
As you continue working with brands, you may even be able to do things like get commission from sales, or even work directly with the marketing team for social media advertisements on a consistent basis, bringing you even more income.