Oceanside, California, is a year-round tourist destination known for surf competitions, arts festivals, concerts, foodie-approved dining, and beautiful beachfront sunsets. Less than two hours from Disneyland and Orange County, this laid-back vacation spot welcomes visitors looking for adventure, relaxation, and a true taste of local culture.
“What’s unique about our destination,” says Veronica Voorhees, Manager of Marketing Operations at Visit Oceanside, “is how local it is. Visitors don’t just want pretty sunset photos—they want to feel like they have a second home here, embracing the laid-back California vibe the moment they arrive.”
For Veronica and her team, capturing this essence means consistently sourcing authentic, high-quality visuals to bring Oceanside’s story to life. That’s where CrowdRiff comes in.
Simplifying Content Sourcing with CrowdRiff
In 2019, Visit Oceanside brought its marketing efforts in-house and turned to CrowdRiff to streamline the process of sourcing user-generated content (UGC), including photos and videos.
“Searching for photos was becoming a full-time job,” Veronica says. “Having a platform that could source content for us beyond the #Oceanside tag, including anything related to it and the surrounding area, was a huge help.” At first, the team used CrowdRiff to source UGC photos. “At the end of the year, it was a great asset for us to pull imagery for our visitor guide.” With the ability to streamline content usage rights and approvals, the team didn’t have to worry about acquiring usage rights at the last minute.
Enhancing Engagement with UGC Galleries
Visit Oceanside saw a boost in engagement and traffic to its landing pages after adding CrowdRiff Galleries and sharing bite-sized stories on its website.
“It was a huge help in getting click-through rates to our landing pages,” she says. “We have over 100 stories on the platform now—anywhere we can share them, we do.”
Veronica says, “When we first got started, we had a full walk-through setting up a hashtag, tracking keywords, and exclusion words. That set us up for success. And now it’s just plug-and-play.” She adds, “Having exclusion words in place from the start was crucial—since there are multiple ‘Oceansides’ across the country, filtering helped ensure only the right content was included.”
Showcasing Every Corner of Oceanside
Beyond beaches, Oceanside extends into an expansive agricultural region, and finding visuals to represent the entire area was a challenge.
Veronica created a Google Sheet that included links to CrowdRiff keyword searches for points within the city. “We could just enter a location and imagery would just pop up. And now I’m getting the little niche parts of the city that are not always tapped into the culinary scene, the weddings, and other citywide events.”
Accessing images of citywide events helped the team promote future events without scrambling at the last minute. “We have events like Iron Man that come into town—it’s been a huge help for us to be like, “Alright, we have assets from these citywide events. So next year, we can use those images in social posts.”
More Images, Less Text
In the past two years, Visit Oceanside has leaned into a more image-heavy approach, reducing text on its website and blogs while increasing video and photo content. “It’s a lot more fun and interesting.” When the team launched a new website and brand design, CrowdRiff played a key role in meeting their growing need for hyper-local, authentic visuals.
“We realized the potential of UGC with CrowdRiff and decided to go all in—now we have galleries on all the landing pages. ”
A Winning Campaign: “Season of Swellness”
In September 2024, the team introduced Season of Swellness, a mini-marketing campaign aimed at attracting off-season visitors. With a mix of family-friendly activities, budget-conscious options, and luxury experiences, the campaign showcased Oceanside’s year-round appeal.
Initially, they relied too much on text, failing to build the landing page in a way that fully captured the city’s distinctive feel. “That’s when we realized this was our chance to leverage the stories we’ve been creating with CrowdRiff,” Veronica says,
Her colleague Jenny Roberts structured the campaign around different traveler types—families, solo adventurers, and couples—highlighting activities like dolphin tours and skydiving. Instead of long descriptions, the team curated visual stories for each category, allowing visitors to immerse themselves in Oceanside’s hidden gems at a glance.
“Instead of seeing a bunch of text, they are immersed in images, making them feel like they’re actually there, discovering Oceanside’s off-season activities at a glance.”
Visit Oceanside’s shift to a CrowdRiff-supported, image-heavy experience paid off, leading to a spike in traffic and time on site. It also created a strong visual platform for the campaign, directing Facebook and Instagram ad audiences to it and enhancing engagement and conversions.
“We have over 77,000 views on the page, and people are staying there and clicking through those CrowdRiff galleries. We’re seeing users spending more time exploring the galleries—there are so many views on it!”
Veronica describes all of the work as “zero cost,” and she’s excited about the results—it’s driving interest and people have been using the page for trip inspiration.
“Since launching in September,” she adds, “the landing page has become a central hub for our marketing initiative, supported by ad buys and a strong social media presence.”
Takeaway for Destination Marketers
Beyond the numbers, CrowdRiff has helped Visit Oceanside rethink how they create and use images. “At first, we focused on sourcing photos,” Veronica says. “Now, we’re strategically repurposing visuals across our marketing efforts.”By prioritizing user-generated content for destination marketing, Visit Oceanside has transformed how it connects with travelers—creating an immersive, visually rich experience that inspires and engages visitors.
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