How to build your UGC machine?

Welcome to Influee, we're all very excited to have you onboard. 

Influee has been in the UGC business since 2019, we've done this for a while and in this manifesto, we're going over the very best UGC practices and addressing common misconceptions.

I'm going to start this guide with a cold harsh truth.

If you're here to generate 1, 2, or 3 videos and bet on those to be the game changers for your business you might as well shut down your Influee account today.

BUT,

if you're looking to build a content machine on which you can rely and base your future growth, then this guide is for you. The name of the game is testing, testing, testing there is no silver bullet when it comes to creatives, but you can set yourself up for success and build a content machine like no other.

In this guide, I'll give you numerous assets available that can provide you with in-depth knowledge of each of the stages mentioned in this plan.

From our extensive experience collaborating with 100s of brands in numerous verticals we see that the main parts of building your content machine are: 

• brief, 
• creator, 
• editing, 
• feedback loop.

Strategically planning your content machine with these parts in mind will enable you to experience true success with UGC. In the next section, we'll take a look at a brief overview of each part.

1. Brief

In our experience is the biggest difference maker between successful or struggling brands using UGC. A strong script is 40% of your ad’s success. The other 60% lay in creators, editing, your offer, and iterating winning concepts.

To put it simply in order to create amazing UGC Ads you need two types of raw UGC that you'll edit together:

1. Main Storyline - Creators talking in front of a camera

Creator(s) talking about your product and narrating the entire ad with information about your product by your direction through scripting.

2. Supporting Content - Broll

Video clips in which creators engage with your product, use your product, apply it, unbox it, show your product's texture or nature, its quality, details, logo, special features, etc. B-rolls can be shot from a wide-angle (lifestyle), bird's eye view, close-up, POV, over-the-shoulder, etc.

Having an arsenal of a variety of content paired with editing will allow creating variations of amazing UGC Ads that will support your success.

How to come up with content ideas?

When writing a UGC script, you need great content that resonates with your target audience, hooks them in, and ultimately turns them into customers.

There are two ways to create the best script for your product or business:

• Write the script yourself

For more ideas on how to write scripts effectively, find different product angles, and present them in a variety of structures so you can test them, check out our eBook on Writing UGC Briefs 101.

• Generate the script with our Magic Script Tool

With our powerful Magic Script Generator (a UGC Script Writer), specifically designed to make scriptwriting easier, better, and faster, you can now generate scripts based on thousands of winning ads from successful brands.

Learn more about What Type of Content I Need, to Make Great UGC Ads in our blog post.

2. Creators

Before we even get started, I'd like to address a common misconception that is: any and all creators are great for my business. This is NOT true.

In the same way, you'll be testing the different briefs and editing in the next step, not all creators will resonate with your audience. On average we see that ∽30% of creators actually convert provided that you create great briefs.

This means that you need to find winning UGC creators and build them into your creator roster.

Batching content per creator

The best practice when discovering new creators is to order 2-3 videos per creator this will not only give you more content to test out but also makes more sense financially as creators often charge similarly for 1 video as for a pack of 2 or 3 videos as it takes them more or less the same time to create them.

Have them create a mix of videos talking to the camera and b-roll footage, which consists of various clips of them using the product, showcasing it, and unboxing (like in these unboxing videos).

When testing out their creatives pay attention to which creator performs better and include them in your creator roster so you can engage them in your future content campaigns.

3. Editing

The content that you receive from your creators should be raw and unedited. This will allow for flexibility in editing and with flexibility comes room to test different Ad creatives. 

Editing Principles

Every creative is different and there is no silver bullet for me to share but nonetheless, 90% of the winning creatives that we see have some of the next editing principles in common.

• fast-paced (unless you're targeting the older population)
• clear communication (present products through the compelling story)
• clearly visible products (what you're selling should be extremely visible)
• hooks (scroll stopper that will make people pay attention)
• subtitles (80% of users on Meta platforms have used their apps on mute)
• native to the platform (ads should use native TikTok / IG fonts, colors, and design principles)

Ad Types

If you're just starting you should generally be testing at least two fundamental types of ads.

• Creator Ads (featuring one or multiple creators, voiceovers, etc.)

• Product Ads (using b-roll footage to create a visual story and use text to convey value & information)

Editing Ads with Influee's UGC Video Editor

Influee offers an UGC Video Editor that can help you edit your UGC into fully edited ready-run Ad creatives with features like:

• Instantly Generate Unlimited Winning Video Ads Using AI
• Automatic Subtitles In +65 Languages
• Get Fresh Ideas
• 60+ Tools and Templates
• Create Native Instagram, TikTok Ads

Learn more about editing ads

Explore Two Types of UGC Ads You Absolutely Need to Test when starting.

15 Examples of great UGC Ad Edits for inspiration.

Take a look at our blog post on Different Ways to Editing Your Raw UGC to learn how to mix review videos with b-roll content.

In our webinar take a look at clips What To Test, Why Editing is Important, Modular Video Editing and What Makes A Good Creative to get a ton of knowledge connected to editing.

Useful blog on How to approach ad editing on your own if you're just getting started.

4. Feedback Loop

This is the last part of the ongoing chain. Having a good understanding of what works and what doesn't will allow you to iterate winning concepts and find new winners.

Tagging creatives

When testing your creatives you should tag them based on different ingredients that you applied from the previous parts. You should keep track of stuff like the angle/structure of the brief, which creator/s are featured, and the type of edit you applied. 

Tracking performance

Having this info paired with the performance you're tracking in the Business Managers, you'll be able to understand what/who is performing for you and collaborate with them with iterating your briefs.

In our recent webinar, we talked about How To Read The Data and Scaling Campaigns to learn how to identify winning parts of your creative.

Final points on the best ways to start

The answer to the type of content and creators that will convert for you depends on various factors that you need to discover.

Testing will tell you where to double down and what to avoid.

And always, but ALWAYS, spend time understanding what your audience is about and what's the best ways to communicate your products to them. Testing the main 4 parts described in this blog is THE BEST combination.