YouTube is a home to billions of interesting and informative videos. Lots of people across the globe, including me, spend hours every day exploring new videos over the largest video-sharing website. Ever since I started internet marketing, I started getting questions from hoteliers about the role of a YouTube channel in a hotel’s online marketing strategy. So I finally got around writing about the link between a YouTube channel and growth in a hotel’s popularity as well as revenue.
A few years ago when digital marketing wasn’t vital part of a hotel’s promotion strategy, small hotels in the hospitality industry used to avoid locking horns with big hotel chains directly. But with increased involvement of the Internet in our life and improved technology, businesses of all sizes have received equal opportunities to compete and grow.
Today, hoteliers use different online marketing strategies to reach their audience and lure them with attractive offers. Where social media websites get special attention of marketers, YouTube is usually neglected. You may be surprised to know that YouTube is the second most popular website worldwide, after Google. As per the website’s claim, it is visited by more than 1.5 billion new users every month. Its online video traffic generates more than half of the Internet traffic. More interesting about YouTube is that five billion videos are watched daily here and 300 hours of videos are uploaded every minute. These figures are increasing day by day, and YouTube is speedily becoming a powerful tool and a brilliant platform for business to promote their services with video content.
Why Your Hotel Needs YouTube?
With billions of daily users, YouTube has become a video marketing tool that allows you reach the hospitality industry’s biggest audience, attract them and drive viewers into making room bookings. According to Forrester Research, more than 60% guests are social travelers who explore different social media platform for hours in search of best hotel booking deals. Many among them prefer watching videos on a property instead of reading content. Through your hotel’s official YouTube channel, you can show YouTube users your hotel rooms and other amenities, and turn them into potential customers. An interesting and informative video can be shared by users across different social media platforms, which further can promote your hotels to a wide audience. Your strong presence on YouTube can:
- Popularize your hotel online
- Increase traffic on your hotel’s official website. The rising number of visitors on website could be future guests
- Increase your brand’s visibility online
- Develop personal connection with guests and local businesses
- Save money on marketing
- Earn extra through YouTube ads
How To Set Up YouTube Channel?
You can sign into YouTube the same way you logged into your any digital media account. Using the gear icon on the site’s top right side, you can set up a business channel to upload videos of your property.
Once you are done with creating the channel, fill the ‘about’ section with description of your hotel. While optimizing the YouTube channel, you need to:
- Link your hotel’s official website and pages on different social media websites
- Put right as well as interesting cover image for your channel depicting your property
While sharing a video, make sure that it is short, interesting and to-the-point. Its description should be compelling and with well-researched keywords.
Get Maximum Out of YouTube
Setting up a YouTube channel isn’t enough to draw attention of users. You need to monitor it and must respond to comments. Apart from that, you can also create and share a list of videos showcasing your favorite parts of the city, its attractions and local businesses. It will serve as an opportunity to develop a connection with local businesses and restaurants which further can help your business grow. You can make the most of video sharing site by crating video content keeping your audience in mind. There are countless content creation options, like your property’s highlights, chefs preparing a dish, guest travel stories or activities you offer.
YouTube is all about posting interesting videos and engage with users. When it is about promoting your brand and its services over the platform, all you need to do is make continuous efforts to fit in ‘what travelers want?’
If you want to learn and grow your business with the help of social media, join this thriving community for interesting discussions:
https://www.facebook.com/internetnetarchive/ h