Optimizing and Distributing your Videos

Pop Quiz: What is the 3rd biggest search engine?

Yahoo, Bing, AOL, MSN, ASK?

Read more

Why Choose Responsibility Chose Union Street Media

Choose Responsibility is a nonprofit organization that stimulates conversation about the presence of alcohol in American culture; more specifically, they focus on how this affects young adults ages 18-20. They strive to empower young adults to make responsible decisions about alcohol in their lives.

The founder is John McCardell, former president of Middlebury College. John believes the drinking age should be lowered to 18 so young adults in the 18-20 age range don’t resort to dangerous measures to acquire alcohol. The idea is that by teaching people at an earlier age how to drink responsibly, it will lead to better habits in the future.

John came to us needing a better website, and that’s exactly what we gave him. Watch him talk about his positive partnership with Union Street Media.

Check out the Union Street Media YouTube Channel to watch other happy clients speak about their work with us!

Union Street Media Client Testimonial Video

One of the most rewarding aspects of working at Union Street Media is the clients’ appreciation of the work we do. When a client’s website performance increases, it is equally as rewarding to us as it is to them.

Recently we’ve compiled a video that highlights a few good words that some of our clients had to say about their experience with Union Street Media.

After you’ve signed up, check out all of Union Street Media’s videos and rate your favorites!

Video is the New Photo – WellcomeMat Video App

I’ve been a fan of WellcomeMat for a while now for it’s effortless ease of use, attractive interface and the fact it’s a dedicated real estate platform for video. The latest offering from them is an iPhone app that allows you to post  geo-coded real estate videos to WellcomeMat, Twitter, Facebook, Posterous and YouTube for FREE.

The news was rolled out by their founder here and you can learn more about what WellcomeMat does here and even see a few of our in house offerings on our Union Street Media channel.

We would be interested to hear from anyone that has used this application and their thoughts on its effectiveness, however  the app is currently usable only on the iPhone 3G.

Changing Media Landscape

I had an interesting phone call from a longtime client yesterday who decided to stop advertising in his local print real estate monthly for the next four months and will instead be engaging our report, recommend, revise process.  “RRR” helps our clients improve the search engine placement of their web site and generate more leads from the web.  This client understands the shifting media landscape and I was pleased to see him make his marketing investments accordingly.

The upcoming Media Convergence Conference in New York City, put on by The Economist, launched a video called Shift Happens, that helps put these changes in context.  They posted a fascinating video about the event here:

My favorite statistic: The average American teen sends 2272 text messages a month.

With numbers like that, and the often quoted 2008 NAR study that shows 87% of home buyers use the internet when making a purchase, I wonder how much longer people will continue to disproportionately spend money offline?

Real Estate Videos Work for Brian Boardman, Burlington Vermont

Union Street Media presented at the Coldwell Banker Agent Real Estate Trends & Social Media Seminar on the 16th at the Ethan Allen Club in Burlington, Vermont. Our presentation focused on utilizing real estate videos.

The presentation went very well. We received a great deal of positive feedback from participants from all over the region. Our friend and client Brian Boardman, a REALTOR® here in Burlington, Vermont chimed in to talk  about how a particular listing video help him get one of his high-end properties under contract.  It was a fun, engaging conversation!

Please contact us if you attended the session and would like a copy of our notes (or if you couldn’t make it, and would like a copy of our notes).

Brian Boardman on why he uses Union Street Media

One of our favorite lines from Good to Great is “be interested, not interesting”… so please excuse this somewhat self-promotional blog post.  It’s not our style.  However, we’ve been cooking up some new videos here at Union Street Media and have one we feel compelled to share.  Brian Boardman, the Owner / Broker of Coldwell Banker Hickok & Boardman and a longtime Union Street Media client, talked a little bit about why he’s working with us and we got it on tape!

Inspired by a few videos we saw on our semi-annual trip to the Inman News Real Estate Connect conference, we also produced a video biography of Brian to help introduce him to site visitors.  We launched a new site, www.agentsdrivinghydrids.com, to coincide with Brian’s effort to encourage REALTORS to drive hybrid vehicles this summer as well.  If you’re one of them, please let Brian know and he’ll link to your web site.

Real Estate Marketing Dollars for Print vs Web

Study into Real Estate Advertising

Disclaimer: we have a good friend that works at the Burlington Free Press and do believe there is a role for print in the real estate advertising model.

This blog article on real estate advertising in newspapers from a veteran media executive is a must read for REALTORS undecided about the ratio of print to web investment. The article states that 6 out of 10 real estate agents think newspaper advertising is useless. However, 80% still buy print ads often just to appease the sellers they are representing!  This is consistent with the anecdotal reports we’ve heard from our clients.

We feel that REALTOR are the expert in their field.  With their knowledge of the market and trends, they are best qualified to know how to market their properties and to whom.  If the high quality leads are coming from the web then this is the sort of quality control that needs to be measured and communicated to sellers.  One client of ours has recently started offering sellers $250 back at closing if he never has to run their house in a print ad.  Think that’s crazy?  Try pitching it as your next listing presentation.

Brian Boardman on real estate marketing

Brian Boardman, the broker and owner of Hickock & Boardman  and a longtime USM client, spoke to us recently about the growing trend of moving away from print to web to market properties.

Adopting video at the right time

Getting into the ‘early majority’ phase

In 1957 at Iowa State College Joe M. Bohlen and George M. Beal developed a simple analogy called the technology adoption lifecycle, which examined a way to look at when people adopt a new technology.

A more in depth explanation of this curve can be found here, but this is basically how it breaks down:

Read more

The Value of Real Estate Video-Bios and Testimonials

In a new era of ‘social’ media and more direct communication with buyers, it’s important to remember to be sociable without the appearances of a hard sell. Realtors are very much used to the meet-and-greet with prospective clients so a natural extension of this is to display these skills on the web.

When we here at Union Street Media talk to our Real Estate clients, we frequently hear that before the dominance of real estate websites they received many more direct calls from perspective clients. These days, they say, there are so many more barriers before that initial phone call happens. Many potential clients want to avoid the pressure of a face to face meeting and are more inclined to make contact via email and contact forms. In this sterile online environment, the opportunity for the broker to display his or her knowledge and personality is limited, thus reducing their direct impact on the buyer. In effect, there is so much more run-around before the broker and buyer actually meet and make a personal connection. This is where the video-bio comes in. If used correctly, the video bio can break down these communication barriers to get across the knowledge and personality that you just can’t achieve through email.

We are proud to present our own video bio for Brian Boardman here, which we produced in-house. Clearly comfortable in front of a camera, you get to see a more personable view of him and not just a slick advertisement.

What are the advantages to video bios?

Read more

keep looking »