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Video is going to be the future of the Internet experience and Real Estate is certainly no exception. More and more clients today are not only beginning the search for their home online but also are using the Internet to search for their agent.
While referrals and effective networking will always be a strong foundation for success in Real Estate, buyers and sellers' preference for the ease of use, variety and research capabilities of the Internet are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
Internet users today want transparency. They want to be able to get to know you from the comfort of their desk, in their pjs at 3 in the morning if need be. They want the control of being able to pick and choose in a medium that is convenient for them. They want to be able to see and hear what you sound like, how you move and what your body language is like, just as if they had a personal meeting with you. They want to be comfortable with you and they want to know what you will do differently to market their home especially in today's economy.
Video can be a really effective new tool in accomplishing all of that, especially if you take the time to do it well and brand yourself as a professional who is competent, detail-oriented with a friendly personality that a client would be comfortable with.
Here are a few key steps in creating a beautiful personal profile video that will look like you had a professional shoot it ... or at least may not end up looking like you had your 5 year-old pointing the camera at you.
The 2 biggest factors in poor video are often poor sound quality and lack of a steady hand. A tripod is easy enough to purchase and you don't need to spend a lot of money on a heavy duty tripod. You can get plastic tripods at Best Buy for $25 - $50 that will work great for your needs. This is a simple solution that we will not spend any additional time investigating here so that we can pursue more of a comprehensive approach to getting a great personal profile video.
Sound is a more difficult obstacle, but not insurmountable by any means. If you have't purchased a video camera yet, look for one with an output connection for an external microphone - It makes all of the difference. The built-in mic. on most consumer video cameras is an omnidirectional mic. that will pick up sound from all directions. Unfortunately you pay a price for that convenience in sound quality which can only be described as awful and the hallmark of amateur video.
You don't have to spend a fortune on microphones to see a vast improvement. You can buy inexpensive external microphones at Best Buy for $50 which will work substantially better than the built-in mic. You can aslo order a microphone from one of the many photo/video equipment online sites. I would recommend B&H as the most reliable site with the best return policy and service. Make sure that the microphone has a mini jack on the mic. and not an XLR jack which is for professional level cameras.
Set the external mic. as close as possible to yourself and just out of camera range as you don't want the mic. in the shot. You can duct tape the mic. to a tripod and place it near you or you can just prop it up on a stack of books or a small child and aim it at your wonderful mug. The key here is to get the mic. as close as possible. There is a misconception that an external "shotgun" mic. can pick up good sound from across the room, which is not the case. A shotgun mic. is a directional mic. that is designed to pick up clear sound from a narrow field and discard unwanted background sound that is off-axis.
Once you have the tripod and microphone in place, you're halfway there. Next, you want to create a decent background for your video masterpiece. This step often gets ignored but has a big impact on the look of a video. You want to get as much seperation between you and the background as possible - at least 4 feet, but 2 to 5 times as much is even better.
Too often you see people sitting against a wall that ends up looking like a mug shot and the sound ends up bouncing off the walls creating a tinny echo that distracts the viewer and labels you as a careless hack. It aslo is a bland, boring shot that looks like it belongs on YouTube right after the video of the dog on a skateboard.
So create some separation, use an entire room as a background or move some furniture, floor lamp or vase of flowers into a shot to create your own set. You want something colorful and pleasing in the background and not just a white wall. You can get creative here. Do that much and it will look like a professional interview on 60 minutes. Professional broadcast crews will spend a lot of time moving furniture around in order to create an interesting background. -It makes all the difference. Just do not stand against a wall.
Next, it's a good idea to get the camera as far away as possible (6 to 20 ft.) from you (Only if you have an external microphone and long cord) so that you can zoom the lens in. This will create a reduced depth of field, making the background slightly out of focus and a bit larger and more dramatic. This gives the image more of a film-like appearance and makes you stand out even more. Again this is what professionals do to make their interviews look appealing. Your eye is used to seeing this type of setup for interviews on TV and can quickly spot an exception to this setup. You may not be aware of it but an interview that is set on wide angle just looks "weird".
