Destination BC and Partners Launch the BC Story Network, powered by CrowdRiff’s Travel Stories

In November, Destination BC and 29 tourism partners from across the province launched the BC Story Network, a networked approach to content marketing for the province, powered by CrowdRiff’s new Travel Stories technology. This program allows BC partners to easily create mobile-first, visually immersive content in a vertical story format, and instantaneously publish the content to multiple distribution channels (including HelloBC.com).

Participants in the pilot project – which included 29 regional and community destinations within BC, such as Kootenay Rockies Tourism, Tourism Kamloops, Tourism Whistler, Tourism Golden, and Destination Campbell River, as well as associations like British Columbia Golf and corridors like Scenic 7 – created over 800 unique Travel Stories about British Columbia, which are now surfacing through Google search, on HelloBC.com, and across the websites of participants. These 800 stories have earned 1.4 million impressions and 145,000 views to date.

Stories are one of the fastest-growing formats in the history of digital marketing. Since the inception of this highly visual and easily digestible format, the growth has been staggering. Snapchat, where the Stories format originated, has more than 200 million daily active users; and there are an estimated 500 million daily active users that consume or create Stories on each of these platforms: Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp – with more users trying out the feature every day.

The BC Story Network, powered by CrowdRiff Travel Stories, enables Destination BC and its tourism industry partners to capitalize on the explosive growth of the Stories format, as well as significantly expand their ability to scale and share content across the destination in powerful ways not previously possible:

• Travel Stories are contextual and offer much more data to provide travelers with the depth of information needed in researching a destination;
• With its omni-channel approach, the same Travel Stories can be created once and shared everywhere, from a destination’s website to Google Search, Facebook, and Instagram to exponentially increase the reach of the rich content being shared;
• Travel Stories are connected across the travel ecosystem, eliminating the need for brands to manually connect with partners to source local stories. This networked experience enables a traveler interested in a particular destination to view stories from different partners – and easily connect with them if so desired – without having to actively seek out each one individually;
• The content shared through Travel Stories is evergreen (it does not expire).

The new Travel Stories format being used by Destination BC and partners also addresses a notable challenge faced by destination marketers. While traditional marketing begins with awareness, followed by consideration, and then purchase; in the travel industry, consumers are constantly moving up and down the funnel before making a decision. Travel Stories ensures that content meets the needs of the traveler at every stage, with more in-depth information or the ability to book travel experiences just one swipe or click away. This innovative, mobile-first, visually immersive format of storytelling is poised to change how travel marketers share their content online.

To find out more about this project, and how you can participate, please contact [email protected].