User-Generated Content Campaigns

We just built the largest UGC program ever. We hit 500M views in 60 days and it was all built by a 19 y/o kid. In July, I saw Cluely dominate with UGC creators. 300M views in 90 days at sub-dollar CPM. The numbers seemed impossible. So I hired a 19-year-old student who'd been making content for three months to build out our UGC program. Two months later, he built the most successful UGC program in our space. 500M views. That's roughly 10% of people online seeing content about Wispr Flow. Here's the playbook he used: 1/ Give creators real autonomy (or they'll leave) Most companies kill UGC programs by micromanaging everything. We gave creators full creative freedom for half their content. Make whatever viral content you want about Wispr. Your account, your voice, your style. We had creators turn down Amazon and Notion because we let them stay creative. They didn't feel like they were selling out. They controlled their content and stayed authentic. 2/ Build a viral replication system We have 70 creators making content daily. We monitor everything in real-time. The moment we see a video hitting 1M+ views in the first day, we extract that exact script and send it to every creator. One viral video becomes 70 viral videos simultaneously. 3/ Get extremely specific with your hooks The part most companies fail at: they give vague guidance. We built a library of specific, tactical hooks. Not concepts - actual frameworks they can use. Example: "Use a really complicated name in your message. Something like Saoirse or Tchaikovsky. When Wispr gets it right, act genuinely shocked." This shows a specific feature, fits organically into any content format they're making, creates real emotion, and has just enough brand presence without feeling salesy. Creators pick what fits their style and the content they're already making. 4/ Be ruthlessly selective When we launched the program, 1,000 creators applied. We picked 60. Quality over quantity matters more than people think. One great creator who actually understands your product is worth ten mediocre ones who are just chasing a check. You're not building a contractor list - you're building a community. A 19-year-old beat companies spending millions on UGC. The difference wasn't budget. It was letting creators actually create. — Written with Wispr Flow

Want to do employee-generated content but have no idea where to start? 😳 You’re not alone - it’s come up in nearly every conversation I’ve had with B2B brands in the last few months. EGC can be a great tool for building trust and expanding reach on LinkedIn, but it also needs to be tailored to your people and your business. Asking them to “just post” and expecting immediate results won’t get you very far. (Copy-and-paste templates won’t either 👀) Here’s where I tell brands to start 👇 — 1️⃣ Education ↳ Run workshops showing them what good looks like, how the algorithm behaves, and some mistakes to avoid. Providing prompts is also a great way to get people started if they’re struggling to know what to talk about and need a springboard. 2️⃣ Alignment ↳ Different teams need different levels of support. If people are already posting organically, launching a competition or leaderboard campaign could help build momentum and add some structure. If that’s not the case, you might have better luck starting with a few willing voices and helping them set the standard so that others can follow. 💡 If you’re looking for inspo, Giulia de Oliveira Camargo ran a really cool initiative over at Chameleon: https://lnkd.in/e8ktc7RB 3️⃣ Incentives ↳ It’s not all about money. There are so many benefits that come from posting on LinkedIn, not just for the company but for them too (stronger connections, personal brand, opportunities to speak on panels etc.) If they’re fully bought into the “why”, they’ll be much more likely to stick with it and reap the rewards. 4️⃣ Data There’s not much point in launching an initiative like this if you can’t measure whether it works. Tracking performance by individual and by team helps you understand what’s landing, where people might need additional support, and how the program is influencing engagement overall. 💡 Tools like SocialKit make this so much easier, and give you data you can share internally - I’ve used it before for employee advocacy reporting and love what they're building over there! (#ad #partner) — If you’ve ran an EGC program, what did you learn from the process? Let’s chat in the comments 💬

