Beginner's Guide to UGC 2024: How to Start & Make £££! 💰 Step-by-Step in The UK & Europe

why I wanted to stop becoming an influencer and started pursuing ugc instead I've been trying to become an influencer SLC content creator since I was about 19 years old I'm nearly 27 and I didn't see my first paid collaboration until last year I started ugc in September 2023 and I got my first four figure brand deal in 6 weeks if you're new here hi welcome my name is jazz welcome to my channel I am now a full-time ugc Creator content creator all them things there I'm also an X marketing gly I worked in a couple

of different agencies in London for over four years as a social media manager went through a bit of a career switch last year and decided to go from that to being a full-time freelance content creator SL ugc creator that Journey started in September bringing us all the way up until now in which I was able to go fulltime this past March this video is designed for anyone that is wanting to start ugc especially if you are based in Europe or the UK go follow me on my Tik Tok and my Instagram for my ugc accounts

because I post tips on there all the time but this I thought would be a nice little bit of a longer piece of content to basically intro you guys into how I started ugc how you can start ugc in 2 weeks and in a nutshell this is going to be your realistic guide to how you can start ugc in Just 2 weeks so we're going to have a couple of different sections to this video section one is going to be all about what is ugc section two is going to be why ugc is better than

influencing section three is what you need in order to start ugc section four the most important section is how to start ugc in two weeks there's also bonus tips in there and section five are going to be some takeaway tasks so without making this any longer let's get started so ugc essentially stands for user generated content essentially what we're looking for with a piece of user generated content is we want content that looks like it's made by an average customer the everyday person influencer content is slightly different to ugc and we'll be getting into that

but essentially the quality of content for a piece of ugc cont is again like I said to make it look very authentic very natural it's not super high production it's what we would consider um the industry kind of lowii so what's the difference between influencing and being a ugc Creator so an influencer I'm sure you guys know what an influencer is I'm not going to tell you anything you haven't heard before but just to compare the two and kind of what they give an influencer essentially is somebody with a following so when they collaborate with

a brand which is how majority of influencers make their money the brand will rely on the audience of the influencer to spread brand awareness or to convert Their audience whatever their desired outcome is but when you're an influencer there is a heavy Reliance on your audience and your audience engagement this is not the same in ugc one of the best things about being a ugc Creator is essentially you're just creating content for a brand to use you don't need a huge following it doesn't rely on you having engagement rates and stuff like that from your

followers it is content that a brand can use for their everyday socials for their paid ads a little bit of a Backtrack on my personal Journey so like I said I've been making content since about 19 years old and if I'm going to be honest it is always something I've wanted to do I've always wanted to be considered a content creator it's stuff I grew up watching and I went through so many phases my makeup phase my fashion phase my fitness phase and when I got into fitness content that is when I started gaining a

lot of interest from Brands I've worked with the likes of AEL and shreddy and that has been AB absolutely amazing I landed my first paid collaboration with shreddy last year and that was the first time I'd ever seen money from being a so-called content creator or influencer now as I said in the intro of this video I have seen more consistent income from being a ugc Creator now I don't tend to post on those channels anymore that's kind of how those channels started um it is something maybe I'll do in the future but obviously that's

not the point of this video the reason why I've positioned this video as wanting to be ugc over influencing is because I feel like for most people when you want to become a content creator and influencer your idea is to make a sustainable the goal the aim is to make a sustainable living from it now that's hard um it's obviously not impossible you have the lights of Monae Michael and stuff like that and people that have grown over the last year two years and make a crap ton of money it is not impossible Tam cor

is the perfect example but it takes takes a lot of money a lot of time a lot of patience a lot of consistent and a lot of one thing I think people Overlook is actually investment especially if you're talking about something like beauty products fashion you're needing to invest in those brands in order to make content with them if your aim is to make money through content creation being a ugc Creator is a great choice and a great Avenue this video isn't designed to deter you from being an influencer the perfect example is my mentor