We're almost done now, don't worry, I won't babble on much longer. For brevity's sake I'll discuss lighting only briefly here, but obviously we could spend several blogs on this important topic for video. The key is to get lot's of light on you. Your camera cannot adjust to lighting the way your eyes can, so even if it looks good to you it will be too dark for your camera to get a good image. It has to be at least twice as bright as what your eyes would require to get good lighting. This is the single biggest mistake most people make in shooting their videos.
The easiest, quickest approach if you are filming indoors is to simply position yourself near a window and use the daylight to illuminate you. You don't want the window in the shot or your camera will adjust the exposure for the bright sunlight and you will end up as a dark silhouette like some criminal who doesn't want his identity revealed - probably not what you are looking for in a personal profile video. You want the light hitting your face at about a 45 degree angle. This is what is called your key light or main light. You could also bounce some of the daylight coming in through the window onto the other side of your face (Called fill light) with a simple white 2x3 ft. piece of cardboard that you can buy at any art store. This will cast a nice soft secondary light on the side of your face that would otherwise have a shadow on it. This lighting set up would be considered 2-point lighting - 1 main key light on one side of your face and a 2nd fill light at half the strength of the key.
If you are shooting indoors and don't have access to a large window or don't like the background behind it you can use 2 of your existing table lamps. Remove the lampshade and place a lamp on each side of you at about a 45 degree angle as close as possible to your face without getting in the shot. 100 watt bulbs are good but 300 watts are even better. 60 watt bulbs are pushing it but are better than nothing.
One caveat to remember is to avoid mixing different light sources. Don't place your light near a window as you want to avoid mixing daylight and indoor incandescent light fitures. If you film near a window then don't use lights and if you are using lights don't film near a window. Your camera will automatically do what is called a ' White Balance ' for every scene it shoots and if you mix the 2 different light sources you will be disappointed in the results.
Daylight is at 5500 Kelvin temperature and indoor incandescent is around 3500 Kelvin temp. The higher the temperature, the bluer the light. The lower the temperature the more orange the light is. If you film near a window with incandescent lights nearby your camera will automatically set the white balance for daylight and you will end up orange. If you have a lot of incandescent light nearby your camera will white balance for the indoor light and the daylight coming through the window onto your face will turn you blue.
So remember, just separate the 2 lights. either use all daylight coming through the window to illuminate you or get away from any windows and light yourself only with lamps. You'll be surprised at how much better your video will look as a result.
I won't bore you with any more details, but follow these basic rules and your video will look dramatically better than your traditional mug shot with awful distant sound. We'll get into how to make easy, effective edits using a free software program on the next post if there is any interest level for it.
Good luck! I'd be glad to help if you have any more questions.
Mark Selmi Chief Operating Officer Avanti Films Beverly Hills & San Francisco www.avantivisuals.com
A unique and interesting video was uploaded to YouTube this weekend that already received over a million views the first day alone which is unprecedented - and for a very good reason. This video is such a poignant reminder, in a world where it is all too easy to misunderstand one another, mistrust and condemn, to site our irreconcilable differences, and to embrace war and build walls - That we all share the same hope and dreams ... with the same indomitable spirit to enjoy this beautiful world around us ... it is so easy to forget.
The guy who is in this video has always loved to travel. He started traveling as a college student and began doing these silly dances in front of some of the great sights throughout the world as he traveled. It was the only dance he knew how to do and he did it badly. He uploaded a video a couple of years ago that received a lot of plays at the time for the beautiful sights, empowering music and universal appeal.
Matt received a sponsor this time around and with a bit of money for travel and a tripod for his camera he got people from every corner of the world to join him in his embrace of something he had already come to know - That we are all the same ... Dancing in the rain and embracing the laughter of children.
