Video marketing is no longer an optional novelty – this year it needs to become an essential part of your real estate marketing mix. If not, you could be losing out on a lot of business. Today, I explain why, and how to get your social media video marketing right.
Is your real estate marketing up to date?
Are you using video as part of your real estate social media marketing strategy yet? If the answer is no, it’s something that should be a top priority, because, without it, you run the risk of being left behind. You’ve probably already seen some of your competitors dipping their toes into the world of pre-recorded or live videos on Facebook – and there’s never been a better time to join them.
Property videos have become increasingly popular over the last couple of years as a means of encouraging clients to buy into a lifestyle that they aspire to. But this year looks set to see an explosion in video marketing as a form of personal branding for real estate agents and principals. When done well, video can be a highly effective tool for promoting yourself as a real estate agent – in fact, video has the highest click-through rate of all digital advertising formats.
Why a social media video strategy matters
We’re living in an “attention economy”. Social media is one of the main drivers of this – if you want to generate results for your business, simply winning attention online is no longer enough; it’s just the first step. It must be maintained and nurtured through genuine audience engagement and persistent media creation.
As social platforms such as Facebook grow in popularity, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to stand out in the crowded marketplace of the News Feed. It doesn’t help that Facebook constantly seems to be expecting more of its business users – it can feel as if we’re in a circus ring, being asked to jump through more and more hoops in order to be seen. Creating popular, engaging content is the best way to get yourself noticed and build your following on social media – and that means video.
What social media video can do for your real estate business
Some real estate agencies are posting pre-recorded videos on social media, others are live-streaming them to their followers. There are advantages to both – while people statistically spend three times longer watching live videos on Facebook than pre-recorded ones, making your video in advance often allows for a more professional product, especially if you’re new to video!
Whether you post pre-recorded videos or choose to go Live, doing video well will enable you to engage relevant audiences and build a local community following ahead of the competition. This has a number of advantages for your real estate business:
- Retain your audience
- Grow brand awareness
- Generate new leads
This is why you need to leverage the power of video on social media – but if it’s going to work effectively for you, it’s important to get it right.
What makes a good video on social media?
Success on social media relies on creating content that people want to see. Engaging videos have a number of important factors in common:
1. Quality
A professional-looking, polished video will always generate higher levels of engagement than a poor quality one. Choose an attractive location with good lighting and sound quality – don’t stand next to a busy road, for example, as there’s just too much background noise. A poorly planned, low-quality video will make you look amateurish, which can be damaging to your brand.
2. Storytelling
For a video to engage audiences, it has to tell a story that your target market can relate to. This means having a thorough understanding of your audience (local homeowners) and your market (real estate) and taking the time to think of quick, innovative ways to tell stories that will resonate with future home sellers or property investors.
3. Mobile-friendly
Facebook is designed to be a mobile-first platform. Over half of all online video content is now watched on smartphones and tablets, and most social media users access the platform via mobile devices – 56.5 percent of all Facebook users now exclusively access it on mobile. This means that if you want your video content – and the rest of your real estate social media marketing content – to gain any visibility on Facebook, it has to be optimised for mobile.
4. Native
Social media platforms each prioritise videos that have been uploaded to that platform directly, rather than links from other sites such as your own website or YouTube. On Facebook, native videos play automatically, while links from other sites need to be clicked on by the user in order to play them. This obviously gives native video a far greater chance of audience engagement. Native videos also get shared ten times more than other video content, meaning that uploading your videos directly to Facebook is the way to go if you want to gain maximum prominence for your videos.
Should video replace written content?
It’s important that your digital real estate marketing contains a mix of content formats, especially if you’re already sharing regular blogs and written articles. Audiences like to consume information in different ways, and some still prefer reading to watching a video!
Additionally – and almost more importantly – search engines need written content to determine how relevant a web page or site is to a search query. At present, they still can’t get this information from video alone, so posting written content helps your SEO efforts, as does including well-written descriptions with every video you post.
Social media video statistics speak for themselves – video content is shared 1200 per cent more on social media than text and images combined. Video might not quite have killed the radio star – or the written word – but it’s certainly a huge advantage when it comes to increasing the visibility of your real estate brand online.
So it’s time to step into the spotlight, and make this the year you add video to your real estate marketing mix. Lights, camera – action!
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.
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