Izzy Izzy is not Australian ugc Creator and she started out being a ugc Creator and off the back of that and gaining a following from it has not only set up her own company but has had influencing opportunities off the back of that it's almost another route to get to influencing if you want to but like I said if you are looking to make money from content creation sooner rather than later without growing a huge audience without having to put tons of investment into it without having to maintain an audience and their expectations ugc is

a great great option we can talk about the pros and the cons of being an influencer versus a UDC cator all day long but this video like I said is to distinguish the difference and get you started so let's talk about what you need to get started where to start now for someone that is fresh brand new has maybe never made content before I would start with what you already have at home if you've got like an iPhone I would start on that the one thing I would maybe suggest that you invest in is a

little tripod you can get them for literally £10 to20 on Amazon templates Now by templates I mean like an invoicing templates for when you're invoicing clients I mean a Content creation calendar a lot a Content creation calendar you can get free um templates through notion which I personally use invoicing templates I use canva to design mine because I already have a canva subscription um I'm sure you can download free ones from different creators I've seen that out there you can buy one of etsy software a couple of softwares I would recommend canva for doing your

invoicing and for creating your portfolio which we'll get into later and also cap cut cap cut is free they also have a pro version I don't use it and I'm a full-time Creator canva can be considered an investment I think it's like $12.99 a month um but you can also do a free trial see how much you use it and if you don't use that much Dash it the cracks of this video which is how to start your ugc journey in just two weeks so when I say I want to put a big disclaimer when

I say start your ugc journey in two weeks I mean in those first two weeks you will have everything you need to start becoming a ugc creator now everybody in terms of when they make money is very very different I got my first paid collaboration within about six weeks which is amazing which is great everybody's timeline is different but this is designed to essentially give you the tools and the best setup in order to get that starting with research now this is where I feel like people can get really bulked down and don't want to

spend too much time I would take two to three days a couple of hours each day of those 2 to 3 days and just immerse yourself in the world of ugc I started with Tik Tok I've looked on Instagram I've also looked on YouTube tip for when you're searching ster away from anybody that tends to preach about making tens of thousands of hundreds of pounds Euros a month um I know some people that have really high earning months but I promise you now it's not all from ugc that's what I'm going to say socials and

emails now I want you to come up with a name for your ugc accounts and I would personally prior prioritize Instagram and Tik Tok Tik Tok because I feel like it's a little bit easier to grow on Tik Tok and Instagram because that's going to be a really professional Instagram for your business you also need a business email a common question I always get on my coaching calls is whether you can integrate ugc content with an already established platform for example say you are a mommy Creator or you are a beauty Creator I can do

a whole separate video on that let me know what you think and we will Deep dive into how you can plan content within those existing accounts I knew this was going to be my full-time business I knew I wanted to have my own separate freelancing career aside from all the personal and fitness and Vlogs that I do so that's why I have separate accounts but I do recommend it anyway because essentially you're setting up your own personal brand content creation now we're going to go through a couple of things I want you to figure out

a posting schedule for yourself not something super strict something that is achievable so if you've got a full-time job I want you to take that into into account um how long you need to plan that content how long you dedicate to filming editing um creating your captions all that sort of stuff come up with a posting schedule that is realistic for you and the life that you have channels like I said um think about what channels you want to be posting on some people use Twitter a lot of people in the UK actually use LinkedIn

as well what you're going to do in these content examples now obviously you want Brands and agencies to have a look at the type of work you can create how we're going to do that is you're going to find your favorite products and favorite services and create content around that there are tons of examples out there again if you want a more detailed video about for example 10 video ideas for new ugc creators do let me know and I can make a separate video on that the easiest one I started with is document my journey

the best thing to ever do on Tik Tok in terms of making content is to create a series piece of content that people can be invested in mine was basically sharing my journey of how I was working two jobs to now working full-time as a content Creator your social accounts are not only going to be essentially a secondary portfolio they are also going to show your personality all the examples of your work the type of content you can create your editing skills so it is super important next you want to set up a portfolio now

a portfolio is basically in a nutshell it's supposed to have your contact details so your name your age your email address your social handles as well you want to separate all your content into different categories so for example I have have them done by Niche so I have health and wellness I have food and beverage I have skin care hair care and you want to put different content examples within that so for example um for food and beverage it can be a vlog Style video of me going to a restaurant for health and wellness it

could be a morning routine again if you don't have examples create them this is specifically related to European sluk ugc creators a couple of platform suggestions from me to you where you can find work that you essentially don't have to pitch for in your very early stages of your career so if you're based in the UK I'm not 100% sure if it's based anywhere else in Europe but I know for the UK a really popular P platform is 12 it's a great platform where you essentially create a little portfolio within it and within the dashboard

