Create Videos People Actually Watch

The old adage about pictures being worth a thousand words continues to stand today. Now that pictures “move,” make sure the videos you create for your real estate website tell stories that speak to your viewers needs AND their imaginations.

Here are some tips from Veronika Bondarenko in a recent article for InmanNews about how to create videos that people actually watch.

1. Tell compelling visual stories. Forget the talking heads and go directly to lifestyle footage.
   1. If you are marketing your latest listing, go directly to the house so viewers can imagine themselves living in that house.
   2. If you are marketing yourself, go directly to footage that shows footage of homes you’re sold
   3. Use vivid backgrounds without distracting the viewer from your listing or you.
   4. Use graphics selectively. For marketing a listing, use short, specific, descriptive graphics that emphasize the elements that matter to the house such as number of bedrooms/bathrooms, square footage, comparable pricing in the neighborhood, specifics about amenities such as 500-bottle wine storage, etc.
   5. Only use graphics that are relevant to you such as number of houses you’ve sold in the last six months, number of homes you’ve sold in the neighborhood, only relevant and specific expertise.
   6. Focus on rapid clips. Viewers have attention spans of moths.
2. Know your format and make sure your format can convey your message.
   1. Videos, both muted and spoken, are great for home tours.
   2. Ray Shak, founder of Shak Cinema, said, “Take viewers along with you as though they are entering the house with you. Make sure that viewers have a very good sense of where you are in the house.”
3. Be succinct when using text.
   1. Use short notes and/or subtitles to guide viewers along with you.
   2. Be brief.
   3. Highlight key features.
   4. Check out apps such as Add Subtitles or com.
4. Always be yourself and always be your brand.
   1. Always add your contact information and business site in the video.
   2. Perhaps include a 5 second screen shot of yourself at the end of the footage.
5. Just as in writing, videography is all about editing…again and again and again.
   1. Cut anything that does not drive the story you’re telling about your listing and/or about yourself.
   2. Cut useless/mundane footage, irrelevant/useless graphics, useless/extra text.
   3. Videos do NOT have to be long to be good. Think Apple ads.
6. Be your own creative self.
   1. Your creativity will set you apart from your competitors.
   2. Be yourself!

Know that Facebook says that 85% of the videos watched on its platform are watched without sound. No extra words, no extra graphics, no extra text, no extra images. Allow and enable your viewers to focus on what it is you are telling them visually about your listing and about yourself.