Everything you need to create winning videos, get approved faster, and earn more money on InfluencerGig.
Understand the opportunity before you start filming
UGC stands for User Generated Content. It is short authentic video content created by real everyday people — not actors, not celebrities, not professional marketers — that brands use in their advertising, on their product pages, and across their social media channels.
Here is why brands pay for it instead of producing it themselves. Consumers trust real people. A polished studio advertisement telling you a supplement works is easy to ignore. A genuine thirty-second video from a real person sharing their honest experience with the same product is not. Studies consistently show that UGC-style content outperforms traditional advertising in click-through rates, conversion rates, and audience trust.
Brands know this. They are spending significant portions of their marketing budgets acquiring authentic short videos from real consumers. That budget flows directly to creators like you in the form of per-video payments ranging from ten to fifty dollars per approved submission.
You are not being paid to be an actor. You are being paid to be a real person with a real opinion. Authenticity is literally the product brands are purchasing. Never try to sound like a commercial.
UGC is not influencer marketing. You do not need a large following. Brands are buying the video itself, not access to your audience. A creator with two hundred followers who delivers a compelling, well-lit, brief-following video earns exactly the same as one with two hundred thousand followers who submits something sloppy.
UGC is also not acting. There is no script to memorize. There is no performance to give. The best UGC sounds like you talking to a friend about a product you genuinely tried and liked. Natural beats polished every time.
Your value as a UGC creator comes from being a real, relatable human being who can communicate clearly on camera. That is a skill you already have. This training will sharpen it.
You do not need a studio — you need good light and clean audio
The number one reason submissions get rejected for quality reasons is poor lighting. Not the script. Not the delivery. Not the product. Poor lighting. Fix your light and you immediately move into the top tier of UGC submissions on this platform.
Natural light from a window is your best option. Position yourself so the window is in front of you, not behind you. A window behind you turns your face into a dark silhouette. A window in front of you gives you soft, flattering, professional-looking light at zero cost.
If you are filming in a room without good window access, use a lamp. Place it slightly to the side of and in front of your face. Even a basic bedside lamp dramatically improves footage quality compared to overhead ceiling lighting, which creates unflattering shadows under your eyes and chin.
Bad audio kills otherwise good submissions. Your phone microphone is adequate but it picks up everything in the room. Turn off fans, TVs, music, and any other background noise before you film. Close your door. Wait for noisy moments to pass before you start.
Film with your phone no more than two to three feet from your face when speaking. The further the phone is from your mouth, the more room noise gets picked up relative to your voice. Closer is cleaner.
Record five seconds of silence before you start speaking in every video. Listen back to that silence. If you can hear significant background noise, fix it before filming the full video. Do not waste your time filming in a noisy environment and hoping the audio is good enough.
Keep it clean and uncluttered. You do not need a ring light, a branded backdrop, or a specially decorated filming area. A plain wall, a tidy bookshelf, a clean kitchen counter, or a simple outdoor setting all work perfectly. Brands want the product to be the focus, not your background.
The brief is your job description — read it completely before you film anything
The content brief is the single most important document in your UGC workflow. Every product on InfluencerGig comes with a brief that tells you exactly what the brand needs. Creators who read it carefully and follow it precisely get approved. Creators who skim it or ignore it get rejected. It is that simple.
Read the entire brief once before you do anything else. Then read it again and take notes on the key selling points you need to hit. Do not pick up your phone to film until you can answer these four questions without looking at the brief:
The most common reason submissions are rejected is missing the call to action specified in the brief. Read the brief, find the call to action, write it on a piece of paper if you have to, and say it verbatim at the end of your video. Do not improvise this part.
Every product brief includes an affiliate link. This link must be placed in your social media bio before you post your video and submit. Do not modify the link. Do not shorten it with a URL shortener. Do not type it out manually if you can copy and paste it. The tracking tag embedded in the link is how purchases get attributed and how you build a history of driving sales on the platform.
Small adjustments that make a significant difference in approval rates
You do not need to be a natural on camera to produce effective UGC. You need to be clear, genuine, and purposeful. The following tips come directly from analyzing what gets approved consistently versus what gets rejected.
