Video Marketing for Hostels

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This page contains information about video marketing for hostels.

Contents

[edit] Video Content

Here are some ideas for hostel video content:

  • a tour of your hostel (don't forget the bathroom -- backpackers want to know what it looks like)
  • a tour of your city
  • interviews with backpackers about how great the hostel is
  • Andy had an idea to make video directions to hostels

[edit] Audio Tracks

Here are some sources for free audio content to use in your videos. Note that much of the content is licensed under Creative Commons licenses. Be sure to read the terms of the specific Creative Commons license because some of them require that your derived work also be licensed under the same Creative Commons license.

The Creative Commons Podcasting Legal Guide has information about the legal use of music in podcasts and videos. There is also more information in this forum thread.

[edit] Video Shooting Tips

  • Smiling, happy, good-looking people who are engaged with the camera are generally much more interesting to the viewer than videos without people, or of people who aren't engaged with the camera.
  • If doing slow panning of rooms and facilities consider using a tripod. It will look better.
  • Videos that are compilations of photos (like a slideshow) are less interesting that motion videos.
  • Consider having an underlying storyline or theme to the video. (example)

[edit] How to Edit Videos

Here are some free programs for editing videos:

Online video editor:

[edit] Watermarking the Video

Consider watermarking the entire length of the video with the URL of your home page and/or putting the URL on the last frame of the video so visitors know where to go for more information.

[edit] How to Upload Videos

[edit] Uploading Tools

Here is a useful tool for bulk uploading videos to YouTube:

[edit] Video Meta Data

[edit] Video Titles

  • Put the hostel's name and city in the title of the video

[edit] Video Description

  • Don't just fill your description with keyword spam. Make it attractive to human visitors.
  • Put the hostel's name and city in the description
  • Put a link to your hostel's Web site in the video description, possibly at the beginning so it will show without visitors having to click the "read more" link.
  • You could even add your phone number to the video's description -- this format is recommended: +1 (555) 555-5555
  • Make the first two sentences of the video's description read well because it may end up as the text snippet in the search results. For example, on youTube, the meta description tag is taken from the text description of the video. As mentioned in my free ebook, the meta description tag generally becomes the text snippet in the search engine results.

Here's a sample video description:

Here is how the description gets used for the meta description tag in the HTML: 

<meta name="description" content="LiveToJam.com Presents: Learning Guitar Step 1Learning 
Guitar Step 1 is an easy and educational step by step method for you to learn to play the guitar! Your...">

Here's how that looks in the Google Search results -- notice that the description is used for the text snippet under the video title:

A good title and text snippet can make your listing in the search results more clickable.

[edit] Video Tags

Tag your video with the name of your hostel, as well as general hostel and location keywords. Be accurate with your tagging, and don't overdo it.

[edit] Additional Resources

See what hostels are doing:

Promote your video:

  • Hostelz.com hostel videos - use the "Contact Hostelz.com" link at the bottom of the page and email them the URL of your hostel video and they'll add it to your hostel's listing.

Here are some threads about hostel videos from the Forum:

Top quality examples:

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