San Marcos, Texas, is known for its vibrant culture, food, music, murals, and natural beauty. From glass-bottom boat tours and wetland walks to al fresco dining, vintage shopping, and public art, the city has endless stories to tell. But Visit San Marcos’ two-person creative team struggled to produce the volume and variety of photo and video content needed to showcase it all.

Despite the perception that they have a large content engine, the team has limited time to travel and create assets.

“We love getting content,” says Sarah Smith, Visit San Marcos’ marketing specialist, “but we simply don't have the hours to go out and create it ourselves.”

The team needed fresh visuals—especially vertical content—that could feel like “a fresh coat of paint,” reflect sustainability, and be reused across seasons and campaigns. They also needed creators who respected local culture and natural environments, staying on trails and promoting responsible river usage.

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Sarah’s team turned to CrowdRiff Creators to connect with local photographers and videographers. CrowdRiff managed logistics, licensing, and coordination, allowing Sarah to focus on strategy.

“It opened so many doors for us,” she says.

For their first major project, the team requested up to sixty unique photo or video shoots, all designed for long-term use. Sarah wanted creators to “think with a sustainability lens,” and the CrowdRiff Creators delivered.

CrowdRiff’s team reviewed the requests and quickly assigned them to local creators. As content started arriving, Sarah saw familiar places through entirely new perspectives.

“They did some panning work on the mermaid statue in a way I had never thought of presenting it,” she says, “and now I’ve used that clip like 8 times!”

At the San Marcos Arts Center, a videographer transformed a tight space:
"They showed it in such a three-dimensional way. They made it look like the place to go.”

Seeing these fresh perspectives inspired new story ideas for the team. “Some of these locations might be an old hat to me,” Sarah says, “but through somebody else's eyes, they’re totally new.”

Encouraging creative intuition continued to pay off. One of Sarah’s favorite creators, Millie, consistently surprised the team with unexpected options. “They were capturing dishes from restaurants that I would never have ordered. And I was like, ‘That looks really good!’”

With CrowdRiff Creators, Visit San Marcos accelerated their content production, increased social engagement, and gained a steady stream of fresh visuals that elevated the city’s brand.

The team dramatically increased their posting frequency of Reels by 300%, shifting from just two Reels in September last year to about two per week this year. The influx of diverse clips is driving higher Instagram and TikTok engagement:

“I think largely that’s due to the cadence of clips,” says Sarah. “We’re able to showcase a bunch of different topics and shots in a small amount of time so we have more people sharing the videos, asking where certain clips are from, and, my personal favorite to note, more people saving the videos for later.”

CrowdRiff has also cut production time significantly.
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“In the past,” says Sarah, “it would take me at least half a workday to sort through my phone to find videos, maybe go get clips if needed, and edit them all together. Now I just type in a few keywords, download the clips, and slice them together in about an hour.”

The impact extends to creative direction:
“I can art direct a little bit more,” Sarah says, “and then see a creator just completely knock it out of the park and exceed expectations.”

Most importantly, CrowdRiff gives her endless possibilities:
“I can make an infinite amount of stories with the content that they've given me.”

A year into using CrowdRiff Creators, Visit San Marcos has built a high-quality, evergreen archive that enables their small team to tell bigger, richer stories about the city.