Thirty to sixty seconds is the sweet spot for UGC content. Under thirty seconds and you cannot adequately cover the key selling points from the brief. Over sixty seconds and you risk losing viewer attention and going beyond what most platforms promote organically. Film until you have covered everything required in the brief, then stop.
This sounds obvious but it is one of the most common mistakes new creators make. Hold the product up. Show the label. Show it in use if that is relevant. If someone watches your video and cannot clearly see what the product is, the brand has no use for the content.
Position your phone at eye level or slightly above. Shooting from below creates an unflattering angle. Shooting from above can make the product hard to see. Eye level is natural, clean, and professional.
The worst UGC sounds like someone reading an advertisement. Short pauses, filler words, natural sentence rhythms, and genuine enthusiasm all make your content more trustworthy and more effective. You are talking to a friend who asked you about a product. Speak accordingly.
If you find yourself sounding stiff, stop filming and have an actual out-loud conversation about the product with someone or with yourself before you start again. The difference between a stiff delivery and a natural one is usually just familiarity with the material. Know your key points well enough that you do not have to think hard about them while filming.
Nobody films a perfect video on the first take. Film two or three versions and watch them back before deciding which one to use. You will immediately spot things in playback that you did not notice while filming — background noise you tuned out, lighting that looked fine in the room but looks dark on screen, a delivery that felt natural but sounds rushed.
The first three seconds and the last five seconds determine everything
Every effective short video has two non-negotiable elements. A hook that stops people from scrolling past it in the first three seconds and a call to action at the end that tells them exactly what to do next. Both are required in your UGC submission and both are covered in the brief.
Social media users scroll fast. If your video does not capture attention within the first three seconds, they are gone. The hook is the opening statement or visual that makes someone stop and watch the rest. It does not need to be dramatic. It needs to be specific, relatable, and immediately relevant to the person most likely to buy this product.
Strong hooks make a specific claim, ask a question the viewer is already asking themselves, or immediately show something visually interesting. Weak hooks are generic introductions that could apply to any product in any category.
The strong hook works because it names the product category immediately, admits skepticism which builds credibility, specifies a timeframe which makes it feel real, and promises a result the viewer cares about. All of that happens in one sentence.
After your hook, move through the key selling points from the brief. Keep each one brief and specific. Do not read the points verbatim. Translate them into natural language. If the brief says the product is NSF Certified, you say something like "what I love about this one is it's actually third-party tested, so you know what's in it." Same information, human delivery.
The call to action tells viewers what to do next. It is specified in the brief. Use the exact phrasing from the brief because it is tested language that the brand knows converts. Do not improvise a different version. Do not skip it because it feels awkward. The call to action is a required element of every submission and missing it is one of the top rejection reasons.
Hook — Middle — Call to Action. Three parts. Every video. Every submission. This structure is what separates creators who get approved consistently from those who submit content that misses the mark.
The submission checklist and what happens after you send your video
You have filmed your video and you are ready to submit. Before you send anything, run through this checklist. Creators who use a pre-submission checklist have significantly higher approval rates than those who submit without reviewing their work.
Once you submit your video link through the InfluencerGig dashboard your submission enters the review queue. Most submissions are reviewed within twenty-four hours. You will receive an email notification with the result.
If your submission is approved your reward is processed immediately and transferred to your connected Stripe account. If your submission is rejected you will receive feedback explaining why so you can improve on your next submission.
Missing call to action. Poor lighting. Product not shown on camera. Key selling points from the brief not covered. Video too short. Audio too difficult to understand. These five issues account for the majority of rejections and every single one is preventable with the pre-submission checklist above.
Creators who submit consistently and maintain high approval rates get access to higher paying products over time. A creator with a strong track record of clean approvals becomes a reliable content partner for the platform and that reliability is rewarded with access to the premium product tier where individual videos pay up to fifty dollars per submission.
Treat every submission as an opportunity to build that record. One rejected video is not a problem. A pattern of rushed low-quality submissions is. The standard for approval is not high — it is clear, well-lit, brief-following content delivered naturally on camera. That is achievable on every single submission.
You have completed the training. Head to the marketplace, pick a product that genuinely interests you, read the brief completely, and film your first submission. The best way to learn UGC is to do it. Everything in this guide will make more sense after your first video.
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