Time for travel brands to revisit (or visit) YouTube

By Mark Frary

Travel brands using YouTube may get something of a shock when they look at their channel from today - it all looks a bit different.

This is because YouTube is rolling out its new One Channel look and feel to all channels from today, 5 June.

The idea behind One Channel is that it is supposed to make your channel look good no matter what device it is viewed on - whether that’s an Android phone, a desktop or a smart television.

The changes mean that you will have to rethink your channel art, the image that appears at the top of your channel. Many travel brands have already used this to good effect to promote themselves but the responsive, multi-device approach means that you are going to have to choose your new image carefully. The image above shows why.

When viewed on a television, the yellow area is what is displayed. The red area is what is shown when viewed on a smartphone and is the minimum compressed size when viewed on a desktop. having a good focal point is always essential for such images anyway so it will just focus minds a little more clearly. You can find the specifications here.

As well as the new spec for channel art, One Channel also has other new features. One is a teaser video that automatically plays when anyone who does not already subscribe to your channel visits. This is a great opportunity for travel brands to engage more with people interested in them. Brands who are serious about video should really think about the idea of creating and publishing regular video snippets and getting people to subscribe to them. Forget old school product-led videos but think more laterally - an interview with the farmer who supplies the food to your hotel, how to a swan from a hotel towel, five best tapas bars in Seville if that’s where your business is.

Vlogger Sonia Gil of Sonia’s Travels is one person who already switched to the new layout before today’s changeover (one of the 100 million users who choose to go for the new look in beta).

Hotels.com and Etihad are travel brands that have already made the switch to the new look. Travel Perspective also made the switch some months ago.

One Channel also lets channel owners take control of how their playlists are displayed, meaning you can now guide visitors to the content that you want. See below for how Etihad has used this to its advantage.

If you haven’t yet embraced video to market your travel brand, this is the perfect opportunity to do so. After all, the site recently passed the billion users a month milestone and those users are making more than four billion searches every single day. If you are not there and looking good, how will they find you?