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How DMOs Are Using CrowdRiff’s Media Hub to Inspire Locals and Future Travelers

Sharing high-resolution visual content plays an essential role in your
recovery efforts.

It can help you spark action, generate positive media sentiment, and take control of your destination’s narrative.

CrowdRiff’s Media Hub allows you to curate the best UGC and professional photos of your brand and easily share them with journalists, locals, and future travelers.

Take inspiration from the following DMOs on how you can use CrowdRiff’s Media Hub for the recovery.

Use games to activate local pride

The Maryland Office of Tourism put together a list of fun activities like Bingo, Mad Libs, and Quarantine House on their website and Media Hub.

Some activities, like The Maryland Statue Challenge, ask people to mirror famous statues around the city and share them on social media. Others, like Maryland Bingo, help support local businesses by listing activities like “sampled a Maryland craft spirit” or “savored a 10-layered slice of Smith Island Cake.”

Creating and distributing virtual games help build community and also encourage a positive and uplifting sentiment on social media.

How to do it:

  1. If you haven’t already, configure and customize your Media Hub.
  2. Once you’ve created the activities, upload them to your CrowdRiff library.
  3. Add your games to a CrowdRiff album. Give your album an easy-to-remember name.
  4. Select your album, click manage album in the top-right corner and move the toggle “Use as Media Hub Album” to “On” and hit save.

Share Zoom backgrounds to inspire local champions

Visit Saint Paul, MN, is sharing popular scenes from around the city as Zoom and desktop backgrounds. They’re hosting these images in a CrowdRiff gallery on their website and using CTAs to drive people to their Media Hub where they can download them.

This makes it easy for fans and followers to amplify the best parts of the city every time they’re on a call.

Saint Paul also hosts a wealth of images that meet social distancing guidelines like empty parks, skylines, and landmarks on their Media Hub. If journalists, bloggers, or influencers want to write about the city, they have straightforward access to the right visuals to tell the story they need.

How to do it:

  1. Once you have your Zoom backgrounds, upload them to your CrowdRiff library.
  2. Pull these images into a gallery and embed it on a relevant page, such as your “Things to Do from Home” page like Saint Paul.
  3. Add CTAs to each image, linking out your Media Hub.
  4. Consider enabling Smart Galleries so visitors see your most engaging content more often.

Promote your Media Hub link on social media

Future travelers and locals are following you for a reason: they love your destination. Mammoth Lakes, CA, keeps its fans and followers dreaming by sharing a link to their Media Hub on in their Instagram Stories and Instagram Bio.

People can download the images right from Media Hub. Every background also includes a location so people can plan to visit when the time is right.

Their Media Hub is also chock-full of high-quality images of every season, helping promote interest in travel all year round.

How to do it:

  1. Upload your owned images to your CrowdRiff library and add them to an album.
  2. Select your album, click manage album in the top-right corner and move the toggle to “On,” and hit save.
  3. Since Media Hub is mobile-friendly, you can simply take a screenshot of it on your phone and paste the image in an Instagram Story to promote it. If you have 10K+ followers, add a link to your hub; if you don’t, use a Linktree link instead.

Leverage UGC for your Media Hub visuals

Explore Georgia used rights approved images to create their Zoom backgrounds, which they’re sharing for people to download on their Media Hub.

Visitors who go to their site can also access Media Hub via the “Explore Georgia from Home” page.

The team is also asking people to share screenshots of their next call on social media with #ExploreGeorgiaFromHome to be featured.

How to do it:

  1. Request rights to your favorite images (or the ones that generate the highest engagement). Because UGC on your Media Hub will most likely be used for multiple purposes, we recommend using Advanced Rights Management for these visuals.
  2. Add your watermark or logo to these images — but remember to give the original photographer credit too.
  3. Once your rights are approved, add them to an album and click the option to use in a Media Hub.
  4. Pull these images into a gallery and embed them on a relevant page.
  5. Add CTAs to each image, linking out your Media Hub.

How are you using Media Hub to contribute to your recovery efforts? Let us know in our Community Stories Hub.

Image credit: @markgriffith

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