Garonga Safari Camp, Garonga Pride, Lions, South Africa Big 5, South Africa Safari, Travel in Africa

YouTube for Safari Companies: The Social Media Platform of a Thousand Words

Try saying YouTube three times fast…. “YouTube, YouTube, YouTube!”

Okay, it’s not a tongue twister, but we got your attention onto the word “YouTube” right? It’s a word that holds big meaning and is quite infamous in today’s digital sphere. To be honest it is beyond infamous, perhaps legendary!

So why should your Safari Lodge be Active on YouTube?

It’s a way to connect with your audience in a visually stimulating way.  Words are good, especially when you have an exquisite way with them, but a video adds an extra dimension to the storytelling aspect; it makes the story “come to life.” Watching a video is also less work for your audience than reading a long article. They’re much more likely to sit through your whole video than make it to the end of the long article about your lodge.

By showcasing a video of your lodge, you can add the extra element of soul.  Hence, you can add the owner’s snippet of personal knowledge, the guides’ insider lion expertise, and the true nature and character of your accommodation with the perfect blend of words and visuals.

We now know it can really pluck the heartstrings of your viewers, but what other opportunities does YouTube offer to make your videos effective?

1. Makes you findable outside the YouTube realm: YouTube videos can jump the long Google search engine queue.  As a matter of fact, Google owns YouTube so you must carefully use SEO (search engine optimisation) to your advantage.

•Although a creative title is catchy, it is critical to add important keywords to your title to have well-rounded SEO integration.  If there is a place you can add juicy, relevant keywords, do so!

Here is a trick of ours:  Use the main keyword(s) in the title, insert a colon, and then add your creative effect, like we did to the title of this blog:  “YouTube for Safari Companies: The Social Media Platform of a Thousand Words.” We now have the perfect balance of playful, yet SEO mindful.

Take this Robin Pope Safaris YouTube video about Pumulani for example:

•It’s imperative to add a description to your YouTube video.  This short, but detailed description gives the viewer an insight into your company, but also adds another element of search-ability. This snippet of information allows your video to appear in Google search results.

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•Tagging is another way to boost your SEO and jump the search engine line.  This is a chance to add keywords to your tag field that did not specifically have a place in your title, but are just as important to the body of your message.

Our suggestion?  Be as relevant and keyword rich as possible! Include the company name (Robin Pope Safaris member of Classic Safari Camps of Africa), the name of the camp (Pumulani), the geographic location (Malawi), and the name of the nearby popular destinations (Lake Malawi & Lake Malawi National Park.)

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2. Allows easy share-ability across other social media platforms:  Now is the time to say hello to Facebook, Twitter, etc. Share your video across all of these platforms to get extra coverage.  Think of all these different platforms as separate circles in a Venn diagram and in the middle of the diagram all these circles have a mutual overlapping point.  This overlapping point is the sweet spot of marketing communications where you can elevate your exposure! 

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Our suggestion? As well as posting the video on these respective pages to best suit the social media platfrom, you should also add links to these platforms on your YouTube channel for viewers to directly click through to.  If you have a blog page, this is also an important platform to display here.
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The final takeaway:  YouTube creates a path to user knowledge and potential “call to action.”  What do I mean by this?  Let’s take a look at a “user-case scenario” to drive the point home.

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We can now sequence how a person experiences your brand through a simple YouTube search.  This reiterates our statement above about the sweet spot of marketing.  Although this scenario is quite detailed, you can also see how it incorporates the bigger picture and extends to a wider scope of engagement through the website, facebook, and other social media platforms.

So to all those safari lodges, and any other businesses for that matter who are not on YouTube, today is the day to hop on the YouTube train!

 

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