The Power of User-Generated Content for Coaches and Creators with Megan Collier

The power of User generated content for coaches and creators with Megan Collier. Welcome back to the PT Profit Podcast. My name is Chris and I'm giving you your intro plus some context as to how we connected with Megan. So I am a giant podcast nerd and I actually heard her on a podcast that I tend to listen to. It's called the side Hustle Show. And what I found was that Megan's skill set within helping people leverage user generated content complemented the fitness, the wellness space really, really well. She has a lot of expertise and experience that she can share with you. And so without further ado, we're just going to dive right in. You get to learn from Seattle based Megan Collier on user generated content. Let's get started.

Megan, thank you for joining me on the show today. How are you doing?

Absolutely. I am great. How are you?

I'm doing so good. Where are you in the world? I forgot to ask before we hit record.

Yeah, I'm in the Seattle area, just south of Seattle.

Okay, nice. Love it. With that said, can you tell me a little bit about or tell us a little bit about who you are, who you serve and how you got.

Yeah, for sure. So I am a content creator. I have been doing content creation for a little over two and a half years. I was working a full time job and kind of looked for a side hustle and I, I found out about something called ugc, which is just a type of content creation. So it stands for user generated content. Basically in a nutshell, UGC creators get paid to create content for companies that they then just take that content and use for their own purposes instead of, you know, having to be an influencer with thousands and thousands of followers. It kind of opens up the door for people with small followings who still want to work with brands to do exactly that. So I've been doing that for two and a half years, taught over 8,000 people how to do it, and it's just been a really fun journey.

Okay, amazing. So with that said, can you. Did you have a background in content creation? Like how did you get there?

Yeah, I kind of taught myself over the years. I've tried a lot of random things, side hustles and everything. So yeah, I kind of taught myself social media and then I worked for a company doing some like Instagram posts and everything. I've done like travel content and it kind of just made my way through doing this. But when I started ugc, I had never done a UGC style video before.

What kind of videos were you doing?

I Was working for a medical device company. So I was doing, like, I was going to their warehouse or their facilities and like, recording them and then uploading it on. On Instagram.

Okay, how did you learn how to do content? Were you doing YouTube University? Did you go to school? How did you discover you had a passion for content, for creating content?

Yeah, it kind of just snowballed. I think that I probably started on YouTube and I always. It was always like this mystery to me of, like, how are people actually making money with content creation? And like, how, like, how do you even start doing that? So I had gone down a bunch of rabbit holes. I didn't really buy any courses on content creation. I just usually just would pull out my phone or a camera that I bought and just started messing around with it. It started on like, imovie back in the day. And then, yeah, I just kind of taught myself, which was a good way to do it because I learned a lot. Okay, amazing.

So now what are some of the things. So are you working with brands? Like, do you create commercials? Like, what are some of the actual ways that you monetize content creation?

Yeah, so I do work with brands. So basically how it works is ugc. Like I said, you don't need followers, but tons of brands, as we maybe all know, but often forget, I think, how much content they really need on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly basis. So all the brands that you follow, whether it's like pet companies, whether it's fitness, companies like that sell a bunch of fitness products, whatever it is, these brands all need an alarming amount of content. So one way that they keep up with that demand of content is by hiring UGC creators. Because, again, you're just gonna get the product if it is a physical product or say it's like a fitness app or something like that. Tons of fitness apps do UGC and hire UGC creators. So what they'll do is you'll connect with that brand. Whether it's an app, a physical product, you'll connect with them. Whether that's, you know, sending a portfolio that you have or your socials that you have with some other content, they can kind of get a feel of, like, who you are. Do you fit the kind of person that they're trying to, you know, market to, and you'll negotiate with them, communicate with them, and then they'll send you the physical product. If it is a physical product, you'll create videos that they tell you. Kind of like, we need three Instagram reels, or we want to run ads for our new product that we just launched. So you'll create the videos, send it to them and then again they'll just take it and use it for those purposes on their own socials or their own social media ads.

