RBFF Casts a Wider Net to Drive Engagement with PhotoShelter

Navigating the Rough Waters of Digital Asset Management

The Recreational Boating & Fishing Foundation (RBFF) is a nonprofit organization that promotes recreational angling and boating while preserving aquatic resources. With a vast collection of visual media crucial to its mission, RBFF sought a solution to overcome the challenges of managing and sharing its digital assets effectively.

The Challenge: Charting a Course Through Murky Waters

Charles Neville, Senior Manager of Digital Operations at RBFF, and his team managed a massive asset library of photos and videos, essential for promoting the organization’s mission among its stakeholders. But without a good system in place, things were not optimal. The RBFF team had files across multiple platforms and wasn’t able to get the right insights about their asset usage.

• Sharing photos and videos was difficult and time-consuming. Getting photos and videos to partners and the public was a hassle, often involving lots of emails back and forth. Some state agencies couldn’t even access the files they needed due to firewall and file size restrictions.
• Finding the right image was hard. With photos and videos scattered across different cloud services, finding the specific one they were looking for took a lot of time and effort.
• Tagging photos was a manual chore. Every photo needed to be tagged by hand, which was a lot of work and sometimes led to mistakes in search results.
• No insights or analytics. RBFF had no way to track which photos and videos were popular or what people were searching for, making it tough to know what kind of content to create.

“We would just send people one-offs. They’d reach out to us and say, ‘Hey, do you have an image that could fit this?’ And we’d send it to them from our files. For a while we used Dropbox, but then State sites had issues accessing Google Drive and Dropbox. Since switching over to PhotoShelter, it seems like all the State agencies have access to that which is great.”

Charles Neville, Senior Manager of Digital Operations

The Solution: Reeling in Content Control with PhotoShelter

Since implementing PhotoShelter DAM, the RBFF team has transformed its asset library into an organized and efficient hub. Here’s how:

• Sharing is now a breeze. PhotoShelter gives RBFF one central place to keep all their photos and videos, making it easy to share with anyone who needs them. State agencies can access what they need, and RBFF can set special permissions for different partners.
• Finding the perfect photo is quick and easy. Smart search tools make it simple to find the exact image they’re looking for, whether for a social media post or something else.
• No more manual tagging. PhotoShelter automatically tags things like boats, fish, and people in the photos, saving RBFF a ton of time and making searches even more accurate. And if they can’t find the right search words, they can just describe the photo they need, and PhotoShelter AI will find it.
• Data-driven decisions through audience understanding. With a huge collection of photos and videos that are easy for everyone to see, RBFF can show the wide range of people who love fishing and boating. Plus, they can see what people are searching for and downloading, giving them a clearer picture of their stakeholder’s interests – just like Charles said they wanted to do.

“The other systems we have used didn’t have that functionality… you couldn’t just search for a tag on an image, because there’s not really that [capability] outside of this system. So that has been very useful.”

Charles Neville, Senior Manager of Digital Operations

A New Tide of Efficiency

PhotoShelter has transformed RBFF’s media management, providing a clear path forward. With streamlined workflows, improved accessibility, and valuable insights, PhotoShelter has equipped RBFF to share its story more effectively, connect with a broader audience, and make a lasting impact.

“Having all of our assets consolidated in one space makes it easier for us to find the right ones for things like social posts, marketing emails and other things. The AI Visual Search works really well, helping us find images even when they’re not tagged.”

Charles Neville, Senior Manager of Digital Operations