Hands, smiles, and real users: Boosting beauty Sales. Mirror neurons are behind most successful beauty launches… the subtle power of hands, smiles, and real users in their visuals are the KEY. In a fragmented attention economy, this human touch builds trust, drives emotional engagement, and boosts sales, making visual storytelling a business necessity. >>SMILES: The universal signal of trust<< Genuine smiles convey approachability, satisfaction, and confidence, linking products to positive experiences, fostering trust, and enhancing brand relatability. Consumer psychology shows that smiling faces activate mirror neurons, creating empathy and emotional connection. For beauty brands, this boosts a product’s emotional appeal, especially for items where the mouth is a focal point, like lipsticks or skincare. +90% of consumers state that authenticity is important when deciding which brands to support. +64% of Gen Z consumers are more inclined to purchase a product after watching a review from a content creator or influencer they follow. >>HANDS: Intimacy, application, and authenticity<< Hands play a crucial role in the visual language of beauty marketing. Whether applying a cream, swatching a foundation, or showing the texture of a serum, the inclusion of hands brings a tactile and intimate dimension to product demonstrations. Hands in beauty visuals do more than demonstrate function, they help consumers imagine real-life use. Featuring diverse skin tones, nail styles, and hand shapes promotes inclusivity, while close-up application shots on platforms like Instagram and TikTok consistently drive high engagement. +29% conversion rates by UGC with hands-on demonstrations. +28% engagement rate has UGC in their social media strategy. >>REAL: Everyday people<< The rise of UGC and influencer marketing has shifted the beauty industry away from polished perfection toward relatability. Featuring real users, especially those who reflect the diversity of the target audience, builds authenticity and drives peer-based credibility. Today’s beauty shoppers want to see products on people who reflect their own skin tone, texture, and concerns. This demand drives the popularity of tutorials, testimonials, and before-and-after content, boosting trust and increasing conversion rates. +73% in purchase intent for UGC-based ads compared to traditional ads. +83% female Gen Z consumers in the U.S. have purchased beauty and personal care items online due to content from social media creators. Conclusion. Human elements, smiles, hands, and relatable faces, stand out by adding authenticity. They don’t just enhance visuals; they build trust, drive engagement, and help consumers believe in the products. Find my curated search of examples and get inspired for your next hero! Featured brands: Bubble Chanel Commodity Juice Glowery Krem Monday Mondo Mondo Rare Beauty Rhode Rocc #beautybusiness #beautyprofessinlas #luxurybusiness #luxuryprofessionals

The Blueprint: How to Build an Employee Ambassador Programme Every company will tell you their people are their biggest asset. But if you look closely, most treat them like a line on a balance sheet, not a path in their brand story. And there lies the problem. We're in an era where audiences don’t just want to see what a company does, they want to understand who’s behind it, what they believe in, and how they show up in the world. That’s why Employee Ambassadors matter. Because their voice creates both. And just like any marketing channel, their impact is exponential when it’s built with intention. Here’s my top level blueprint I wish every brand had: 1️⃣ Identify your natural storytellers Every business has them, your culture carriers, A-players, internal influencers. You don’t need everyone posting, just empower those who already live your values and can translate them externally. 2️⃣ Provide frameworks, not scripts People connect with voices, not scripted copy. Give your team clarity on what stories matter, not pre-approved captions. Define key themes and moments and let them share through their own perspective. 3️⃣ Teach storytelling as a brand skill Storytelling isn’t a “nice-to-have”, it’s a competitive advantage. If your team can clearly explain what you do, why it matters, and who it helps, you’ve built an organic marketing engine. Lead learning and development workshops on finding your voice, storytelling and delivery. Give them the tools and they’ll give you the content. 4️⃣ Recognise and reward visibility We celebrate sales and KPIs, but rarely celebrate the people who build trust equity for the brand. Visibility *is* brand contribution. When employees grow an audience or earn industry credibility, the whole business benefits. Acknowledge it. Incentivise it. Celebrate it. Build it into culture. 5️⃣ Build a two-way feedback loop The best advocacy systems work both ways. Leaders give visibility, employees bring insight back. That exchange keeps both sides accountable, aligned, and moving in the same direction. It prevents disconnects, ensures consistency, and turns advocacy into a source of growth - not risk. 🤝 When this system is implemented, your people become living extensions of your brand’s promise. And collectively, they build something no campaign ever could: human trust at scale. Employee Ambassadors don’t just grow your audience, they grow your authority.  Next week, I’ll unpack the business advantage - how visibility turns into real commercial value. Drop your questions, thoughts, challenges below! - 👋 I’m Grace Andrews - brand & marketing educator, creator-entrepreneur, and former Brand Director for Steven Bartlett & The Diary of a CEO. This is post 3/6 of my new series Inside Voices, exploring the rise of the Employee Ambassador and how they’re reshaping modern marketing. Hit Follow to stay informed! - I'm sharing a post every week unpacking how they’re changing the way brands grow, hire, and lead.