This 4 minute video should put a smile on your face if you happen to view cultural diversity and tolerance as a virtue. You can also go to YouTube by clicking on the link at the bottom of this post and watch the HD version of this video. Once you get to the video on YouTube, look below the video window on the right and click on the "High Quality Version" to watch in HD.
I have no connection whatsoever to this video, but this is the type of media that has a positive impact and could only happen on the Internet where a guy and his camera could help connect people from all over the world.
If you search for the video on YouTube it's called "Where the hell is Matt?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY&feature=user
Today we are going to talk about tips for real estate agents in creating their own weekly video Internet Webisodes. Many agents often have extensive articles, links and information on their websites for buyers and sellers to use in making more informed decisions. Information regarding a variety of topics ranging from info. on local schools to what to expect in a Pest Inspection can obviously be very helpful to someone in being a better informed consumer and also perhaps help them become comfortable with you as their future agent as well.
Video is the next step in converting that towering pile of text and technical terms into an easy to understand format that also enhances your personal brand and helps bond the viewer to you as the source of competence and support. A video can take the equivalence of 30 pages of dry text and condense all that information into a 3 minute video with 3 times the comprehension levels.
You can create a weekly video series where you deliver this vital information into a brief and easy to consume format that viewers have come to prefer and search for. You will certainly stand out from the other agents in your area and viewers will often email links to your video to their friends and co-workers, creating a viral campaign for you fro free.
You can embed each video into a page on your website by uploading your video to a free video-sharing site that will host your video for free. They will provide you with a paragraph of embed code that you simply paste into your website editor and you're up and running. Veoh and Vimeo are 2 video-sharing sites that currently have the best video and sound quality - considerably better quality than YouTube, Yahoo or Google.
It's also advisable to upload your video each week to several video-sharing sites in addition to your own website. YouTube, Veoh, Revver, Vimeo, Google, Yahoo, DailyMotion & MetaCafe are the top sites among the now 100-plus video sites available.
Given the popularity of video these days, the Google bots access and index videos from all these sites every 30 minutes instead of every 3 months for website submissions. Since Google purchased YouTube last year, they also currently assign a significantly higher value to video than text when placing your video for search. It is quite easy to place a video onto page 1 of Google organic search within 30 minutes for a reasonable search term.
For example, the video sample below was indexed onto page one of Google search for this agent within 30 minutes. If you type in "Doug Buenz" into Google search you'll find this video as the number 6 listing on page one for an agent that has substantial Google optimization.
Optimizing the video with important keywords and the proper amount of repetition in also a critical aspect of getting the video placed highly within organic search. The title should have your keyword and name in it at least twice and the video description paragraph should have your keyword and name repeated at least 4-6 times along with your URL.
Done properly, each video on each video-sharing site can act as a separate website listed within organic search, each diercting traffic to your website and acting as a high-value link to your sites. Google considers the high-traffic video sites to be very high-value links, so make sure to place your URL into the decsiption paragraph for each video.
A weekly webisode can create a valuable format for giving out useful but often dry information in an easy-to-consume format the viewers have come to prefer and also create a personal brand with an international reach, all for less than the cost of newspaper advertising. In this very competitive market, successful agents are looking for new ways to connect and bond with rapidly changing needs from consumers.
Online video gets around A world-wide demographic migrates online Online video numbers: 42% of consumers age 18 to 34 watch videos online at home at least once a week, up from 28% in 2007, a new study from Leichtman Research Group says. And, of the 1,250 households surveyed, 9% "strongly agree" that they now watch TV less often. So that's 9% of households giving up some TV time for online video. Isn't it Mark Penn who says just 1% of the population is potentially enough to trigger change? In this case, it could be a change in ad spending. About 31% of those surveyed who use the web at home watch an Internet video once a week or more, up from about 25% last year. 10% view online videos daily. Men between the ages of 18 and 34 accounted for 40% of daily viewers, even though they represented only 17% of Internet users surveyed. Men aged 18-34? That's the prized demographic of most TV advertisers. - Inside Online Video Want to know how much it costs to advertise inside online video? Daisey Whitney posts a survey of ad rates from various video sites. Blip.tv: CPM $10-$30, sponsorships $30-$100. We already know Ask a Ninja charges $100,000 monthly. Kevin Nalts charges $3,000-$10,000 per product placement. Notice that niche video sites can command ad rates higher than those of a mainstream video site like CNN or TV Guide. That's the value of a focused audience.
