Turning a 200k-member community into a content production engine.
HomeExchange, the leader in home swapping between private individuals, chose to build on its community to accelerate on content.
The engagement
Scope
UGC ecosystem, collection and distribution workflows, tooling
Duration
105 days, three phases
The stakes
How do you lean on a 200k-member community to scale content production without overloading internal teams?
For home swapping between private individuals, communication has three jobs: strengthen trust in the platform, give members and their commitment their due, and lift the doubts of the undecided. User-generated content is the format that carries trust best, and the community already produces it in volume.
200k
members
440k
homes
155
countries
Where the value was stuck
A goldmine left underexploited, because the process could not keep up.
2400
posts a month in the private Facebook groups
700
video contents per call-out
100
social posts per call-out
3–4
full-time equivalents dedicated to UGC collection
30 min – 3 h
of search per piece of UGC
0
shared tool across the nine collection and distribution channels
The build · three phases
Three phases to unlock the potential of UGC at HomeExchange.
01
Analysis
15 days
Understand the brand's UGC ecosystem end to end, and the collection and distribution workflows for each channel. Measure how well the current process performs, and where optimization pays first.
Our role
3Deliverables
3The UGC ecosystem map
Organic social
Ads
SEO content
Newsletters
Thick line: the priority path, where volume and value sit. Dotted: secondary or occasional flows.
02
Design
30 days
Co-build the ideal collection and distribution workflow with the HomeExchange teams, management and operations, and identify the tooling that makes it simpler.
Our role
3Deliverables
3The target production workflow
01
Submission
UGC comes in natively through the platforms; IGC is pre-identified and grouped.
02
Ingestion
Content pulled automatically into one tool, with the member social account linked to their HomeExchange ID.
03
Sort and search
Automatic, evolving categorization: filtering criteria, origin, theme, content type, language. Influencers and power users identified.
04
Rights
Requests fired in one click from the tool, with visibility on what is cleared.
05
Distribution
Content published automatically on the site, fixed and animated, and on the social channels.
Workshop and framing templates
Preparatory questionnaire
Shared with the whole team before the interviews: objectives, asset typology, volumes, current uses.
Friction matrix
Submission, search, sorting, channel by channel, with every blocking point marked.
Functional specification
The document the two shortlisted platforms answered: context, strategic objectives, target workflow.
03
Implementation
60 days
Integrate the tool, drive adoption, and break down the operational silos between the teams that collect and the teams that publish.
Our role
3Deliverables
3Expected results
+30k
UGC pulled in a year, on a single platform
+2.8
full-time equivalents of operational bandwidth freed by shorter collection time
−80%
time spent on collection versus the agency model
40
HomeExchange people connected to the tool
−5 min
to find a relevant piece of UGC to re-publish
What they now own
The assets
A content machine
The community produces, the brand selects and publishes, no agency in between.
One workflow optimized across 9 channels
Collection and distribution follow the same path, whatever the platform.
A tool the teams run
Chosen through a tender against their own specification, then onboarded internally.
2.8 full-time equivalents more
Bandwidth returned to the team by the shorter collection time.
Next steps
Making UGC a pillar of the marketing and communication strategy.
Steering production
Sharpen the call-outs so incoming content matches the acquisition strategy: target personas, brand moments.
Influencer program
Use it to maximize the qualitative video the brand can re-run in paid media.
UGC in the experience
Bring UGC into every key step of the customer journey: home page, product page, FAQ, blog.
Marketing is your most defensible asset.
