As more and, more property portals struggle to increase additional unique functionalities to their websites, or to compete with pre-existing functionalities in their market, the idea of video becomes more appealing.
According to Google, YouTube, is streaming 4 billion online videos every day and 800M unique users visit the site each month. It is easy to see why there has been such a significant shift in recent years to using YouTube to both the buyer’s and the seller’s advantage.
YouTube offers visual data, which when searched, is far richer with information than a magazine and/or newspaper, enabling a buyer to inspect a property with virtual panoramic views inside as well as outside, and with the current popularity of low-cost mini films featuring homes for sale, YouTube is even more the logical way to feature properties.
Using YouTube for the marketing of properties an added bonus, Google+. Launched in 2011, Google+ is the search engine’s own version of a social network, with an excess of 175 million users worldwide, and though it is a distant second to Facebook which has more than 400 million users, Google+ has one important dynamic, that of being linked to the world’s largest search engine, Google, thus increasing exposure even further.
Ultimately, the methods people have historically used to search for properties on portals will continue to be used (eg: suburb search, price, number of bedrooms, etc.) but, incorporating video into the equation, can improve the experience for your users, and ultimately assist sellers in highlighting their properties further and to a more vast audience.
In this author’s opinion, if a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video must be worth ten times that. This is no time for minimalism, more is more in the real estate world, and size does matter.
Advertising Partner
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Interesting article – wouldn’t it be great though if instead of a “salesy”, cheesy video (which woud be seen as pure marketing), the agent could narrate their own Tours? I’d like to see them freely talking about the property and the neighbourhood and delivering, new and useful info on the home which would provide more of an informative, interesting video, using a local accent. Bound to keep viewers longer and create a cxonnection between the agent and the home hunter.