Most Real Estate agents would agree that successfully appealing to the emotional benefits of purchasing a home are not insignificant factors in selling a property. Some might argue that curb appeal and the look and feel of a home upon entering the foyer can be a critical factor in selling a home.
If that argument is true, then it should stand to reason that the same holds true for your website. If the curb appeal of your site doesn't allow for a comfortable feeling when someone lands on your home page the results are no less dramatic. Studies have shown that web users will click away from your site after just 8 seconds if they become confused, bored or uninterested.
So, what are emotional benefits?
In other words, emotional benefits support the consumers self-esteem. "I use product Z, therefore I am a creative person". "I use service X, therefore I am a relaxed person". "I drive brand Y, therefore I am an innovative person". These are all statements that evoke emotional benefits in the consumer and help drive their purchasing decision because of the emotional association they make with the product or brand. Just about every business, product, and service can be associated with an emotional benefit.
Emotions Drive Purchasing Decisions!
What does your site say about you? The old-school web approach to putting as much content as possible on your landing page actually has a counter-productive effect for today 's web user. Current studies show that just 2 in 100 users will actually make a decision to call an agent after landing on their Home page, most of them leave after just 8 seconds.
What works for today's user is a simple Home page, with less than 3 choices, lots of white space and custom graphics and interactive media. Most new corporate web sites are designed to take advantage of these user trends because studies have documented that it works. Users can't comfortably remember more than 3 concepts or they get frustrated. The rule of threes has always been an important factor in art and graphic design, but it's often ignored in small business.
There's no reason a Real Estate website couldn't incorporate simple elegance into their site design and cater to the emotional benefits of a new client. A Home page that had just 3 choices 1. - Meet Me 2. Sellers 3. Buyers and large custom photos and a video intro are 8 times more likely to get that all important first click. Nothing will happen without that first click and studies show that once a user gets to a second page they are more emotionally committed to your site and are likely to click at least one more time since they have gone that far already. It's all about that first click. Offer simple elegance, visually engaging space and the content they seek that is just one click away and you have met their emotional needs.
Below is a brief 3 minute video example of an emotional approach to selling a tradionally dry subject - Dentistry
Mark Selmi - Avanti Films www.avantivisuals.com
I covered in a previous blog how to incorporate website video of resident interviews into your site as a reference tool for your potential clients who are relocating to your area. Today we'll cover how to supplement that interactive content with a website video of your city or town. This video will give the viewer an actual tour of what makes your local community a unique and inviting place to settle.
A website video tour can give the viewer a genuine experience of what it's like to drive down Main Street. The viewer gets a real sense of the look and feel of a community, the culture, ambience and flavor of everyday life. It's one thing to describe a community with words and all the limitation inherent in textual content, but to experience life in your city or town within a video storyline is a real sensory connection that stays with the viewer long after the website video is over.
City or town profiles that you see on TV magazine shows resonate with viewers because they get a personal video tour through that community that connects on an emotional level. All the benefits of background music, camera angles and timely edits creates a style, pace and feel that accentuates the story of that community with power and impact. As TV viewers, we have all become accustomed to understanding and responding to this format as a shared reference framework - We know, understand and have come to prefer visual stories. Website video now allows small businesses to compete with large companies on a level playing field.
