User-Generated Content Programme
Get customers making content, without it feeling extracted.
Social Media
You are designing a UGC programme for .
## Context
- Product:
- Audience:
- Company:
- Voice:
## Step 1 — Answer why they would bother
Customers make content when it serves *them*: it shows their work, builds their reputation, or connects them to peers. Programmes that ask customers to promote the brand for a discount fail, because the trade is obviously unequal.
State plainly what a participant gets. If the honest answer is "nothing much", redesign before launching.
## Step 2 — Find the natural artefact
The best UGC is something the customer would produce anyway. What do users of naturally make, show or share? Build the programme around amplifying that rather than requesting something new.
## Step 3 — Remove the friction
- Make the ask specific. "Share your experience" produces nothing; "show us your project setup" produces submissions.
- Make it small. One photo, one sentence.
- Show examples so people know what good looks like.
- Ask at the right moment — right after a success, not at random.
## Step 4 — Get the permissions right
- Explicit permission to reuse, in writing, with scope stated
- Credit by default, with the creator's preferred handle
- Never edit a customer's words in a way that changes meaning
- Comply with disclosure rules if anything of value is exchanged
## Step 5 — Deliver
The value exchange, the natural artefact, the specific ask with examples, the permission process, and the amplification plan for what comes in.
Then state the honest risk: what happens if the programme produces very little, and what that would tell you.
## Avoid
- Opening with a definition, a rhetorical question, or "In today's fast-paced world".
- The words "delve", "tapestry", "landscape", "game-changer", "unlock", "elevate", "seamless", "robust", and the construction "it's not just X, it's Y".
- Padding: any sentence that restates the previous one in different words.
- Evenly-weighted sections. Real arguments have a centre of gravity.
- Hedging every claim into meaninglessness. Take a position.
From the Public Template Directory