Employee generated content is on fire right now, and based on strong signals coming out of Cannes last week, I think we’re on the precipice of two major shifts in EGC-ville: One, EGC is graduating from nice-to-have into legitimate growth channel. Expect bigger budgets and deeper integrations with paid media strategies. Two, employee creators want their bag. This will probably translate to more robust JD’s, contracts, NIL agreements, and compensation structures. (Baby steps at first, but we’re getting there). Some important context here is that last week at Cannes, Starbucks unveiled a new pilot project developed in conjunction with TikTok (it’ll be a part of TT’s Content Suite), aptly named “Creator Network”. And what makes this program more noteworthy than the wealth of other EGC programs is that they’re compensating employee creators via ad revenue sharing. This is huge! To be fair, there is very little information currently available about the level of compensation, who will be eligible, and what terms employee creators have to agree to, so I’m reserving my full analysis until I see receipts. But this sets an important precedent, and signals to other companies with massive marketing budgets that internal advocates should be leveraged and valued appropriately. I sense a bit of a reckoning with employees (rightfully) expecting more incentive than company swag or pizza parties in exchange for their deep product knowledge translated into engaging social content. Because let’s be honest, the reason companies want employees to leverage their personal brands and close network ties to promote their missions, visions, and products is because it works exceptionally well — and if there’s clear advantage and economic gains for the company, those should also extend to the employees. At Slate EGC is a part of our job, not a surprise add-on that got foisted on us. We analyze and ideate and create content on the clock because it operates in service of the business. I have high hopes that 2026 is the year more companies come to realize that employees are key drivers of brand awareness, worthy of budget, bag, and big respect.

We generated ~6M LinkedIn impressions from executive content this past quarter. Here’s why Clay invested in this channel and how ultimately we think about it: Problem we have to solve: As a marketing team, we support both our sales-led and self-serve motion. Because of that, we have multiple different types of personas that we need to serve. The problem is all of these core personas spend time on one channel, which is LinkedIn. What do you do when you need to increase awareness in other personas, but everyone still primarily consumes content in one channel? Hypothesis: People want to learn from real operators. Leveraging the brand authority and knowledge of our internal executives will enable us to increase awareness with more vertical audiences. Implementation: 1. Map our core personas on Self-Serve and Sales-led. Clay’s end user is go-to-market engineers, ops, and growth. For this persona we invested in Everett's (Head of GTM Engineer) and Davide’s (Head of Growth) profile. Marketing and Revenue leaders are executive buyers in every deal. We invested in my profile, Varun, and Rob (Head of Sales Development). We also added Todd (Enterprise Sales) after he joined us, and Becca (Head of Sales) is going to ramp soon. Varun and Kareem naturally attract the founder persona. Together, we’ve added 80k new followers so far. 2. Ok, but how do you get executives to actually post? Everyone knows that this is important, the difficult part is getting people to post. After trial and error, here’s the model that worked: - It needs to be a core metric for awareness targets. Your team needs to be accountable for growing this surface area - Bring someone to actually lead this function. In our case, we have the one and only Sarah leading this. - Leverage contractors like Alec and Good Content to scale this motion. - Build a weekly cadence for people to post. Weekly meetings and ongoing Slack messages to get posts out. 3. Establish a high bar for helpful content. We don’t want anyone publishing slop. The good thing about having operators writing their own content is that they can always ask themselves - “am I actually learning anything from this?” If the answer is no, you should not post it. Learnings: - You have to have this as a topline awareness goal to make it work. Otherwise, you won’t feel the need to execute this motion. - Getting executives to write will always be the bottleneck. You need to have someone who’s borderline annoying to ensure this moves forward. - Executives will understand the value once they start to see results. Things will feel smooth after that. Have any questions about LinkedIn + Exec Content? AMA in the comments.

There is an insider joke in the Meta campaign optimization. Whatever we try, scaling or cost reduction, all the roads will lead to one point sooner or later. Optimize the creatives. Over the last year, I have seen one repeatable success tactic across all the clients I work with. Partnership Ads. They have achieved incremental reach and better engagement when we tried partnership ads. CPA reduced for most campaigns after adding one or two partnership ads. If you haven't tried it yet, you must try it. Not sure how long this will work. There is just one catch, though. While making partnership creative ads, make it creator first, than brand first. Keep at least 30% to 50% of the initial part of the creative in line with the creative's content format. When you run the partnership ads, Meta first pushes those ads to the creator's followers. Hence, the above recommendation. Pro tip: Choose the creative concept from the creator's best/viral content to increase the creative success.

