And yes, this really happened and no, I am not here to sell you a course. I’m glad we got that out the way early.
But first, let’s take a look at why UGC can ACTUALLY be the side hustle you’ve dreamed of, you know that idea of something that can earn you good money but not take particularly long to do?
But first, what is UGC? Let me explain real quick.
UGC Stands for User Generated Content and is a relatively new way of marketing wherea brand will ask an individual to make content for them but without any high budgets or fancy editing. The idea here is to make the content as authentic & relatable as possible.
Basically, it’s an ad for a product that doesn’t look like an ad.
Because nowadays we all have ad fatigue, nobody wants to be sold to so the goal is to make these ads just feel like a regular person is posting about the product because they like it rather than because they’re getting paid to advertise it.
Sneaky, I know.
Anyway, here’s a few quick examples below:
Here’s how I actually made money with UGC
Okay so let’s get into the really juicy stuff. Over the course of this, I’ll be covering the key things you need to actually get started:
- Mindset
- How much time did it take me per day?
- What equipment I used
- Picking a niche
- Creating a portfolio
- Finding clients
- Profit????
Ready? Good.
Mindset first
First up, let’s think about how much time you’re already wasting each day creating content. In fact, it’s worth physically noting this down. Have a look at what your screen time is and try not to cry.
For most people, their average screentime is between 4 and 6hrs per day.
Now just consider all the additional tasks you could complete with that extra time if you weren’t scrolling on social media.
So the mindset shift we need here is that we’re going to transform our doom scrolling time into earning money time and here’s how.
Once you know how much time you are spending on your screen each day, I want you to think about how much time you could realistically spend trying to make money instead? 1hr? 2hrs? 3hrs? More?
Either way, make a decision, write it down.
This is where the magic starts to happen. You’ve already got an idea now of how much time you can actually put into making some extra money each day because you can now see EXACTLY where you’re spending your time.
A fun little activity here is to imagine you had a job that allowed you to work whenever you want but instead of working you wasted time scrolling, now imagine that job paid you $40 per hour but you scroll for 5hrs per day instead. That’s $200 you’re missing out on, EVERY DAY.
It only took me 1hr of focused time per day to get my first client… Here’s how:
Look, I won’t go into too much detail here but 1hr of focused work beats 5 hours of unfocused work, all day long.
All I did was figure out the steps I needed to take each day, made a to do list and did as much as I could each day within that 1hr allocation I gave myself.
I removed all distractions so the only thing I could do was work. Every notification icon, sound etc is muted on my phone and my phone was in another room for this.
The world can wait.
Whatever your time limit is, I would highly recommend following this format that I’l mention below but I’ll give you the quick version here too:
Define your niche > Create Example Videos > Build Portfolio > Find Clients
The only equipment you actually need.
You probably just need a phone, just about any smartphone will work. I started off with a Samsung S22+ which at the time was 3 years old. Still, the camera is awesome and the mics are good enough.
If your mic isn’t great you can use adobe podcast (which is free) for editing your sound quality or alternatively you can buy a small mic for about $40 which I also did after a month or so. I use the Hollyland A1, it’s tiny and magentic plus connects via USB so can be used with just about any device. I use it on my Mac, my phone & both cameras. I love that thing!
For editing your first videos I would suggest trying something like Capcut or Canva for example, both of these are easy and either free or just super cheap. Both have desktop versions but the priority here is starting, so use your phone.
Creating your portfolio.
Most people over think the idea of creating content let alone creating their portfolio but this is far easier than it’s ever been.
Getting your first clients.
My strategy here is
Structure & scaling the content.
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