Savvy Real Estate agents have come to understand that incorporating that visual style of story-telling into their website creates an emotional connection with the viewer that was not part of the old web 1.0 experience. They understand that the emotional appeal of their web experience is just as important as that of selling a home. The curb appeal of a website today is the primary factor in getting a web user to stay on your page. If the first impression doesn't connect on an emotional level, the web user is gone - in just 8 seconds. If they get bored, confused or indifferent after landing on your welcome page you will never get that all-important first click within your site. Studies show that the average conversion rate for sites without media-rich content is just 1%
These are the same agents who understood 10 years ago that placing photos onto their site at a time when most sites were completely textually- based created a distinct advantge for them. Their willingness to adapt and adjust to market demands kept them ahead of their competition. The Internet today rewards a forward-thinking approach because that is precisely the basis for the entire Internet platform - Forward-thinking, constant, rapid change.
The Internet today with it's rapid transition to the Web 2.0 media-rich, interactive experience is changing at such an accelerated pace that online retailers can quickly get left behind. It's not your average storefront experience. It's nothing like your brick and mortar marketplace demands where the tactics of the past will usually always be relevant. If Dog years are a 7 to 1 ratio then Internet years today are a - 2 to 1 ratio. What worked just 18 months ago for Internet marketing often is no longer top-of-mind marketing today.
Technological advances during the last 18 months with flash-encoded graphics, website video, pay-per-click, affiliate networking, banner advertising overlays, SEO algorithm updates, new social networking platforms and bookmarking sites have all substantially changed user habits and preferences for media-rich, interactive content. It ain't your daddy's Internet anymore.
Below is an example of a 4 minute website video of a small town in California created for a successful agent in Pleasanton who is actively engaged with his Internet market. This is a just-released video that has not yet been placed on his site by his web design firm Mark Selmi - Avanti Films website video specialists www.avantivisuals.com
"The power of website video is the impact of TV broadcast " Success in today's Real Estate market without a viable, integrated web presence can be like trying to get your dog to catch a frisbee without practice - It could happen, but it's going to be erradic, subject to the whims of fortune and your dog may end up chasing Land Cruisers on the expressway as a result. Success for service-based, small business without an effective web strategy can be no less daunting or without significant, unintended consequences. Current studies have found that over 75% of home buyers and sellers now utilize the Internet for searching for homes . That's not a number that an agent can afford to ignore without financial consequences, especially in a market like we are experiencing today. Yet old habits are hard to break for many agents. It's no longer 1985 and Kinko's Copy flyers are no longer cutting edge marketing. Today's sophisticated, qualified buyers and sellers use the Internet for extensive research and they give their business to agents who are equipped to facilitate that approach. Websites for better or for worse, have become the main portal for access to these clients today. This has become their shopping mall. They expect an interactive, media-rich experience with photos, videos and virtual tours with a simple, easy-to-use interface. Once they get confused or bored they're gone - Studies show that takes just 8 seconds. We've become a nation of impatient surfers, born with a remote in our hand, an eager trigger finger and immersed in compelling visual images. Bore or confuse your website visitors at your own peril. It's no longer enough to put up a simple website and expect results. Serve up a website filled with confusing links, endless text and an outdated photo or two and you will lose 9 out of every 10 visitors that you worked so hard to direct to your site. These are the simple, brutal facts of today's Internet market. The average monthly conversion rates for websites are staggering stats - 1% for text-based sites and 11% for media-rich, easy-to-navigate sites. That means for every 100 visitors to your website a text-based site will receive 1 phone call and a media-rich site will receive 11. Some would argue that's a difference that's worth a great deal. The Internet rate of technological progress has been dramatic within the last 18 months. New Adobe flash technolgy enabled website designers to now seemlessly incorporate internet video into sites without the previous issues of waiting for the video to download to your hard drive. The flash-encoded video now plays instantly and with all the clarity of a TV broadcast. The explosion of social network platforms, blogs, vloggs, more focused search engine paremters, and numerous online marketing innovations have all quickly and dramtically changed the web landscape. You have just 8 seconds to tell visitors to your website who you are and what you can do for them and why you are qualified to handle the largest financial transaction of their lives. If you think