What is UGC?

UGC began as whatever customers posted on their own. Now it also names a trade: creators paid to film themselves with a product, usually for ads. Here’s what each is, the rules on reposting and disclosure, and what a shop, restaurant or clinic can use.

On this page

Two meanings

• Customer content. What customers post on their own: a photo of their order, a review, a tag. It costs nothing, and you can’t plan it.
• Paid UGC. A creator is paid to make videos that look like customer content, usually filmed at home with the product, and often run as ads.

Why it works

UGC looks like what people already watch: someone talking to the camera, in their own words, in a real place. It doesn’t look like an advert, so people give it a second. The same is true of a cook talking through a dish or a mechanic explaining a repair, which is why the format travels well beyond product brands.

UGC, influencers and your own films

Where paid UGC falls short for a local business

A product brand can post a bottle to a creator. A restaurant, garage or clinic can’t post its room, its grill or its team. What a local business sells is a place and the people in it, and that has to be filmed on site.

Reposting a customer’s video

A customer who films your food or your shop owns that video. Canada’s Copyright Act makes the author of a work “the first owner of the copyright therein” (Copyright Act, section 13(1)). Tagging you doesn’t hand it over. Before you repost it, or put it in an ad:

1. Ask the customer, in a comment or a message, whether you may share it, and where: your feed, your stories, your ads.
2. Keep their yes, as a screenshot or a saved message.
3. Credit them by name or handle when you post it.
4. For an ad, or anything beyond a simple share, get a written permission that says how and for how long you may use it; the Act requires an assignment of copyright to be “in writing signed by the owner of the right” (section 13(4)).

Built-in sharing and remix features differ by platform and by the creator’s own settings, and some keep the creator’s name on the post; even then, check what the creator allows and what you mean to do with it. Downloading the file and uploading it as your own, or putting it in an ad, is where a clear permission matters most.

Filming customers yourself

Handing the microphone to people in a line, or filming a regular’s order, puts real people on screen. Ask each person before you film them, tell them where the video will go, and keep a note or a signed release from anyone who is the focus of a video. Leave out anyone who says no, and anyone who is clearly a child unless a parent agrees.

Disclosure: the rules in Canada

Paying, gifting or employing someone who posts about your business creates what Canada’s advertising guidelines call a material connection. Ad Standards’ influencer disclosure guidelines, updated on 8 October 2025, define it to include “monetary or other compensation, free products with or without any conditions attached, discounts, gifts”, and “any employment relationship” (Ad Standards, Influencer Marketing Disclosure Guidelines). What that means for a local business:

• A creator you pay or feed for free discloses it in the post. The guidelines name #ad, #sponsored and #Gifted among the clear tags, and ask creators to use the platform’s “Paid partnership” or similar tool where they have it.
• The disclosure goes in the main message, where people see it; the guidelines say it “should not be buried amongst hashtags”.
• Your staff posting about your business on their own accounts have a material connection too, as employees.
• In the video, as well as the caption. The guidelines say disclosure “should be prominently included in the video caption as well as in the video itself”, on screen or spoken, because videos often play without sound.
• Videos on your own account make your own role plain. A video there that involves another connection, such as a supplier who paid to be featured, still needs that connection disclosed.

The guidelines are Ad Standards’ reading of the Canadian Code of Advertising Standards and the Competition Act, and say they aren’t legal advice. Ask a lawyer about a large campaign.

What to agree with a paid UGC creator

1. Use: organic posts, ads, or both, and for how long.
2. Ownership: whether the videos are assigned to you, or licensed for set uses.
3. Files: the finished videos only, or the raw clips too.
4. Changes: how many rounds of edits are included.
5. Disclosure: if the creator posts it on their own account, how they will disclose it.
6. Exclusivity: whether they may make the same kind of video for a competitor.

The UGC feel, filmed at your business

Many of our films borrow the format and point it at the business. For Adobo Mexican Grill, a member of the team built her favourite bowl to the camera, named every step, then set a dare: comment your favourite bowl. For Shah’s Halal Food, on a new location’s opening day, we handed the microphone to the people in the line. For Station Medical, every member of the practice took the white chair, one by one, with the whole team cheering behind them.

Customers who post on their own

In the year before we started, the biggest videos for Da.Si.Mar Shawarma came from food creators who stopped by. That’s worth having, and you can’t schedule it. You can make it more likely: reply to every tag, share the good ones with permission, and give people something worth filming, such as a dish made in front of them or a moment at the counter. A plan of your own means a post is always coming, whoever else is filming.

Six questions before you pay for UGC

1. Who owns the videos, and where can you use them: your feed, your ads, or both?
2. Where is it filmed: at your business, or at the creator’s home?
3. If the creator posts it, how will it say it was paid for?
4. Do you get the raw clips, or only the finished cut?
5. Can they make the same video for a competitor?
6. What comes after the first batch?

What we do

We film at your business, with your team and your customers, edit, and post every video on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube Shorts, with the views guaranteed. Your own people sign our appearance release, and we get one from any customer we feature. See the plans, or read “Agency, freelancer or in-house?”.

Questions owners ask

Keep reading

• ChoosingAgency, freelancer or in-house for short videos?
• RestaurantsRestaurant video ideas for TikTok and Reels
• CostWhat does social media management cost?
• ViewsHow to go viral on TikTok and Reels as a business

Sources

• Ad Standards, Influencer Marketing Disclosure Guidelines, 8 October 2025, read 9 November 2026
• Copyright Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-42, sections 13 and 14.1, read 9 November 2026

Updates

• 9 November 2026: Rewritten at full length: UGC and influencers compared, reposting customers’ videos under the Copyright Act, filming customers, Canada’s disclosure guidelines (Ad Standards, 8 October 2025, read), what to agree with a paid creator, and getting more customer posts.

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