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!

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.

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?

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).

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.

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.

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:

Innovators:

Those that adopt long before most people are aware of the technology

Early Adopters:

Those that see the value in testing new technologies before taking them up

Early Majority:

Those who can get a competitive advantage over the next 2 categories by learning how to utilize the technology before the competition. this is the most important category to be in.

Late Majority:

Those that are late to the party and need to adopt to stay in the game but will find it difficult to gain an advantage over people that have been utilizing it earlier.

Laggards:

Those that risk falling way behind and even going out of business in some cases.

Real Estate Video

We won’t beat you over the head about using video as a marketing tool in order to showcase your listings and personality, but take note. Soon many more Realtors will jump on board and it will become the new normal. Now is a great time to get involved. Decide what your objectives are and the route you want to take either with a good local videographer or by yourself. It is not meant to distract from the efforts of lead generationbut could be yield good return on that time investment.

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?

Introduce your agent to prospective clients.

It allows Realtors to communicate their goals as well as offer a call to action, up front, and answer commonly asked questions. This can save time for both the Realtor and potential buyers. It gives the agent an advantage over competitors who aren’t using video – adding credibility and additional value to both buyers and sellers. It’s a real opportunity to demonstrate their inter-personal style and include former clients who can provide testimonials and talk a bit about their experience buying through a particular agent.

That’s not to say, however, that a video-bio should view like an infomercial which to certain demographics can be a real turn-off. It’s an opportunity to display some transparency with buyers and garner trust — not just pay lip service to it.

Long shelf life compared to listing videos.

The only thing that will tangibly age will be the broker. It isn’t time sensitive, so the value and relevance of the video will be preserved and not disappear after a few months. Once a house is sold, a video tour becomes obsolete. So it is valuable to have other types of video as a constant reference and link. This can be posted to various other real estate hub sites such a wellcomemat.com or inmantv.com as a constant branding tool and tag.

Calling card

Finally, this type of video acts as a calling card as people look around for a Realtor. To be able to point people to this kind of media is another time saver and might increase the likelihood of a face-to-face meeting. If you have a Facebook profile or a Twitter account, you can promote the video — and to generate typically honest feedback on the quality or effectiveness of the video from these sites.

So if you think you have the chops for being on-screen, consider the bio video as another valuable marketing tool for you.

Amongst the candidates that ran for office, I publicly supported a moderate independent candidate named Dan Smith.  Unfortunately, he didn’t win.  However, Dan did do some pretty cool stuff on the web much of which involved the use of video.  Using the new $229 HD Flip Mino Video camera, Dan’s staff videoed a number of local supporters, myself included, and uploaded the videos onto youtube.  They then embedded the videos in his site (which is still online, but may not be much longer).  This was pretty simple to do, easy to publish and unique with in the campaign.

So what does this have to do with selling real estate, promoting your company, product or service?  A lot.

I’m a believer that device consolidation will eventually lead to your computer (or iPhone) being the one tool you use to access all media, including television.   At this time, however, video still has a little bit of the “wow” factor still left in it online.  Imagine a new visitor coming to your site and hearing from your clients, on video, talking about how they benefited from working with you?  It would be unique, compelling and not that hard to do.  I’ve mentioned the idea to a number of our real estate clients of videoing a young couple just after they have purchased their first time home.  Hearing them describe how you helped them find, negotiate and close on their home would be compelling.  Unlike a video tour of a home, which I also recommend, a video testimonial has a long shelf life on your site.

We have a couple of clients who have been progressive with their use of video, such as Dan Cypress and Jessica Bridge at RE/MAX North Professionals.  Jessica, who also endorsed Dan Smith, is photogenic and Dan knows how to do a thing or two with iMovie.  However, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to put together a great video about the Vermont Required Consumer Information Disclosure and post it on your site.  All it takes is a little initiative and a investment in a Flip Video Camera.

Please share links with us in the comment section below if you have posted cool videos on your site.

Image by zcreem via Flickr

[Ed. note: The Real Estate Internet Marketing blog welcomes a new voice to the blog, our intern Tom Cull. We think you'll enjoy his perspective and experience working with video in this and other posts.]

Remember when “Video killed the Radio Star“? According to The Pew Internet & American Life Project, almost 15% of all web traffic comes from You Tube and other video-sharing platforms. Couple that with Google’s increasing ability to index video into top search results and using video becomes a key component.

Many small businesses are jumping on this bandwagon as people are becoming more accustomed and willing to watching video online as they are to read text, especially with advertising. Using platforms like YouTube also saves on storage and bandwidth costs with great distribution possibilities from social networking.

But a caveat, large or small it is important to follow some basic rules of online video to communicate your message effectively and not turn off the viewer:

• Keep it short

• Have a loose script

• Make it work with the sound off as you never know what noisy cafe or airport the viewer may be watching it in

• Consider a pro. There are plenty of sites out there that can also connect businesses with established videographers if you do want a professional job done.

So how do Realtors benefit from using online video?

Realtors would be wise to consider every tool available to them online and video has many advantages that text and two dimensional images cannot convey.

For instance, a video tour can tell the story of a house more effectively than static pictures and the prospective buyer can instantly feel more knowledgeable from the get-go. Skip from room to room with chapters and the viewer can spend as much or as little time as they want checking out the house. The buyer and seller can save gas and time setting up a viewing only to discover immediately that it is not the place for them, without going through the motions with a Realtor on-site. The viewer can see and hear who they might be doing business with before getting too involved. Unfortunately the Realtor can’t do the same!

For Realtors, a house through the lens of a camera (especially a wide angle lens on a sunny day!) can bring the property alive and capture its best qualities that people can revisit over and over again. This really benefits houses with longer sales cycles perhaps on the pricier end where the discerning buyer will take a long look before considering it. Online video also provides real estate professionals with opportunities to answer questions about the property and, through the power of analytics, to learn from customers about what they are looking for.

Another great way online video can be utilized is with Open House viewings. With live streaming for example, the real estate professionals can save buyers money and field questions using embedded chats through social media sites such as Twitter. A site like www.ustream.tv could also provide this. Good video content effectively communicated and distributed, can provide a great dynamic element to a Realtor’s business. In turn this can bring more traffic to your site and with luck yield more sales conversions without having to be particularly pushy to buyers.

As Marshall McLuhan once famously said, “the medium is the message” and video is looking good.