Activating Community Participation with ThingLink 360° Experiences

Andrew Beelitz April 18, 2018

Looking for a unique and engaging way to activate participation in your initiative, cause, challenge, or project?  Let’s take a look at how two organizations use ThingLink 360° experiences to build awareness and inspire viewers to participate in their initiatives.  Also, a unique ThingLink project idea for your organization. 

1) Melbourne Water:  In their project landing page, Melbourne Water asks their audience to help turn a new piece of land into a community place for everyone to enjoy.  Using an interactive 360° image, the team gives a preview of the site and ideas and inspiration for project ideas.  After exploring the scene, viewers can fill out an application to start bringing their community projects to life. (Please note we have significantly updated the ThingLink experience since this blog was originally published. Explore the new ThingLink suite here.)

2) WaterAid: WaterAid introduces their supporters to Tombohuaun, a village located deep in the jungle of Sierra Leone.  Within this article readers will find a unique and engaging 360° experience, allowing them to see the village and get to know the people who live there.  A second image details the village waterhole so that WaterAid can explain the challenges faced while living with dirty water. (Please note we have significantly updated the ThingLink experience since this blog was originally published. Explore the new ThingLink suite here.)

The Digital Content and Experience Lead at WaterAid, Alicia Robinson, explains that ThingLink’s 360° editor is valuable because it “delivers an immersive online experience for our supporters, so that they can meet the residents of Tombohuaun, Sierra Leone, and explore what life is like there.”  This level of immersion drives supporters to participate in donating to the cause. 

ThingLink Project Idea: Use a 360° image to drive awareness to your initiative 

1. Capture a 360° image that is relevant to your initiative.  For example, maybe you want to drive awareness to an environmental issue like forrest pollution.
2. Label the scene with different reasons why people should participate in your initiative.  This can include simple text and image labels, links to relevant web articles, and video content. 
3. Embed the interactive 360° experience to your initiative’s landing page or website. 

Now ThingLink allows anyone to create immersive 360 photospheres using a smartphone

Pano to 360 by ThingLink makes interactive virtual tour creation quick and easy! With this new tool, panoramic images taken with any mobile phone can be easily converted to 360-degree panoramas, otherwise known as photospheres.

With Pano to 360, you don’t require multiple shots or images to be stitched together. AI does the work for you, creating high quality 360 images that you can use to create stunning and immersive virtual tours to share anywhere.

Need help to create your own content?

• Go to our YouTube channel for easy-to-follow tutorials and webinar recordings!

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