Tourism Kamloops wanted their Fall campaign to be quirky and stand out from the crowd. They wanted a different way of sharing customized content that was unique and engaging. This is why they turned to CrowdRiff Studio.
Results:
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Using CrowdRiff Studio to support local partners and drive travelers to their websites.
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Saving time by repurposing Stories across multiple social platforms.
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133% spike in Web Story views in the first week of the campaign.
The city of Kamloops is located in the heart of British Columbia’s sunny Southern Interior with a growing population of 90,000 people. Its proximity to extensive trail networks and outdoor adventure keeps locals and visitors exploring Kamloops year-round.
Tourism Kamloops was one of CrowdRiff Studio’s early adopters and has been using the solution and creating Google Web Stories since its beginning. “We’re an innovative bunch”, remarked Michelle, the Senior Marketing Strategist at Tourism Kamloops, “whenever CrowdRiff releases something new, we’re super excited to try it as we already really enjoy the UGC platform”.
With CrowdRiff Studio, DMOs can easily create and publish Google Web Stories, which are short-form content pieces that appear organically in dedicated sections of Google Search. Additionally, CrowdRiff Studio allows DMOs to embed this dynamic and captivating content into their websites, thereby enhancing the user experience for travelers.
What makes CrowdRiff Studio unique is that it enables DMOs to build Web Stories with travel-specific features, like a Google Maps integration, making this content more valuable to travelers.
"[CrowdRiff Studio is] a great way to share all the content you’re already creating to new audiences, boost awareness of partners, and have folks dive deeper into your website. It’s been great in that space.”
Because they are web-based, each Web Story is crawled by Google and is discoverable in Google search results. Since joining CrowdRiff Studio, Tourism Kamloops has seen its Web Stories perform well organically, with its Stories receiving over 20,000 impressions from different queries on Google.
Tourism Kamloops is among the partners of Destination British Columbia's collaboration with CrowdRiff to offer CrowdRiff Studio as a shared network. This partnership allows for the seamless sharing of Web Stories between DBC and its partners. Thanks to this partnership, they’ve seen an additional 10,000 Gallery impressions coming from their Web Stories that have been featured across Destination British Columbia’s website. Beyond driving organic SEO, they’ve experienced various other benefits too.
Tourism Kamloops has been supporting its local partners by creating Web Stories that feature its local breweries, golf courses, biking trails, or farmers’ markets to name a few. Another unique feature of Web Stories created with CrowdRiff Studio is the swipe-up functionality that has relevant information designed to push travelers from inspiration to action.
By swiping up, travelers can see the Google Maps location, hours of operation, or links to the website of the destination or attraction in the Story. “By adding swipe-up links to our Web Stories, we could drive traffic back to our partners’ websites,” commented Michelle. “So, it gave us a chance to also bring awareness and referrals to them”.
Michelle pointed out that this was especially relevant during recent turbulent times like the pandemic and province-wide wildfires. “Being able to highlight our partners that were open or who had altered offerings allowed us to help share their story,” Michelle added.
Unlike Instagram Stories, Web Stories don’t disappear after 24 hours. Plus, since they can be edited even after they have been published, they are an effective way for DMOs to adapt to changing environments and maintain up-to-date information.
"To be able to use CrowdRiff Studio to amplify it in multiple avenues has been extremely valuable to us.”
CrowdRiff Studio is also helping Tourism Kamloops in scaling its content creation efforts. Web Stories can be repurposed on various social media platforms, reducing the content creation workload for DMOs.
“There’s no point creating content if you’re going to use it once”, advised Michelle, “so to be able to use CrowdRiff Studio to amplify it in multiple avenues has been extremely valuable to us”. Michelle and her team have gained efficiencies by repurposing their Web Stories on their social media channels like Instagram Stories and even through repurposing old blog content into Web Stories.
All of this meant that including Web Stories in their recent Fall campaign was a no-brainer for the team. The “Out of Office” campaign was true to Tourism Kamloop’s bold and edgy branding, intending to inspire travelers to switch on their out-of-office automatic response and take a trip to the area. The campaign was targeted at two very different demographics, urbanite couples and/or and outdoorsy retirees.
The team wanted to create two different landing pages with content personalized for both audiences. For this, they turned to CrowdRiff Studio; “we thought it would be a really fun, effective way to share content that would relate to these audiences and provide more inspiration”. Michelle and her colleagues created galleries of Web Stories with content tailored to each demographic and were able to easily embed the galleries on both landing pages.
For instance, the urbanite couple/friends landing page featured Web Stories that showed images and videos of younger people visiting local breweries, sampling hip cafes and restaurants, and taking epic hikes. Whereas the Web Stories created for the outdoorsy retirees’ landing page showed older folks enjoying local restaurants, wineries and even rounds of golf.
Within the first week of the campaign, Tourism Kamloops witnessed a spike of 133% in their Story views. They also experienced an interactivity rate of 75% on the Web Stories included in the campaign.
CrowdRiff Studio helped to show two very different types of travelers how Kamloops was the perfect destination for them, yielding some impressive results to boot. Within the first week of the campaign, Tourism Kamloops witnessed a spike of 133% in their Web Story views. They also experienced an interactivity rate of 75% on the Web Stories included in the campaign, suggesting that the tailored content was resonating with their audience and boosting engagement.
Michelle has also taken advantage of analytics and reports to further tweak their campaign approach. “By looking at those analytics, we could see where folks are stopping, where they're looking, or what's intriguing to them. We used this information to move the layouts around and saw some increase [in engagement] as well.”
When asked what advice she would give to other DMOs who haven’t started using CrowdRiff Studio, Michelle concluded “we would say yes, do it. It’s a great way to share all the content you’re already creating to new audiences and boost awareness of partners and have folks dive deeper into your website. It’s been great in that space.”
Want to learn more about CrowdRiff Studio and explore how it can enhance your future campaigns? Get in touch.
