Also called UGC
User-generated content is content made by customers or audience members rather than by the brand, and increasingly commissioned by brands in that style.
The term now covers two different things. Organic UGC is genuinely unprompted — a customer posts a photo because they wanted to. Commissioned UGC is made to order by a creator, in the visual language of an unprompted post, for a brand to run as advertising.
The second has become a distinct job. UGC creators are paid for the footage rather than for their audience, which means the work is accessible without a following — a meaningful difference from influencer marketing.
Rights are the recurring dispute. Reposting a customer's photo without permission is a copyright issue regardless of whether they tagged you.
In practice
A skincare brand paying a creator for six unbranded-looking clips to run as ads is buying UGC, not audience access.
Common mistake
Reposting customer photos without asking. Being tagged is not a licence, and the correction is public.
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