I followed a thread this evening while building my digital holiday card on realestateshows.com.
Video is a powerful medium to promote real estate. It's interesting to see what I'll call a parallel in real estate video to the pro video industry ( the industry i worked in for 15 years before real estate). With the advent of digital video formats and digital video editing tools, the amount of video content has increased substantially in the last ten years. Most of the pro formats, even HD formats , have some type of compression and yet the quality is acceptable because it is digital and has the benefits of existing in the digital domain.
For realtors, when it comes to video tours, because of the cost prohibitive nature to use pro gear, properly light a home ( for interiors particularly), then edit and score if there is music, producing pro quality video tours is cost prohibitive. i believe sites like realestateshows.com, tourfactory.com, etc. provide realtors with a down and dirty cost effective alternative to video or fully stitched 360 degree virtual tours.
I also feel that raw video, similar to the reality TV that dominates the airwaves, videos of your caravans for instance, is a fresher approach that certainly appeals to the younger demographic of buyers.
Here on Kauai, where I live, after Hurricane Iniki in '92, one real estate company seized the moment and put a 24 hr. real estate channel on the the burgeoning cable system. Now, some 14 yrs. later, that Coldwell Banker franchise has a competitive edge over every agency with full broadcast video of their properties 24 hrs. a day. The CB franchise uses professionals who shoot, produce and edit the videos, and create DVDs for higher end properties, 2 Million and up. Their priciest listing is $45 Million. However, with the proliferation of online video sites and communities, an individual can start to compete with his online presence. When travelers vacationing on Kauai start watching more video on their laptops than on the TV in their hotel room ( folks who blog here may do so already), then online video can start to compete at the highest end of the marketplace.
I've been to several seminars about the generational gap and how to best communicate with each generation of buyers. It's clear if I'm selling to the millenium generation, I need to be blogging, "you tubing", twittering, facebooking, and basically socially networking in the the virtual spaces where this generation lives and thrives. If my focus market is retirees ( which where i live is a large market segment), I need to interface with my customers in a host of other ways too, more traditional and more "analog". But as we all know, the future gets more digital daily. It's so much fun!!!
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Well put thoughts. Keep ALL those eggs in your basket and you'll do fine. Drop one and you lose that market segment.