Youtube

[delilah]

Has anyone any experience of getting enquiries/bookings via youtube?. My website lady, who is great, tells me lots of people now use youtube to locate holiday cottages etc

[Nightowl]

I have a little video on Youtube... made by a friend of my son (who I've known since they were both 14 or so, he's now 24). He did film making at Uni and he incorporated some filming in the house and around the local area, with some London timelapse footage that he did specially for me and incorporating some still photos of London and our local area.

I've been pretty pleased with it and I think it has definitely helped my bookings. I send it out when I get an enquiry, with my FAQs (yes I do FAQs at well (re the thread on them).

I paid £150 for the video and I think I got a good deal.

I did it so that I could show all the stuff like kitchen facilities, garden, room sizes, the fact that we provide games and videos etc, all of which I say in my FAQs but I wonder how much people read them sometimes. That's not to say that everyone watches to the end of my video (its about 4 min, which I know is long; the next one I do for the other flat definitely needs to be shorter...

It's had 455 views so far

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRYRhOAYe_A&feature=plcp

[Normandy Cow]

Wow Nightowl that is really really good. Almost makes me want to move back to London!!!!
And in fact, I don't think it is too long, because it is actually very well done and very interesting.

Our Youtube vid (it's not really a video, its a fancy slideshow) is now nearly 4 years old, and having seen yours I think it could do with updating. But it only cost about £5 and was done automatically using animoto.com. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stmuAei7uNQ

But I have never thought of using Youtube to entice people to my website! At the moment, you can link to the video from the website, but there are is nothing on Youtube designed to be found on google!
I really need to sort this out and put in some keyword-rich text, even if I can't update the video at the moment.

[Nightowl]

Ah thanks NC, it's so difficult to know how it comes across to other people but I really do think he did a good job on it.

yeah, I need to sort out keywords and search terms etc, the vid was really on Youtube so that I could send enquirers a link to it - it didn't occur to me that people would search youtube for holiday accom - so I'm missing a trick there, definitely need to do some work on it.

[tavi]

Love the video!

[French Cricket]

464 views now, Nightowl!

I think it's great. My only comment about the length is that I got really bored with the music - though not with the content, which I found really quirky and engaging and I like the continuity. But couldn't see a link to your website anywhere? Seems as though you might be missing a trick there.

If I could get something of that quality done for that sort of money I'd think I'd got a bargain

[Maurmc]

You might be doing this already... but I'd suggest you add tags to your Youtube video and put your website address where it is easily visible. Our Youtube video is just a slideshow with music, very basic, but we've got quite a few enquiries from it- no bookings yet. It appears quite high on Google searches for our area. I think in our case it's found through google search rather than searching Youtube for accommodation.

[Nemo]

Great video! If only the weather were that good all year round. It gives a really nice flavour of the flat and the sort of experience you'll have while holidaying there. I'd certainly book!

[Nightowl]

Thanks for all the tips all.... I will definitely use them.

so Delilah (0riginal poster) - I think your web lady may be right!

[kevsboredagain]

I have a grand total of 4 videos on Youtube now. Not many views but it's free advertising and the effort may be fruitful one day.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVn927 ... CzQ/videos

One thing you have to consider is the use of background music. Most music is protected by copyright so you can spend hours making a video with music, upload it, only for it to be blocked or deleted. The shoot yourself in the foot policies of the music industry is another topic altogether.

I've also started making short videos to show how things work in the apartment. You'd be surprised how many people cannot open a key safe! They can be hosted on youtube and embedded in my website, which makes maintenance easy.

[Nightowl]

Yes, I also send people a 'how to open a keysafe' video with their joining instructions.

I found one on Youtube for my make of keysafe but it's worthwhile doing one of your own. I think it really helps, a lot of people are a bit nervous about arriving late and opening a keysafe if they've never used one before.

Visual is always better than written instructions.

[Nemo]

Keysafe video? Gosh I hadn't thought of that! Most of my guests have not had a problem but I did have to talk one through the other day!

[pizza-salsa]

nightowl that video is really really excellent! so quirky, so modern, so inviting! what an excellent idea!.
I agree it's a bit too long, but that's the only very small negative comment.

[Damien Meuzac]

Yeah really like the video, can be a nice benchmark for us when we make our video ! Thanks for sharing!