Video is also a powerful tool for all companies and that includes estate agents and letting agents. Traditionally, videos have been time-consuming and expensive to produce, however, the advent of clever automation technology is making video production both cheaper and easier and above all video now has the ability to scale. It is no longer the case that a company spends their video budget on one website video. Video now should be thought of like other medium. It’s disposable and you need to make lots of videos regularly rather than just now and again.
So how can estate agents utilise video to their advantage?
Initially, of course, video is a fantastic tool to showcase properties. However, that does not mean film crews, directors, lights, clapper boards and lots of money. A simple slideshow video of a montage of photographs with music, your branding and on-screen graphics showing key details about the property is a fantastic way for prospective buyers to view properties. Combine that with a swipeable video gallery on your website to create an elegant and familiar user experience for buyers. Nowadays tools like shoutout.social are able to produce these videos completely in just a minute or two as well as producing a viewing gallery to embed on your website.
However, it’s not just the convenience to potential buyers that makes video an attractive option. By posting your listing videos onto platforms like YouTube you are increasing your SEO dramatically and in turn, increasing your potential reach. Each listing video makes you easier to get found online and over time this could pay dividends. Think of videos as intrepid explorers going out into the digital world and finding customers and leading them back to your website. Google and YouTube, the world’s biggest search engines, love videos and that will really help your organic search. All that SEO and the increased reach possibilities will not happen with photographs on your website.
As well as listing videos there are many other opportunities video has to offer. Creating regular video social posts featuring staff members talking about the latest property trends and other useful information will keep you front of mind for both buyers and sellers. Using the power of personalised video to create individual video messages to buyers and sellers is also a fantastic way to become more connected to your community and for people to get to know the people behind the company. These can all be made on a smartphone quickly and easily. A bit of time spent on finding a good place to film and framing your shot well will make more of a difference than an expensive camera. Phones are surprisingly good quality and it’s often a framing or lighting issue that makes something look unprofessional rather than the equipment used. Framing a shot well is within everyone’s grasp nowadays.
All business is about relationships and with a video, the relationship has already started before you even meet. It’s no different to how people feel about celebrities. Most of those
relationships only exist through video, however, we all feel like we know these celebrities even though we have never actually met them. Yes, I am saying through creating regular videos, you or your staff can become mini-celebrities.
User-generated content, or UGC, is the holy grail of video and estate agents can use the power of UGC to their advantage. Get video testimonials from happy customers and vendors just using a smartphone at the point they have completed or when they come to collect the keys. A genuine reaction at these heightened moments even on a shaky smartphone is worth much more than an over polished testimonial video after the event. Video is about capturing emotion rather than production value.
Nowadays, vendors can also take videos or pictures of their property and send them into the agent to turn into a listing montage video. This is a quick way to get property listed early and really useful in the current climate of travel restrictions and social distancing. The vendors will know their property and would be more than happy to take a few pictures to get things moving, especially when they are combined into a professional-looking video with graphics and music.
Video is no longer about expensive film crews and equipment, it’s about immediacy.
You can get started making videos on a smartphone and save the film crew for the bigger ticket items.