you can apply for different jobs they have some great brands on there it's also really great if you don't have tons of names in your portfolio yet it's a great way to kind of build up a roster of different brands and content examples another example which I've not personally used but a couple of girls that are friends of mine that are ugc creators have is vidy I believe they do do Europe UK and a couple of places in the states as well so just make sure you check the location when you're applying pricing now I

wouldn't get too bul down on pricing right in the beginning of your journey you've got a lot to do you've got a lot that you're dealing with so let's keep it super simple there's a difference between organic and paid content organic content is essentially content that just lives on a Brand's feed paid ads are completely different paid ads are those things when you're swiping through stories on social media and you get given an ad essentially it's the same for Facebook it could be the same for Instagram and they also unfortunately now have it on Tik

Tok the difference with paid ads is that normally a paid ad has has an objective it will try to convert you it will try to get their audience to sign up to something visit a website make a purchase and also they run for a certain amount of time ads can run for as little as a week a couple of days up to a year industry standard tends to be that people put a higher price on paid ads because what happens is your video gets shared over and over and over again for however long that ad

runs to different groups of people the way I've always recommended it to people on coaching calls is to if you're a very very fresh beginner to start your organic content at £ 1220 per video and start your paid ad um videos at £150 anything outside of that like if you're being asked to do photos if you're being asked to do um additional Hooks ctas stuff like that at the very beginning I would go on an hourly rate basis and just calculate how long it will take you on an hourly rate and add that on top

but in a steps on it comes to starting your ugc journey my number one tip is to post on Tik Tok stories and Instagram stories every single day there was an article I read a little while ago that basically said Instagram is looking for people to be active on that app every single day and the easiest way to do that is to get on stories might sound obvious to some if you've made content before but if you haven't pay attention to the trending sounds on the platforms I find mine on Instagram through the Explorer page

if you look at the music and it's got a little up button in the corner that means it's trending same with Tik Tok I mean scrolling through you'll be able to hear trending sounds just save a bunch of them for the week and go back and use them when you're posting content the most lovely thing about the ugc space especially here in the UK is that it is such a lovely Community engage in that Community if you ever are unsure of a question I pop it up on my stories and ask everybody like guys what

have you done in this situation or does anybody have any advice on this and I found it super super helpful lastly do not copy anybody else the biggest thing about being a ugc Creator is having your own personality and your own authenticity if you were trying to recreate videos a style and aesthetic of another Creator you are not offering Brands anything alternative to consider coming to the final SE of this video it's going to be takeaway tasks now if you've managed to get to this part of the video well done congratulations here are a couple

of things I want you to do as someone that is new to ugc and wanting to start this journey first I would take 1 to 3 hours to just research ugc boy have a look on Instagram and typing how to start ugc ugc creators UK ugc creators in Germany wherever you're based just have a look at the content have a look at what's out there I would take it one step further and type in ugc Crea it is like I said in your specific country when I first was doing my research I saw the Australian

girls everywhere and they are really great at it and I feel like honestly they' put ugc on the map really well but there weren't tons of creators that I could find in the UK and I felt like although it had worked halfway across the world how was I going to be sure that it was going to work here also it's really inspiring to see who is successful at it the opportunities people are guessing I would narrow your search down a little bit further I would also say to have a look one of the benefits of

looking at people that are in your country slin your area is to kind of get an idea of the industry standard like what content are they putting out what examples are they putting out and if you can see yourself doing the same again I hope you guys have found this video useful it is a really common question I get on tiic all the time which is how to essentially start your ugc journey I have made this video essentially to help you and do and answer that very question if you're ever wanting someone to chat to

a little bit more in depth get you started in your journey I do currently have a discounted mentorship calls there'll be a link in the description box to my stand store where you can book them they are currently £30 like literally that is a round of drinks in London these days this is great in terms of getting you started but if you're starting and you're still finding it a little bit tricky please do reach out I would love to help you I've decided that this is going to be a little bit of a Rebrand for

my channel so we are going to be doing content creator ugc Creator type content over here as well as some lifestyle and vloggy bits so twice a month I'll be doing a specific ugc related videos so if there is anything and I truly do mean anything let me know because I've missed making long form content I want to give you all the advice I have and learn from my experiences so please if you have any recommendations leave them in the description box below other than that I hope you guys have a great positive rest of

your day if you've been here for a long time you will know why I say that and I will catch you in my next one