This post was created in partnership with Inmar Media
Creator-led social content can add authenticity and reduce friction to keep audiences engaged, but it works best when there’s brand collaboration.
A Social Media Week session co-hosted with Inmar Media put that notion to the test in front of a live audience. The unique interactive session featured a user-generated content (UGC) creator with two special guests working in real time to capture and edit the perfect social image based on an impromptu creative brief.
The creator economy, live onstage
The session began with Heather Riccobono, senior manager, social solution engineer with Inmar Media, making the case for creator-led branded content.
“We know that most content in the social space is creator-led,” she said. “When it feels like it’s from a creator, your attention shifts innately, authentically. It’s not something that you have to pause and recognize.”
Riccobono then shared findings from a client case study in which the sales lift metric doubled when creator-led content was added.
“It’s not one or the other. They’re both equally valid. They’re both equally important,” Riccobono shared.
To test that hypothesis, Riccobono brought Hannah Lorsch, creator and photographer, to the stage and worked with the audience to put together a UGC brief. The plan: Have Lorsch plan, shoot, and edit the content, followed by a debrief, all in 25 minutes. The subject: A dog’s tug toy.
Behind every successful asset is a smart content brief
With audience input, Riccobono and Lorsch prepped a creative brief with the following guidelines:
- The image needed to convey that the product was fun and safe.
- It should project a friendly and relatable tone.
- The content style would be a lifestyle shoot.
Riccobono also set some basic guardrails, including that the image couldn’t make unverified claims, feature any competitor brands, or contain offensive imagery.
The perfect pose through a brand lens
And what better way to do a photoshoot for a puppy tug toy than to bring out an adorable puppy—and a special guest tug partner, Elias Weiss Friedman, creator and founder of The Dogist? Lorsch led the shoot, trying to set up a realistic-looking tug-of-war session between the pup and Elias while keeping the content brief’s guidance in mind.
