UGC and working with creators
Past a certain point the limits of filming everything yourself become visible: your time runs out, your face and style repeat, the audience stops widening. The answer is other people making content about your app.
Two different things need separating:
- UGC (user-generated content) — content users make of their own accord. Free, the most credible, but not controllable
- Creator collaboration — you pay for the content (in money or a free subscription). Controllable, but it costs money and requires disclosure
Both rest on the same principle: a recommendation from someone else's mouth beats your own advertising. This is one of the oldest and most stable laws in marketing.
How to increase UGC. UGC does not appear by asking, but you can make it easier:
- Create a shareable moment. If your app has a moment that displays a result ("40 minutes → 8 lines"), make it worth screenshotting: clean, legible, branded
- Put the share button on the result screen — not on some later screen
- Notice and amplify existing UGC. If someone made a video about your app, comment, repost, say thanks. That encourages both them and everyone watching
- Give the content a template. Show users' results in your own videos — when people see a repeatable format, they make their own
Choosing creators — fit, not follower count. A generalist creator with 500,000 followers does not reach your ICP. A creator with 8,000 followers who talks about student life is exactly your audience. Smaller creators are both cheaper and closer to their audience.
Selection criteria:
- Is their audience my ICP? — far more important than follower count
- Are the comments alive? — a large account with no comments is a weak signal
- Have they promoted apps before, and how? — if it looked like an ad, the result was weak too
| The brief must contain | The brief must not contain | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Who the ICP is and what problem they have | A word-for-word script | The creator knows their audience better than you do |
| The one core benefit of the app | A list of every feature | One video carries one idea |
| Things that must not be said (false promises) | Tone and style instructions | The creator's own style is why the video works |
| A requirement to disclose the partnership | Any request to hide the disclosure | Platforms require paid partnerships to be disclosed |
| One number that will be measured | A demand that it "go viral" | Virality is an outcome, not an assignment |
Disclosure is mandatory. Both TikTok and Meta's platforms require paid partnerships to be labelled and provide a tool for it. Hiding it breaks platform rules and, in many countries, advertising law. There is practical harm too: when hidden advertising surfaces, both the creator's credibility and yours are lost. Check the specific requirements on the platforms' own help pages — the rules change.
Practice. Find ten small creators your ICP follows (5,000-50,000 followers). Score each on the three criteria: audience fit, liveliness of comments, previous app promotions. Done means: you have picked three of the ten and written a brief for them — a brief, not a script.
📚 Sources and documentation
- TikTok for Businessads.tiktok.com
The platform's official information on creator collaboration and paid content.
- TikTok Creator Academytiktok.com
How a partnership looks from the creator's side — useful when writing a brief.
- Instagram: how to growcreators.instagram.com
Instagram's own material on creator partnerships.
- Meta Business Helpfacebook.com
Official requirements for labelling paid partnerships — check here, since the rules change.