they don't care who you are or what you are like as a person then they will search for someone who does. Web surfing habits have changed and viewers now seek the same transparency in an online transaction that they require in a personal transaction. Most agents would agree that if they can connect with a client emotionally during a personal visit, they will usually get the listing. The online user is now seeking the same experience when surfing the Internet for homes - A personal connection. What does your site say about you? Your website landing page should not be the confusing array of navigational links and text that so many Real estate sites are filled with today. What many agents feel is an impressive array of extensive content has the opposite effect on today's actual surfing habits. People simply get confused and leave. Studies show that people prefer information and visual composition in groups of three. That has always been well understood by artists throughout the ages. Whether it was the great painting masters of the Renaissance or the Greeks in constructing three-act plays - people are emotionally comfortable with no more than three concepts, visually or intellectually. There has been an explosion of over 100 new websites for social-interaction sites recently and they all have access to huge databases of clicking habits of their of users. They all quickly learned what works to get a click and what doesn't and there doesn't seem to be any disagreement over the results. You will see all of these sites utilize simple landing pages with no more than 3 choices because they have learned that this works dramatically better than a cluttered page with too many choices. You will begin to see more and more new sites follow this prescription as the numbers are indisputable. That may seem counter-intuitive to a Real estate agent sitting atop a mound of housing information. However, you don't need to remove any of your content. Re-packaging your info.in an easily digested format can dramnatically change your response rate. A Real Estate landing page should be uncluttered, visually enhanced but with plenty of white space and have only 3 initial choices: 1. Buyers 2. Sellers 3. Meet me. You still have all of the same extensive content on your site, but you now allow the user to get past that all-important first click from within the 8 second portal. Studies show that once they click once within your site, they achieve a stronger emotional commitment and comfort level with your information. That comfort level is what determines a user's willingness to pursue and endure a search for information within your site. Studies show that the first click results in an average of at least 2 more (Again the rule of 3) . If they can get to your pertinent info. that is visually enhanced and without clutter within 3 clicks your chances for a connection increase substantially. I'm sure many of you have experieced when you click into someone's site you often unconsciously will click at least one more time because you've gone that far already. A recent study confirmed what many agents already knew. That given limited information, that potential clients often selected an agent based on image or emotional appeal. When questioned, more than half the respondents of this study said that they sometimes selected an agent on the Internet based on nothing more than their photograph. If that is true then how important is the look and feel of your site? Some might say in today's market it can often be the difference between a successful client list and afternoons spent trolling Active Rain leaving sarcastic comments on people's blogs. Many agents will often go to great lengths in creating a professional, upscale image with respect to their office, attire and mode of transportation because they understand that image matters in sales, yet they almost completely ignore their website. The one electronic storefront that more than three-quarters of today's market utilizes for access and yet they simply ignore it. Outdated photos, a cheap, cluttered interface, confusing navigation, an unused blog, an unused email newsletter list, the list could go on. You will hear things like "I don't have time to update my website." "I'm not a technical person." "Real marketing is through personal networking. I have a stack of business cards at the cleaners that I'm excited about." While the value of personal networking will never be in dispute, ignoring new emerging market demands is rarely the prescription for success. Today's clients demands are quite clear - They want to research homes, supporting information and agents through the Internet and they want a simple, easy-to-use, media-rich, interactive experience with genuine transparency. If you are not offering them an Internet experience that they seek, then this part of the market will not likely be accessible to you. That market is getting increasingly difficult to continue to ignore today in an industry that has been at times, slow to embrace technology. Mark Selmi - Avanti Films, http://www.avantivisuals.com/ |
Mark Selmi Beverly Hills, CA More about me… Avanti Films Office Phone: (310) 601-7078 Cell Phone: (310) 409-5855 Email Me
Mark Selmi, Chief Operating Officer of Avanti Films delivers useful tips in creating and placing video on your website. Online video will be the future of the Web 2.0 media-rich experience and savvy online marketers will be among the early adopters.
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