So who was the first brand that you worked with? Like how did this start from you? How did you take this into a side hustle and then actually start like were you actively pursuing relationships or was it something that you accidentally like they someone saw you, discovered you type of experience?

Yeah, for sure. So I had, I was scrolling on TikTok randomly one day like a lot of us do and I heard about UGC and it made sense to me. So really one of the first steps that I kind of gathered all this information based on TikTok searches and people I was following who was, who were doing UGC was step one is like create a portfolio. So that's what I did. I went to Canva and I created a really basic, really simple portfolio. Had basic information about myself, nothing fancy. Took me, I think a day to do. And then I took products around my house and created video examples about those products. So I don't go, I didn't go out and like buy anything that I didn't need. It was very simple. I think I had like cat treats, some toys that we had bought our son from Amazon. And I just did a few simple videos, like 60 second long videos, four total. I put inside my Canva portfolio. I hit publish and then I started reaching out to brands, like just going crazy reaching out to brands, emailing them, DMing them. And then on about day 10, about a week and a half into my UGC journey after that I had a brand say yes to me. So they wanted to hop on a call with me and they. So I did the next day and they hired me for five UGC videos talking about their app. So it's called the captions app, kind of like a video editing software that I just happened to email. And yeah, they hired me and they paid me like $750 for five super simple videos that took me about less than two hours to do.

Okay, so this is amazing. I have so many questions. Number one, my questions are, did you start it with TikTok shop because now or was this pre TikTok shop and would you recommend going the TikTok shop way because it sounds very similar to creating essentially a TikTok shop profile?

Yeah, great question. This is totally pre TikTok shop. That wasn't even a thing because it was, I think about summer of 2022 when I got started. So TikTok shop came later on, wasn't even a thing. Nobody knew that that was even coming. So TikTok shop affiliate, like I have done a ton of TikTok shop affiliate videos. I've made some money with it. The great thing though, that I'll kind of explain the difference between TikTok Shop Affiliate and UGC because that is a really common question because it does sound the same, right? As a TikTok shop affiliate, you are generating the content, so you are doing user generated content. However, the structure of how you get paid and what it looks like is a little different. So a TikTok shop affiliate, if people are hearing this and don't know exactly still what that is, you are essentially you're creating a TikTok account. Whether it's your one that you have right now or it's a new one that you create. You need a certain number of followers. For a while it was 5,000 and then it was 1,000 and now I think it's back to 5,000. So you need a certain number of followers to be qualified to get approved as a TikTok Shop affiliate, whereas with UGC you don't need that because again, you're not posting it to your own account. So to go back to TikTok Shop affiliate, you're going to create an account, you're going to, you know, maybe try to get some free samples if you do get approved. And the only way that you're going to get paid typically nine times out of 10, is if you post a video about the product, you upload it, it gets a good number of views, people watch it, people click your specific link in that video, they purchase it and you get a commission, which is typically like 10%.

But that's a lot of hoops.

That is a lot of, it's a.

Lot of work for pennies. Unless you're viral consistently.

What was that?

Unless you're viral consistently.

Exactly. And I think like anything else, you know, it'll take consistency. And I know so many people that make a ton of Money with, with TikTok Shopify, it's a fantastic way. However, I think a lot of people struggle with that initial, like, oh my gosh, I have to put out what, 50 to 100 videos before I make a good chunk of money with TikTok Shop affiliate. So I'm not saying it's a bad idea. But what I see now is a lot of TikTok shop affiliates, especially those just starting out, also want to do UGC because even if your video, even if you do a video for a brand talking about their product and it's similar to a TikTok shop style video, they're still going to pay you a chunk of money that you agreed upon. Right? So even if I get hired by a company to create a short video and they take it, they post it on their own Instagram account and it gets 300 views, that's not really on me. They're still obligated to pay me like 400 or 500 bucks or whatever I charge them. So that's kind of the great thing about UGC is that you don't need to have a certain number of followers because most people don't on TikTok, they have like 10 followers and they don't know what they're doing on TikTok, so they, they don't have that yet. So starting with UGC and learning what kind of content brands want and need for their own purposes will simultaneously help you become a better TikTok shop affiliate in the future, if that's something you want to do.

