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The Data Again Shows That YouTube STILL Isn't The Magic Elixir Even With Videos Shown Inline As Universal Search Results

Background

This is a followup to our initial post about the performance of real estate property on YouTube. The initial analysis was completed prior to Google making YouTube videos playable right from search results via the Google Universal Search feature. The results were a paltry average of 16 video views within the first two weeks and a statistical mean of 8 (translation: a few videos had a lot of views which propped up the average).

This morning, we revisited YouTube to see if Universal Search had made a difference in the number of videos viewed. We used the exact same criteria as the first test and we welcome you to replicate the results.

Observations

A) More Properties: There were far more property videos this time. The first analysis in early May 2007 had only 235 property videos posted in the first two weeks. The analysis conpleted this morning had 555 properties (there likely are about 100 more that could not be analyzed because of the 50 page limit but you'll see that it is unlikely that the results woud change much. )

B) Less Zeros: While noting the totals, there seemed to be far fewer property videos with zero views, particularly towards the end of the first week. NOTE: We view the first two weeks as the critical period for real estate property video views in terms of generating interest for buyers.

C) Tighter Results: There also were less videos with over 100 views. The top 3 videos viewed during this analysis had 105 views, 104 views, and 99 views respectively compared with 360, 202, and two videos with 125 views in the first analysis.

Results

The YouTube results were actually significantly worse than the previous analysis.

Number of Property Videos Posted To YouTube For This Analysis: 555 videos (up from 235)

Total Number of Views of All 555 Videos: 5626 video views (Up from 3775)

Average Number of Video Views after being posted more than one week and less than two: 10 views (down from 16)

Mean Number of Video Views (50% with views above and 50% below) during same period: 6 views (down from 8)

---------

Comparison with VidListing.com Results

First 24 hour results: 82 videos posted with 226 video views for an average of 2.75 video views on day 1 (compared to http://vidlisting.com/ 's 212 total video views for a property video in three languages or average of 70 per language during the same period)

First week results: 313 videos posted with 1918 video views for an average of 6.1 video views on days 1-7 (compared to http://vidlisting.com/ 's 484 total video views for a property video in three languages or average of 161 video views per language during the same period)

Second week only results: 241 videos with 3701 video views for an average of 15.3 video views on days 8-14 (we will publish our results for second week performance tomorrow - posted: http://activerain.com/blogsview/121042/Interesting-Real-Estate-Video)

Conclusions

The observations noted above for more property videos posted and less zeros are likely outcomes of the Google Universal Search announcement and implementation. I'm not sure that the data supports the idea that Universal Search is driving video views.

I've also heard quite a bit of feedback from well respected real estate video people that YouTube means higher Google search result placement. My question in response to that claim would be, "for what searches?" Given the above data before and after Universal Search, either people are not finding the majority of real estate videos posted to YouTube or simply not viewing them if they are.

http://vidlisting.com/ has had both an alternative view of how to best build a community of visitors interested in watching property videos and an alternative approach to maximizing the reach of real estate videos. We also have all of our videos open to your scrunity to see the results that we get.

If you want to try our service and see better results than YouTube, email me at tony@vidlisting.com and, for a limited time, we'll send you a link that will allow you to convert and host your completed US property videos on our site as well.

See Also

Vidlisting.com Customers Travel To South America Specifically To Look At Properties Shown Via Translated Video Tours (http://activerain.com/blogsview/114022/Vidlisting-com-Customers-Trave)l

First Week Performance For A Property Tour (http://activerain.com/blogsview/114980/Interesting-Real-Estate-Video)

First 24 Hour Performance For A Property Tour (http://activerain.com/blogsview/111762/Interesting-Real-Estate-Video)

Posted by A. Grey | Vidlisting.com| Real Estate Video Mentor on 06/10/2007 07:36 AM

Comments (25)

youtube, video, vidlistingcom

25 Comments on The Data Again Shows That YouTube STILL Isn't The Magic Elixir Even With Videos Shown Inline As Universal Search Results

JUN

2007

The percieved U-Tube audience does not seem to be the right audience for results (Sale or Lease). It is on the other hand a great source for hits, views, and search engine results. But the two do go hand in hand. I'm going to check out your link and see about recommending to others. Cheers.

Matt Locke

1-877-MattLocke

http://www.georgiahomeinsurance.com/

http://www.georgiainvestorinsurance.com/

I went to the vidlisting site. Can you explain that at all? If you have time. Thanks.

Matt: Thanks. I hope that you like what you see.

Mother: No problem. Vidlisting is a site focused on maximising your marketing reach by displaying property videos in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. We started in South America, have agreements in the valuable 2nd and retirement home of Central America, and now are poised to bring this approach to the US.

Did you know that almost 50% of all US real estate transactions in the US are to immigrants or foreigners? Here is a short video of the CEO of the National Assocation of REALTORS (NAR) as the source: http://activerain.com/blogsview/112311/NAR-CEO-International-Roundtable. The strength of the Euro to the dollar has a lot to do with that increase in foreign transactions. In short, the http://vidlisting.com site can help U.S. based REALTORS adapt to changing demographics and economics by using videos that have descriptions in a familiar language as their medium to attract the widest possible set of buyers.

Cheers

Tony

YouTube is a venue for video. Real estate agents are turning more and more to video. The ease of posting to YouTube makes the effort painless, though the initial ROI seems 0. But I would not base a decision to post a real estate video on YouTube based on any present stats. It's the future you should be considering and your ability to create innovative real estate videos----it can be done and once you see it you'll raise your palm to you forehead and say "Why didn;t I think of that". A venue with those many eyeballs can;t be ignored.

