Keeping up with social media trends, algorithms that keep you guessing, and a-new-app-a-day social media wildness—on top of the constant demands for fresh, engaging content—can make travel marketing feel as chaotic as Jeremy Allen White’s kitchen on The Bear. But it doesn’t have to.
Here to help, CrowdRiff’s Senior Customer Success Manager Katrina Keilhauer and Social Media Manager Sennah Yee recently hosted The Social Secret Sauce, Adding Personal Flavor to Social Trends & Keeping the Algorithm Fed.
The webinar explored key ingredients we’ve noticed in successful social media posts from our favorite DMOs and why they worked.
In case you missed it—you were probably busy scheduling a new Reel or deciding whether Moo Deng is still relevant (our take: Moo Deng is forever!)—we compiled the webinar’s most snackable takeaways. These will help you stay on top of recent trends, create the right content for your audience, and guide you through the perfect recipe for crafting a successful social strategy.
Watch the webinar recording
Shares, Saves, and the Allure of “Dark Social”
Everyone is talking about shares and saves.
Yet, Instagram can still be a mystery of posting and waiting to see what will perform well versus what will sit in a black hole with little to no engagement. To help, the app recently announced they are now prioritizing public shares and saves, and “dark social.”
Dark social—while it might sound like something fresh out of a Gen Z horror movie or an early 2000s Hot Topic store display—is used to describe direct, private engagements like DMing a post to a friend or using a messaging app like Slack or WhatsApp. This can help feed and train the algorithm to work in your favor.
“It’s not just about likes and views anymore,” Sennah says. “Saving and sharing tells Instagram that this is highly engaging content, which tells the algorithm to favor that post.”
How to Make Saves and Shares Work For You
To start, Sennah recommends thinking about what saves and shares say about who you are. Not just what makes you like a post, but what makes you want to hold onto it or show it to a friend. Was it something about how someone framed the story or displayed the content, or a little bit of both? Did they overlay compelling text? Was it super relatable or cater to your specific interests?
Think about what travelers you’re trying to attract. What might make them hold onto your post and use it when planning a trip?
Sennah shared one of her bookmarks “Exploring Elsewhere: How To Book a Hut-to-Hut Hike in the Dolomites.” She says, “This information is something that could come in handy when I’m planning my trip, and it’s visually quite amazing.”
Overlay Your Captions!
Remember, a compelling caption is an easy way to make your post stand out—it’s an extra nudge to stop scrolling. “You could post a Reel of a cozy fall hike on its own, and it would probably do ok,” Sennah says. “But if you overlay the caption ‘cozy weekend inspiration for your book club,’ all of a sudden, you’re planting an idea for a potential traveler, which will likely impact their behavior.”
Southern Gulf Islands did this with a video of Galiano Island. It’s a strong vertical video: first person, inviting, and probably a place you want to explore. But the social team took it further, overlaying the caption, “The person who sent this to you wants to explore Galiano Island on mopeds with you.” It’s now personal and specific, and plants the idea that Galiano Island is a destination to check out… with your best friend… on a moped. This kind of specificity makes it memorable.
Destination Madison did something similar with a clip of someone enjoying an apple cider donut. By overlaying the caption, “Send this to someone you want to get apple cider donuts with this fall,” Destination Madison immediately gets viewers to think about saving, sharing, and taking action.
The best thing about this strategy is that it’s easy—it doesn’t take a huge production lift, and gets the point across simply and accessibly.
The Information Dump
This strategy has been taking off in the past few months with all kinds of social media marketers. It involves placing a ton of information (maybe more than you think your viewers can handle) on top of an engaging vertical video.
Visit Eau Claire crammed almost every October event, from Halloween escape rooms to speed dating, into the entire frame of their vertical video.
“It’s just a short video clip—very spooky, very inspiring—and I want to open it and look at all of these events,” Sennah says. While you might think that’s information overload, putting it all in one place with such density encourages viewers to stop and save it so they can savor it later.
This works great because you’re leveraging the algorithm’s preference for video and also communicating a ton of valuable info without having to spend too much time editing. It quickly maximizes your engagement, layering so much useful content—compelling video and timely information—in one single place.
Visit Austin’s October Events Guide is another great example. Like Visit Eau Claire, they picked a strong vertical video and overlaid it with text. In this case, they limited the text to: “Your October Events Guide in Austin, Texas” and included the details in the caption below. This strategy prompted viewers to save, click, and spend more time on the single post, looking through all the meaty details.
These kinds of posts do well for travelers and locals alike—everyone wants to be able to easily see what’s going on.
Why “Silly Content” is Authentic AF
“Silly content can be anything,” Katrina says. “Jokes, green screen memes, purposely bad Photoshop, or showcasing your team participating in a social media challenge.” For many viewers, it’s one of the best indicators of authenticity, which we know Gen Z and Millennial audiences value.
“I recently found a survey from Sprout Social that showed that 77% of consumers are more likely to engage with content that feels relatable,” Katrina adds. “This kind of silly content is a perfect way to do just that.
