How I get paid $500+ per video as a UGC creator 💸 start a UGC business from scratch for beginners

if you've been following me for a while you might have heard me doing something called ugc which is user generated content I'm not a full-time ugc Creator but I have done some of it and I know a lot of you are interested in starting a side hustle and I think ugc is actually a really good side hustle so I wanted to make a video today about ugc how you get into it how do you price for it how do you pitch to companies and I'm also going to share my portfolio this is a really good income Source if you are trying to become a content Creator or an influencer but you're not really making money yet cuz as a content creator or influencer you need to get sort of big to be able to make money with sponsorships you want to work with companies that way but ugc is a way where you can make videos for companies they'll run ads on your videos and you can work with companies that way and also make cash you're basically like a freelancer you can also do ugc if you want to make content you like making videos but you don't necessarily want to become like a big influenc by the way you'll notice that this isn't my usual desk setup and it's because I got a new standing desk from flexispot who is the sponsor of today's video and I'm super excited to share with you later on why you should also get a standing desk so I'm going to split this video up into four sections the first one is prepping for your ugc business the second is pitching the third one is pricing and the fourth one is delivering the content and by the way if you see me looking at my phone I'm just like looking at notes because I made a lot of notes on how you can do do this first of all if you don't know what ugc is it stands for user generated content and it's basically when you work for companies as a freelancer to make videos so that they can use organically in their social media and on their platforms and or they will use it in paid advertising on like Facebook or Instagram or Tik Tok the benefit to companies using ugc creators is that they get more of like a real testimonial kind of video it can be sort of comparable with working with influencers it's just that maybe companies don't really want um they don't really need the influencer or somewhat somebody with a big following to post on their own social media maybe their strategy right now is to just like focus on paid ads and that's why they want to hire someone just to make the paid ads but influencers can also do ugc too and when influencers do sponsorships companies can also pay the influencer to run the content as paid ads as well so there's kind of like an overlap but in this video I am going to be focusing on if you don't have a big following if you're not an influencer and you want to become a freelancer making videos for companies as a ugc Creator so let's talk about prepping first so before you even start pitching to companies and doing all of that you need to make a portfolio a portfolio is basically a place where you can showcase to companies the kind of content that you can make and it also provides some information about you so this is my portfolio right here and I will add this as a free template if you want to get started on your portfolio with canva but you don't really know how to do it you can sign up below so I'd say mine does have all the elements that a ugc portfolio should have so it has like information about me like a little bio um it has my social media links and it also has samples of content that I've made if you're just starting out and you haven't worked with any company yet you might be wondering well how am I supposed to add content to my portfolio I have like nothing so what you can do is make sample videos of things that you have in your house make the video as if you are promoting that company or product and then you can add it to your portfolio as like sample videos so in M it was more like these are my past collaborations because I actually have worked with companies but if you haven't worked with companies just like make sample videos and although the companies aren't making you post on your own social media it is helpful to have some kind of social media I recommend it because not only can you like you can put your work there and show it but you can also use uh and my favorite is like Instagram you can use Instagram to DM companies cuz sometimes if you can't find the right email or you don't know who to email maybe you think the email got lost you can also DM the company instead and see if that works okay where do you find Brands so if you are starting from zero my recommendation is to start with smaller companies and companies where you already use the product so with the brands you already use you could for example make a sample video and then what you could do is reach out to that company and say hey I've been using your product for x amount of years and I've really been loving it I'm a new ugc Creator and um I'm wondering like are you looking for ugc creators to partner with and you can also send them your sample video I recommend this because companies these days get so many requests from ugc creators so if you are already a loyal customer they are going to pay a lot more attention to you and this is what I found because I've pitched to a lot of Brands and I realize that if I already use their product they tend to reply more it's also easier for me because I don't need to get familiar with a new product I already know what I like about the product it's just like so much easier to work with the company if you already use the product and if you like the product I would also recommend starting out with smaller companies you might have heard of something called like gifted collaborations um so those are when you just like receive the product and they don't pay you any money but then you just like make a video for them so that's like you're just basic Ally receiving the product as a gift but then you're making them a video if you're just starting out it might be harder to get like paid collaborations so what I would do and this is my recommendation if you're just starting out so what you're going to do is based on where you live okay the easiest way to find these local companies is um just like do a search of like your city or state or area plus the kind of product that you want to make videos for when I was just starting out with ugc I was going to go on a trip to Asia and I wanted to see if I could actually get a natural deodorant deodorant for free cuz I was going to buy one anyways so what I did was I searched Vancouver I think like deodorant company or something and then I found this company that offers uh these like natural beauty products I messaged them on Instagram and they actually gave me like a whole bunch of deodorant and I made um I made one video for them I took a couple of photos and that was like one of my first gifted collaborations the reason why I like starting local is because companies get people email emailing the