How to write a UGC brief creators actually follow

Most briefs fail the same way. They are long, they describe the brand instead of the video, and they are written in the brand’s voice, so the creator either ignores them or reads them out loud and sounds like an ad. The brief that gets followed is short, structural and written the way the creator would say it. On HourlyUGC the brief is a form with a styles section at its heart, and this post is how to fill it so the first upload is the one you approve.

The brief is a form, top to bottom

When you create a campaign you do not write a document. You fill a form: the campaign name, who can join, how creators get paid, any compensation on top, the styles to film, and the products if you want samples or buy & rebate on it. Each field is a decision a creator can read at a glance in the campaign room. The order matters, because it is the order she reads it in: what this is, whether she can get in, what it pays, what to film, what she gets to use.

Everything a creator needs to film should be inside the styles. Brand background, tone words and lists of do’s and don’ts belong in one short paragraph at most. If a rule matters, it goes into a beat; if it does not fit in a beat, ask whether it matters.

A style is a shape, not a script

A style is a reusable shape of a video: a name, a hook pattern, three to five beats in order, a close, and one reference video. You collect a handful of them in the brief, up to twenty, and the creator films the shape with your words. The difference from a script is that nothing is read out. The hook is a pattern she says her way; the beats are what has to happen, in order; the close is how it ends.

The hooks are written with blanks: {product}, {benefit}, {audience}. The form fills them from the campaign, so a starter like “Don’t buy {product} until you watch this” reads with your product in it, and the creator sees a line she can actually say rather than a brand sentence she has to translate.

Three ways to add a style

• Starters. The house library of organic formats that repeat on TikTok and Instagram, each with a plain line on why it works. The names tell you the shape: POV, 3 things, Don’t buy until, GRWM, Before / after, Unboxing, Problem to solution, Day in the life, Wish I knew sooner, This or that, Silent demo, Storytime.
• From a video. Paste one of your own winners, or a competitor’s, and the extractor names its structure: the hook pattern, the beats, the close. It structures, it never writes: the words stay yours and the creator’s.
• Blank. Type the shape yourself when you know exactly what you want. Keep the same anatomy: hook, beats, close, reference.

Writing beats that get filmed

A beat is one thing the creator does, in the order it happens. “Open on the moment, phone in hand, no intro” is a beat. “Convey authenticity and trust” is not. Read the starters for the register: they say what is in frame, what is said, and what is shown instead of described. Three beats is enough for most products; five is the ceiling the form allows, and the fifth is usually the close trying to be a beat.

1. Say what is in frame first. The product, the hands, the mirror, the box. Creators frame a shot from the first noun.
2. One line of speech per beat at most. If a beat needs a paragraph, it is two beats.
3. Show, do not describe. “Show it in use, honest” beats a sentence about results, and it keeps the video out of claim territory.
4. End on the creator. The closes in the starters land on her face or her verdict, not on a logo. That is what the feed rewards.

What the creator sees, and what you see back

In the campaign room the styles are chips, each opening its card: the hook, the beats, the close, the reference video. In an hourly session you can send a hired creator the specific styles to film, so the session has a list to work through. In a per-video campaign every creator in the pool reads the same styles and picks the one she films. Either way, when the video arrives in your Submissions lane it comes with the script that rode the upload, so you review the take against the shape it was meant to follow.

That last part is where briefs pay back. Request changes becomes precise: “beat three, show it in use” instead of “make it more engaging”. Approvals get faster because you are checking a structure, and the creator learns your shape by the second upload. If you are paying per video, that is money you do not spend on declines; the hourly versus per video post covers which model suits a tight brief.

A brief that works in both directions

The same styles serve two readers. The creator reads them to film. Your team reads them to judge, and later to build ads: a video filmed as “Problem to solution” with a clean close is already an ad with a primary text and a call to action. Approved videos sit in the Library with their styles, so when you open Build Ads you can pick by the shape that is working, as described in from approved video to live ad.

If you want a starting point, the brief templates page has the starter styles written out with the blanks explained, and the briefs and scheduling page shows the form itself. For a product that needs to be in the creator’s hands before filming, pair the brief with samples or buy & rebate, covered in buy & rebate UGC campaigns.

The one-paragraph test

Before you publish, read your brief as the creator would, on a phone, between two other campaigns. Can she tell in one screen what to film, how it opens and how it ends? Would she say the hook out loud without changing a word? Is every rule inside a beat? If the answer to all three is yes, the first upload will be close, and the second will be the one you keep.