John Azoni John Azoni

#116 - UGC Video for Higher Ed: The Massive Potential and Untapped Opportunities

In this solo episode, John pulls back the curtain on Unveild's new "Directed UGC" offering — and the surprising gap in the market he hit while trying to promote it. When he went looking for colleges using UGC video well, he found plenty of day-in-the-life content and campus vibes clips, but almost nothing using UGC to tell a real story or market a specific program. That gap became the episode.


John walks through how he landed on a working definition of "real" UGC, why day-in-the-life became the default format schools reach for, and what it looks like when a student or alum is given real direction instead of just a phone and a prompt — using a story from a University of Montana journalism alum as the throughline.

Key takeaways:

  • Most schools treat UGC and "real" video content as two separate lanes — polished storytelling goes to the video team, and UGC defaults to day-in-the-life. That split is leaving a lot of good content on the table.

  • John's working definition: real UGC is a student or alum bringing you into their world — how they think, what matters to them, what they've lived through — not just a clip of something happening.

  • Day-in-the-life dominates because it's easy to operationalize — hand someone a phone, no storytelling skill required. Anything beyond that needs direction and coaching, which is harder to systematize.

  • Program tours, project walkthroughs, and "a day in my job" videos from alumni are underused UGC formats that could carry the same weight as scripted student-story videos — with more authenticity.

  • The best moments are often unscripted — John's example: a Montana alum's unplanned detour into how the journalism program's "learn by doing" philosophy played out, including students landing the first photo of Ted Kaczynski during the Unabomber arrest.

  • Unveild's "Directed UGC" offering pairs a professional storyteller-led interview and shot list with in-house editing, aiming to solve the two biggest UGC pain points: finding willing students and getting usable footage back.

Schools/programs mentioned as reference points for UGC-style content:

  • The Fletcher School at Tufts University

  • Kogod School of Business (American University)

  • University of Michigan

  • Westminster University

  • Sewanee: The University of the South

  • University of Birmingham

  • University of Leeds

Connect with John:

Read More