10 YouTube Video Ideas To Make Your Senior Living Community POP!
Did you know that over half of boomers and seniors are watching online video, and YouTube is by far their favorite channel? What are you doing to tap into this market? Does your senior living community have a YouTube channel? Is it active? In this blog post, we’ll suggest some video ideas you can use to take advantage of this popular social network and reach more of your target customers.
Boomers and seniors watch online video for two main reasons: to be entertained, and to gather information on a topic. You should strive to create videos that fill both of these needs, in order to reach the largest number of potential customers. Read on for 10 video ideas you can use to promote your community, along with example videos from senior living organizations.
5 Informational Video Ideas for Senior Living Communities
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Upload a virtual tour of your community.
Prospects love these. Families greatly appreciate the ability to check out a community prior to touring by watching a short virtual tour. Customers can visualize themselves or a loved one living there, so they become more invested in your community as a potential option. Make sure to include contact information at the end of the video, and encourage them to call you for a tour. This subtle sales pitch pushes a customer to pick up the phone and call you right then and there, rather than watching another video or visiting another website.
Example: Senior Lifestyle Garden Estates of Temple Texas -
Turn your photo gallery into videos.
Did you know you could save a PowerPoint presentation as a video? Create a slide deck using high-quality photos of your community and supplement the photos with comments highlighting special moments. Add music and slide transitions to give your presentation that professional look.
Example: Mother’s Day Celebration at Sunshine Retirement Summerfield Estates -
Create a welcome video for new residents.
New residents enter your community with a flood of emotions – a move can be a disorienting, overwhelming experience for anyone. Help them settle in with a video recording various key staff members and perhaps some resident ambassadaors. Each one can give a greeting, introduce themselves, and offer a tip for settling in. You might even reuse some of the footage from your virtual tour to point out key community features (such as the dining room, exercise area, or garden).
Example: Merrill Gardens Anytime Dining -
Provide advice through a how-to tutorial video.
Regardless of your community, there’s no doubt plenty of advice you can give to seniors and/or their primary caregivers. Think of this as a way to introduce your community as a shoulder to lean on and gain some brand recognition with future residents. Potential topics could include tips for remembering to take medication, guidance for adult children broaching the conversation with a parent about moving into an assisted living community, or the explanation given by your Activity Director during an arts and crafts activity.
Example: Brookdale Senior Living: A Story in Starting the Senior Living Conversation -
Educate viewers about a topic.
Along the same lines, present your community to the broader community as an advocate for seniors and their families. If you have volunteers coming in to present an educational lecture, ask them if you can film it and post it on your YouTube channel. Tap into your staff and resident knowledge – maybe you have a retired carpenter in your midst, or an amateur cartoonist. Ask these people if they’d like to share their story or guidance in a video. This is an excellent way to reach out to viewers who could have no idea about your community, but live local to the area.
Example: BMA Management “History of Halloween”
5 Entertaining Video Ideas for Senior Living Communities
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Interview your residents and capture their thoughts on video.
Your residents have interesting stories to share. They also have a lot of opinions. Ask a bunch of residents the same question, and then clip all their answers together in one video. What do they like most about your community? Which celebrity would they most like to meet? What’s the funniest thing anyone has ever said to them?
Example: Belmont Village 65 YEARS OF MARRIAGE -
Hop on the parody/sketch video bandwagon.
Anytime a music video goes viral, it’s a great opportunity to create a parody or sketch video featuring your own residents and staff. These are a ton of fun, and are sure to bring a smile to the participants’ – and to the viewers’ – faces.
Example: Emeritus Grandmas’ Response to Harvard Baseball Call Me Maybe Cover -
Film performances at your community.
Do you often have groups or visitors come in to present concerts, dances, or plays? Ask their permission to film the event. Then you can share the videos with those who couldn’t attend that day, as well as share them on YouTube for posterity.
Example: The Ladies of Sunrise at Webb Gin, GA, Can Sing! -
Share a story about your community using an unique perspective.
Create a “Day in the Life” video where you follow a person around for the day. Film one of your caregivers to show how compassionate your staff is. Connect with a Resident Ambassador. Maybe you have a pet ambassador or two? Consider creating a film about your community through their eyes – people go crazy for pet videos! Be creative!
Example: A Day in the Life of a Silverado Resident with Dementia -
Get in the holiday spirit.
Celebrate your holidays with a video – film your residents singing Christmas carols, or create a montage capturing all the fun moments from your Fourth of July BBQ. Even better – when the year is up, you can mash all these videos together and share with residents and their families!
Example: Atria residents and staff sing ‘Jingle Bells’
How are you using videos to connect with families? Share your successes in the comments!
Amelia Willson
Based in Austin, TX, Amelia is the former Content Marketing Manager for SeniorAdvisor.com. When she’s not writing about online reputation management, online reviews, and social media in the senior living space, she enjoys yoga and running with her dog Rockefeller. She graduated from Wellesley College cum laude with a dual degree in English and Medieval/Renaissance Studies.
1 Comment
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These are great ideas! We’ve found that “lifestyle” videos that show residents participating in social activities can be a really effective way to convey the quality of life at a community in a minute or less, without the need for dialogue or extensive editing.
I think it’s also important to think beyond directly advertising your community and develop some videos that might be generally interesting and useful to older adults. be.group, one of our senior living clients in California, has some simple exercise videos led by one of their communities’ fitness instructors. It’s kind of a cool way to promote your amenities while providing something that’s clearly valuable to your target audience.
If you search for “be.group” on YouTube, you can see some great examples that might spark some additional ideas.
