Your audience may already be making videos about your brand — you just haven't found them yet. This episode of VID.co digs into the untapped potential of user-generated video content (UGC), explaining why customer-created videos outperform polished brand ads and, more importantly, what marketers can do to generate more of them on purpose. The discussion is drawn from the team's in-depth guide on encouraging user-generated video content, translated here into an actionable listen.

The episode walks through five concrete approaches any brand can put to work, covering everything from discovery to incentivisation:

• Listen before you ask. Social listening tools like Hootsuite, Mention, and Keyhole can surface existing brand mentions — and reveal whether the customer experience is ready to be showcased before you launch any campaign.
• Design moments worth recording. Remarkable packaging, memorable events, and genuinely satisfying onboarding give customers a natural reason to hit record — no campaign prompt required.
• Reach out to your most loyal customers directly. High-engagement customers are already recommending your brand in private; a personal, specific invitation is often all it takes to turn that into shareable video.
• Create real incentives. Contests, discount codes, early product access, and other tangible rewards dramatically increase submission volume — and setting clear guidelines means the content you receive is actually usable.
• Show people what "good" looks like. A simple example video removes creative friction, giving contributors a format, tone, and length to match so submissions come back closer to what you need.

A thread running through all five strategies is the reminder that great UGC is a symptom of a great customer experience — brands can't shortcut the underlying work with a clever campaign. The episode also flags an easily missed legal point: discovering that someone has made a video about your brand is not the same as having permission to repurpose it; explicit approval is always required before resharing.

If video content for a specific sector is on your radar, check out the episode 4 Video Types That Sell Best for Fashion and Beauty for a complementary deep dive into format strategy.

VID.co