Okay, amazing. So what are some of the best practices that you would recommend for someone who is interested in starting to create a UGC experience or business side hustle even? We'll call it a side hustle business. Like what are. Let's. Like, would you, do you think that there needs to be a level of talent or around video editing, around software, around video creation? Like if you were to take someone from start to finish, where would you have them start and what would it look like?

For sure. So that's most of the people that I've taught and by the way, most of my students. This is a random thing, but most of my students are actually Gen Xers and baby boomers. My mom was kind of the inspiration for that. My mom is now doing UGC at 64 years old with 0% experience in social media. Had one post on her Instagram. So yes, I am. I, I can totally walk you through this exact thing because this is what I do. So if you are brand spanking new to the content creation world and you want to get into ugc, there's a few main like steps you got to take. So number one is view some UGC example videos. You can do this several ways. I have a portfolio that we can link up if you want. I have dozens of videos in there. My TikTok has videos. But you could also search UGC example videos just to get like a visual on the kind of content you will be creating. As a, as a UGC creator. Once you get that and you kind of understand what you're going to be doing, the next step is to create a portfolio which tends to like freak people out and, and intimidate people. But it doesn't have to be that kind of a, kind of a process. So what I recommend, what I did two and a half years ago was I hopped on Canva. Even if you've never used Canva before, it's pretty easy to figure out, pretty beginner friendly. So go on Canva, type in website portfolio and then you're going to want to choose some type of template that is a website, not a presentation that looks good that you think you could, okay, edit a little bit, make it look like kind of your own. Go in there, put your name at the top, put your generation followed by UGC Creator. This is super important because brands are actively searching keywords like Gen X UGC Creator or Millennial UGC Creator. Or you could even do, you know, obviously your audience is in the PT space and coaches and stuff. So you could do fitness UGC creator. Because some brands are literally looking for those keywords. So put something that kind of has that searchable searchability and then you're going to put some key things about yourself, just a quick bio. And then the biggest, most important thing to focus on in your UGC portfolio is going to be your video examples. It's just basically one place that you can send to brands so they could get to know you better and see some content. And again, if you're brand new to content creation, you're going to be like, I have no videos and I don't, I don't even, like I suck at this. And so that's most people. So I always tell people, give, like give yourself some grace. Grace is going to be like your, your new favorite word. So your first several videos are not going to be your best ones, right? Like I don't even have the first videos I have done two and a half years ago on anywhere on my portfolio because I've just naturally gotten better. So what you're going to do is go around your home just like I did. Choose products. Say that you are a personal trainer and you use a bunch of different, you know, gym equipment and you have a at home or even, even if you're at the gym and you're bringing even a specific water bottle. It can be as simple as that. Choose products that you like that you use on a consistent basis and create short videos about those products and then put them in your portfolio. Hit publish and start reaching out to brands.

Okay, amazing. So I have two questions and they're. I want to ask them. I just don't know which one to ask first. But let's. I'm going to ask the. I'm going to go the content way and then I want to talk about like contracts and negotiation. But in terms of content, you know, when you're creating your first pieces that.

You know are going to be the.

Intention for your portfolio, is there like a story framework or, or a type of content framework that you work from or that you teach people to, to create when they are shooting and editing their videos? I'm assuming you're talking about shooting and editing, correct?

Correct. Yes. Yes. So typically I like to tell people that a good mix of different types of content is ideal. So instead of you just like, you know, even if you were to order like you got things coming from Amazon, don't just do four different unboxing videos because we've all seen those unboxing videos, right? If you can do one, if you are getting something shipped to you and you can do an unboxing video, fantastic. Those work pretty well for.