When creating silly content, think about your personal social media behaviors and apply them to your marketing. What kinds of memes do you send your friends? What makes it personal? “It all goes back to your audience personas,” says Katrina. “Their current wants and worries, and truly creating that emotional connection.”
Moo Deng Forever
Visit Milwaukee posted a hilarious series of posts Photoshopping our favorite sassy hippo visiting popular local spots. Visit New Jersey created a Where’s Waldo-inspired Moo Deng meme, encouraging viewers to find her in crowded locations.
Katrina shared, “For Visit New Jersey, I was actually zooming into the screen to try to find her… and there she is!”
“What I loved about it is that they repurposed their social posts into a blog post to keep the content going—they made a whole blog of Moo Deng!”
Playful and scrappy seem to be at the core of so many successful social media posts. A recent TikTok report said 65% of users say professional-looking videos feel out of place. What’s most important is knowing your audience.
“Social thrives on simple, bite-sized content,” Katrina notes. “People—Gen Z in particular—want to engage with brands as people, not logos.”
The Gen Z Marketing Script
You’ve probably seen this everywhere for the past six months: a Gen Z marketer writes a script, and an older person recites it. This trend is a funny and wholesome way to show off your team’s personality. As a travel marketer, this is especially appealing because it’s intergenerational: locals and tourists of all ages can share, save, and connect with a destination.
Sparking Comments and Discussion
A highly active comments section tells the algorithm that your post is highly engaging. As a marketer, you have an opportunity to feed this engagement.
“It’s great to encourage your followers to not only engage with you but with other followers, too,” Katrina points out. “So that, in turn, will determine if your post is discoverable. Also, hearing things from locals and people who have been to the place, rather than from your DMO or your branded identity, creates more of an authentic interest.”
Responding to comments helps people feel heard and keeps the conversation and engagement going.
Visit Syracuse posted a great example. “They just called it right out and said, ‘If you are going to Syracuse, ask a question here, and if you live in Syracuse, share your advice,’” Katrina says. This creates dialog and capitalizes on IG’s preference for Reels.
Mt. Hood’s week-long “Can you guess this spot” campaign gamified the experience, and people overflowed the comments section. After a week or so, they followed up with the correct location, responding to people with correct answers. “This is a fun and easy way to get people talking in the comments,” Katrina remarks.
“One thing that works with this style is when people comment about their favorite spots,” she adds. “You may not know, and it can prompt further content ideas for your team.”
Encouraging @’s
You’ve probably seen this strategy before. “@ the first person in your share list…..” Visit Alamosa created an engaging post highlighting the San Luis Valley by encouraging viewers to tag the first person who pops up in their @ list. “This is cute,” Katrina says. “If you get this sent to you, you know you were the first person who popped up. It’s always a source of curiosity and a great way to encourage comments.” It makes people feel special and creates a personal connection beyond “I thought you’d like this.”
Turning Negative Comments Into Engagement Opportunities (Within Reason)
“Negative comments can make your heart stop, but it’s not always a bad thing,” Katrina explains. “If someone comments something like ‘this place isn’t so great,’ you can use it to your advantage. Maybe you ask them, ‘Where would you suggest instead?’ You can also use it to create new content.”
Discover Surrey did this effectively in a viral Reel showcasing restaurants in their city, responding to every single comment. “It really helps to continue to promote more discussion and get people to respond again,” Katrina says.
She also recommends creating content you know will spark debate. For example, if you’re trying to engage Baby Boomers (who are highly engaged in comments sections), you can pose a question or hot take to spark debate.
The Final Ingredient: Social SEO
A recent report from The Consumer Behavior Index found that 67% of Gen Z social media users use Instagram and 62% use TikTok for search and discovery over traditional search engines like Google. In response, social platforms are now updating their algorithms to be more robust. Their social algorithms crawl your content and behavior—inside and outside the app. So, your Google searches can impact the social posts you see.
“My recommendation,” Sennah says, “is to approach this as you would for any other content. Think of a good keyword strategy for each post by researching and searching to see what content and words come up.” If you search for restaurants in Lake Charles on TikTok, for example, you see many names and recommended destinations from Visit Lake Charles’ DMO account.
TikTok also recently introduced a “Creator Search Insights” tool that lets you see what people are searching for in your niche. Sennah recommends going broad and specific in keyword research and including the keywords in your video scripts, thumbnail images, post captions, and any on-screen text. “And always add closed captions if there’s a voiceover,” she says. “Not just for accessibility, but because it helps jump out at people if they’re watching your video on mute.”
Okay, but What If I Don’t Have Enough Content to Share?
Well well well, isn’t it so handy that CrowdRiff helps with exactly that? We developed CrowdRiff Creators to connect you with local creators who can create original, fully licensed, authentic content for your DMO. No hassle on your end—we take care of all the contracts, licensing, and payments.
Plus, CrowdRiff’s UGC platform can easily help you find great user-generated content that you can request usage rights for to post on your own socials.
Okay bye, gotta go look up more Moo Deng content…
