UGC is video or photo content made by a creator or customer in their own style, usually on a phone, that a brand then uses in ads. In practice most "UGC" is paid creator content made to look unpolished on purpose.
UGC stands for user-generated content: video or photos made by a person, not a studio, in their own style and usually on a phone. Brands license it or commission it and run it as ads because it reads as a real person talking, not as a commercial.
Most UGC in ads today is paid creator content. The brand sends the product and a brief, the creator films 5-15 minutes of raw footage, and the brand's editor cuts it. The "user" part is the style: handheld, kitchen counter, natural light, no script read word for word.
The footage arrives long and unedited. A 9-minute creator clip usually contains 20-40 usable moments, and finding them is the real work. That's the problem a creator footage library solves.
Let's say a supplement brand works with 25 creators a quarter. Each sends 3-4 clips of 5-10 minutes. That's around 30 hours of footage a quarter, of which maybe 10 minutes end up in ads. The rest isn't bad. It's just unopened.
Originally UGC meant content customers made on their own. Creator content is commissioned. Today the two words are used for the same thing in paid media: phone-shot, personal-style footage a brand runs as ads.
By moment, not by file. Transcribe every clip, cut it into segments (hook, demo, testimonial, b-roll) and tag those for your category. See the guide on organizing creator footage.