PS I think I know what real estate videos will work there. For a small consultant's fee I can tell you :)

jf.sellsius: Thanks for the response. I'm surmising that when you refer to the future and todays ROI being essentially zero that you are referring to delivering something other than property videos. My guess is only because we track the performance of non-property videos on our site as well.

Property videos have a fairly predictable viewership curve on our site but so do at least two other forms of real estate video content (dont worry, you did such a good job of raising the question that I wont give away the secret if I am correct here [grin :) ] ). Some could easily fall into the category of "almost timeless content" - five years from now, I'm sure that people will still be searching for it. So, not nearly the upfront video views upfront, but a regular stream of visitors over some longer term - we are seeing that pattern today as well with certain types of video that we filmed months ago. Its a bit like the song, "Stairway To Heaven" - never number one or even number ten but one of the top selling albums of all time.

Property videos though do have a rather limited shelf life. The first two weeks are critical. Thats our focus area and the hard part of building the right audience - the near timeless content seems to do a good job of taking care of itself.

If anyone is having sustained success with property videos on YouTube, please let us know...

Tony

JUN

2007

try yahoo video.we recieve almost as many hits per week there as we do with our MLS direct hits.

eric: I'm not a big fan of the Yahoo video interface. I must be an idiot because I cant seem to find a way to sort the videos by date using their interface. Plus there's no views to analyze :)

Tony

I think that there is alot more than just property videos. It's all about creating something viral. A shaky video of a kitchen taken by someone who is a little too trigger happy on the zoom is not very viral. I don't think YouTube is the the outlet for that. But viral video (such as the real estate roller coaster viewed over 100k times) is where the big payoff is. It has a much longer shelf live and a killer RIO.

Tony,

I don't like the yahoo interface either, however, it is a place where there are a LOT of people watching real estate video's. And they do offer a view counter of your own uploaded videos....try it...i GUARANTEE you will see serious results!

eric

Here is the link to the video that Brad refers to: http://youtube.com/watch?v=kUldGc06S3U

Brad: Agreed about the viral nature of this particular video. Ultimately the public defines what is viral despite the video creator's best intentions. The public also seems quite fickle - there isnt any formula for determining what will be "viral". To me, viral signifies entertainment. Not everyone can break the code that the guys that blend anything did to boost sales of their product.

A more successful strategy for video providers might be building a focused audience of people that want to buy properties - not just to be entertained. I'd also like to better understand how viral videos will consistently generate buyers - to se a baseball analogy, I'd rather a player that consistently gets on base than the home run hitter who strikes out a lot. In the case of viral videos, people would be lucky to only get one HR in their entire career...and just a brief spike that may not ultimately translate to revenues.

Tony

eric: have any hard data to share?

JUN

2007

Quality comes before content.

Content must follow marketing.

Consumers follow aggregation.

Marketing is not activity, it is achievement.

You cannot make chicken salad out of chicken guano.

Well, O'man.

We keep reading these criticisms...without any direct response to those of us who steer you repeatedly toward:

-quality video production
-interesting video content
-video aggregation sites
-skillfully presented and marketed offerings
-delicious chicken salad made from prime cuts!

If you'd care to offer constructive criticism of leading-edge sites with quality content where passionate producers are providing a consumer-focused experience, we're all ears...and eyes!

Norvell Rose
www.RexNet.tv

obeoman,

please keep the comments on a positive note. active rain is about bringing INTELLIGENT real estate minded individuals together in a place where they can share ideas, and hopefully learn to be more successful in and around the field of real estate.

your comments tend to be more from the ignorant, uninformed, and threatened side. competition is what fuels business in America.

didn't you mother ever tell you that if you don't have anything nice to say, do not say anything at all?

AUG

2007

Adam: feedback is a good thing. However, there are better ways to provide feedback than posting essentially the same comment on multiple posts, please call me directly. My number is on the sidebar.

Tony

AUG

2007

To the anonymous poster:

...My comments are on a positive note - with a bit of humor thrown in. It's great to debate and exchange ideas. I author my comments.

Hiding behind a curtain of anonymity and sniping is not debate.

As far as intelligence goes, money follows results: Obeo gets over 1 million unique visitors per month-pick Alexa and Quantcast and our tour can take up to 30% off time-on-market for listings.

The basic question of RE video revolves around ease of production, quality of product and a stated maketing program that provides measurable results. Unfortunately - and it would see many agree with me - the vast majority of RE video is so incredibly mediocre it just doesn't help sell homes. Technical quality is weak, aggregation is poor -(a hogpile on googletube or yahoo does not count) and distribution seems haphazard.

There are exceptions to this. As stated, RE web video is just learning to roll over. I will keep watching - and listinening.

Obeoman

I'm hoping that since you usually end up on our blog that perhaps we are one of the companies that you are paying attention to.

Tony

JUN

2008

JUN

2008

DEC

i think media content is finally reaching a much higher level of importance in SEO

APR

After reading this blog and searching around on the net, I think video is definitely the next big thing in online marketing. After all, nearly everyone has a broadband connection these days. I am attempting to begin doing my own video "open houses." However, I am going to be marketing a uniqe website for each listing, and host my videos on the website. Great information on the blog and I am definitely going to check out vidlisting as well!!

AUG

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