Agent Mark Vella makes a Reel difference with his social marketing

One thing we know about real estate marketing is that it’s essential to promote both your current listings and your agency brand.

So many real estate professionals rely on property marketing alone – they sell a property (or buy or lease a property), achieve a great price and think … BOOM, that’s my marketing done. But the reality is that to be a top-performing property professional who appears attractive to prospects and generates a constant flow of new clients, it’s simply not enough.

Mark Vella of Starr Partners Blacktown is an excellent example of a real estate agent who has successfully integrated his brand marketing with his property marketing and is making an impact through the use of social media reels.

Read on as I take a closer look at how Mark’s marketing videos are helping him stand out from his competition.

Learn how Reels can be a great real estate branding tool

Recently, I judged the Real Estate Business (REB) Awards, where I discovered an impressive agent using cleverly crafted Reels to brand himself as a personable and thought-provoking property professional.

Mark Vella has evolved his brand marketing strategy to take advantage of this exploding video marketing format. When we looked at his social media pages, my team and I were impressed with how he has successfully improved his brand marketing using polished, engaging video Reels.

Mark’s videos are clever, sprinkled with fun, and contain the kind of practical, topical information you might find in a blog or article, packed into what is essentially a TikTok video in an easy-to-watch format. His output is consistent—he produces one video every week. They are well-researched and professionally produced, with graphics, statistics, facts, and usually an element of humour.

As a leading agent in his area, Sydney’s Blacktown, Mark could focus on his property sales track record alone. Instead, he invests in producing short videos that offer interesting insights to prospective home sellers – there’s not an ounce of self-promotion in the videos.

What makes video marketing so effective?

Social media videos are getting better all the time, and these days, they can be much more than a few wobbly property walk-throughs shot on your assistant’s iPhone.

As real estate professionals, it’s vital to showcase your knowledge of the industry and your local real estate market at all times. Plus, well-made videos show that you take pride in your marketing, and when someone is looking to sell their home, that can be very reassuring.

What does it take to make a great short-form video?

Because you only have such a short window of time for this video style, it’s essential to plan your content, utilise relevant property-related discussions, seek scripting assistance, and engage a videographer to ensure professional footage is shot.

By monitoring what videos resonate with your audience, the duration they watch for, and where they lose interest, you can use these insights to refine your future video topics, making them more appealing and engaging each time.

Let’s examine a couple of Mark’s videos more closely to better understand the potential of a good real estate Reel.

Video one: Review platforms and testimonials

In this video, Mark explains the difference between paid review sites and feedback received on social media or directly from clients.

Choosing the right real estate agent is one of the most stressful things about selling a home. By shedding light on various methods agents use to gather feedback from past clients (that a prospective seller may not fully understand) Mark urges home sellers to reach out to past clients directly. He highlights this as a more reliable way to hear genuine testimonials instead of relying on paid platform endorsements.

This video distinguishes Mark as a transparent and trustworthy property professional without needing to have a person-to-person conversation. We like how he overlays graphics on the video to help him get his point across (without using additional spoken words). It’s a great way to say more without actually saying more!

You can watch it here: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CwRQZJGRXLK

Video two: Reasons to sell

In this video, Mark discusses some common reasons to sell a home and shows that he understands what people are going through at various life stages. It is a smart way to connect with prospective clients in a short piece of content at all different points in their property ownership journey.

As usual, Mark backs up his words with research and stats, in this case providing interesting, up-to-date data on the top five reasons for selling a home. You can also see here the time and investment Mark puts into the videos — this one is well-shot and lit, easy to watch, and informative.

If a local homeowner watches out of curiosity, they may think about their own situation, which could result in them giving him a call to discuss their situation further. The video is a great prompt for starting a conversation with Mark in real life.

You can watch it here: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CzIcld_tnXR

Video three: Investment advice

Presented light-heartedly with pancakes, this video talks about flipping properties for profit. It explains some of the risks and things people need to consider when contemplating house flipping as an investment strategy. It’s informative and wholly focused on the viewer and their needs, again establishing Mark as someone to trust and take advice from.

We loved the wording on his apron, “World’s #1 Real Estate Agent “. It is a clever addition but still a little subtle.

You can watch it here: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cw6twWgOdZ7

Video 4: The Avocado Index

We loved this one, and judging by the engagement on the post, so did Mark’s audience.

What works so well here? Well, we all know what he’s referring to when he talks about the avocado toast index. The media and other commentators regularly mention the ability to afford this breakfast. Mark’s video both educates and entertains, which is what people look for on social media. Real estate can be a dry topic, but with a bit of creativity, you can show your understanding of the market data without being boring.

This video is also a great example of finding something that is being talked about in the media and putting your own spin on it rather than simply just regurgitating the news.

You can watch it here: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CvyWa2Ytt3L

Behind the scenes: How do I know what videos to produce?

Through your research and conversations with people in your area, you will learn their main concerns/questions, which you can use to your advantage to create a content strategy.

Here at Hoole, we take the time to get to know our ideal clients really well so that all marketing messages appeal to our audience. We regularly jot down frequently asked questions that come up in conversations. I also love coming up with new analogies to help my clients and followers understand how something works. My team and I always refer to these notes when planning our content topics each quarter.

While property professionals may produce simple videos, off-the-cuff, using their phones, researching a topic and writing a storyboard for your video idea first will pay off. Put time into developing creative ideas and then insightful and visually attractive content because that will deliver results. While it can be tempting to ‘wing it’ and simply post as often as possible, batch recording, sponsoring your posts and using analytics to track the overall performance will give you more bang for your buck than just showering your social media with ad-hoc organic posts.

Are you looking to make a ‘Reel’ difference in your marketing?

Is it time to step up your marketing and social media efforts? Are you wondering where to start? Contact me, Melanie Hoole, for a free one-hour consultation, where I will review your current activities, give you on-the-spot recommendations and outline the best next steps for you.

Written by Melanie Hoole

My team and I specialise in helping real estate and property professionals perfect their personal brand, build a first-class digital profile and implement inbound marketing activities to attract leads. If you are unsure which direction to take with your digital marketing contact me for help.