While collaborating with 50+ brands as a creator, I have made my fair share of mistakes and learnt a lot from each experience. Here’s what worked and what didn’t – Most creators follow this exact cycle: The brand would send a deck → Run it through ChatGPT → Add a bit of personality → Send the script back for approval This generates a soulless piece of content with zero relatability and conversions. One of the very first lessons I learnt the hard way was – Don’t create without using the product yourself. If you haven’t used the product, you don’t really know what you’re creating. When I first started getting brand deals, I used to follow the brief word-for-word. Once, I wrote a script for a feature that didn’t even exist in the product variant I was sent. The deck they shared was for a different creator. Imagine how silly that would’ve looked if I’d gone ahead and posted it. Thankfully I caught it in time, rewrote everything from scratch, and made sure to test the product thoroughly myself. So now I have evolved my processes and set my standard rules. Here are a few other hard lessons I’ve picked up along the way: —> Don’t start until you have a signed contract. Never fall for a WhatsApp message or a ‘sending soon’ email. Get the deliverables, dates, money terms, everything in writing before you begin. —> Speak up for your audience. Brands are paying you, but don’t end up as a puppet. Communicate your vision, suggest ideas, take multiple calls if needed. You know what works for your audience better than any agency deck ever will. —> Don’t undervalue yourself. Initially I was posting on Instagram, LinkedIn, X, and even doing community shoutouts for a fraction of what it was worth. I didn’t even realise I was undercharging. To avoid this, talk to other creators, get a sense of industry rates (based on more than just follower count), and quote what feels fair to you. I’m still learning as I go, but I hope this helps budding creators avoid the confusion I once had. Have more questions on this?  Shoot below, I would love to help! P.S. Follow me at Drishti Sharma for more such content on content creation, creator’s life and creator economy. #drishtiispeaks #content #creator #brandcollabs

One of the strongest employee advocacy programs I've seen is from Wiz. They understood the potential reach of their employees: 2,400,000 potential reach vs. 190,000 company followers..it’s a no-brainer. They've shared the 9 steps that makes their employee advocacy programme successful: 1.⁠ ⁠Spoon-feed employees Wiz make it as easy as possible for the team by providing graphics and caption options. I'm not sure how I feel about this because I think employees should have the freedom to post what they choose but sharing options instead of "post this, please" is a better way to do it. 2.⁠ ⁠Run internal contests Contests drive engagement and build excitement. We’ve trialled this at Great Influence before, and it’s great for projects. 3.⁠ ⁠Create a club for super-advocates Wiz has a Slack channel called "Wizinfluencers" who get exclusive access to company updates and contests, a great idea to get employees to feel part of the impact. 4.⁠ ⁠Spotlight employees in official posts Everyone loves recognition and tagging employees in company posts is a simple but meaningful way to reward people. Sometimes a “Well done” is all I need to get through a hard week 😂 5.⁠ ⁠Host LinkedIn workshops The Wiz team have LinkedIn workshops with Tom Orbach, Head of Growth Marketing at Wiz, and employees can book 1:1s with him. This is the part companies are missing, finding an expert to help employees with advocacy. 6.⁠ ⁠Write custom posts for VIPs Wiz has a process for high-impact leaders to request ghostwritten content for important posts, like job openings or major announcements. 7.⁠ ⁠Equip the team with AI tools Tom, Head of Growth Marketing, helped the company build a custom 'Wizard Post Generator,' an internal AI-powered tool built for employees to auto-create personalised LinkedIn content. 8.⁠ ⁠Always Engage Whenever an employee posts about Wiz, the company page always comments. Rule number one of LinkedIn…if you see a team member post, you have to engage with it 🤷🏼♀️ 9.⁠ ⁠Foster the right culture At the end of the day, you can't make employees post online. The start of this process shouldn't be "How can I get employees to post more?", it should be "What can we do to make employees feel like they want to advocate for us?" Employee advocacy isn’t about making people post, it’s about creating a culture where they want to. Wiz and Tom Orbach have set the bar high, and releasing these 9 steps is a great insight (I’ll link the full breakdown in the comments!) 👏🏻

One engineer’s casual LinkedIn update just beat the comms team’s entire quarter. No slick graphics. No approvals. Just a real story and 10× more traction. That’s the power of Employee-Generated Content. And most CEOs are still sleeping on it. A client CEO recently told me: “Our engineer posted about solving a customer issue. His post got more visibility than anything our marketing team had put out all quarter. I was impressed… but lowkey unsettled.” That tension is valid — but it’s also the moment to lean in, not pull back. When you support Employee-Generated Content (EGC) with the right structure, it becomes a force multiplier: ✅ 3x more trusted than corporate messaging ✅ 8x higher engagement ✅ 10x broader reach through employee networks ✅ +27% online engagement and +19% sales growth in EGC-powered brands ✅ 21% higher profitability in teams that feel empowered to speak Silence doesn’t protect your brand. It limits it. CEOs who win in this era enable their people to post with clarity, creativity, and confidence—not chaos. That’s what I help leadership teams do: build smart, culture-sensitive systems that unlock employee voices without losing brand alignment. If your team’s voice isn’t visible, your brand is only half-present. Let’s change that. #CEOLeadership #EmployeeAdvocacy #BrandTrust #EmployeeGeneratedContent #StrategicComms #BrandElevate