How to Write a UGC Brief Creators Can Deliver Against

1. The product: what it is, what it does, and anything a creator must say accurately (ingredients, sizes, prices).
2. The audience: who should watch this and what they care about.
3. One key message: the single thing a viewer should remember.
4. The format: length, orientation, and any hook, demonstration or call to action you need.
5. Deliverables: how many videos, for which platforms, and whether each is a file, a post or both.
6. Captions and hashtags: anything required in the post, including the disclosure.
7. Do’s and don’ts: claims the creator must not make, competitors not to mention, settings to avoid.
8. The schedule: due dates and how long you will take to review.

UGC works because it sounds like a person, not a script. Give the message and the guardrails, then let the creator choose the words and the setting. A brief that dictates every line tends to produce videos that look like ads.

Write down what makes a video acceptable before anyone films. If a creator can check their video against the brief and know it will pass, you avoid change requests that are really new requirements. Keep change requests to what the brief asked for.

A creator speaking about your product is making an endorsement. Give them only claims you can support, and require a clear disclosure of the paid relationship in the video itself.

The campaign form collects the brief, the platforms, the video count, the schedule and any caption requirements, and creators see the same terms before they accept. Captions are checked when a video is submitted. You can ask for a draft to approve before a video is posted. You can request at most 2 changes per video, and the creator has 5 days to send a replacement.