As the world moves further into the digital age and more of our time is spent online, creating and maintaining a strong online presence is becoming all the more important for businesses—and real estate is no exception.
Video content, particularly online listing tours, is a key tool that industry professionals can leverage to support their business. However, for a variety of reasons, many are not using videos to their full potential. Pixelated, shaky cell phone footage of listings is all too common in an age where high-quality cameras are abundant, affordable and being utilized by the competition.
Given this lag in technology adoption, here are three reasons why investing in high-quality videography could improve your real estate business, from gaining more listings to generating more leads.
High-quality video content strengthens your brand
Suppose a viewer is presented with two videos. Both depict agents providing a virtual tour of a listing. The first is recorded on an iPhone, while the second is shot on a high-resolution camera equipped with autofocusing, various lenses and all the bells and whistles that you’d expect to come with a DSLR or mirrorless camera. After watching both videos, what impressions would the viewer come away with?
Research from Brightcove, a Boston-based provider of cloud services for video, provides the answer. Through a survey, they found there is a significant relationship between video quality and a viewer’s perception of the brand. When presented with a poor-quality video, 62% of survey respondents had a negative perception of the brand associated with the video. Additionally, 23% said they would think twice about purchasing from a company that releases videos with shoddy quality.
So the next time you post videos of your listings to Instagram, TikTok or any other social platform, consider how the quality of these videos might reflect back on you and your brand. Higher-quality content will likely be associated, in the mind of the viewer, with superior service.
Top-notch video content will attract viewers who will retain your message
It won’t come as a surprise to know that video is the most engaging form of online content. Roughly 40% of all users and a majority of millennials—a cohort that now makes up 43% of homebuyers—find it is more engaging than other forms of content. In fact, videos on social media generate 1,200% more shares than image and text shares combined, according to Brightcove. On top of that, HD or relatively higher-quality video content outperforms poorer-quality content on social media. For example, HD videos make up the lion’s share of YouTube’s search results, with 68.2% of first page videos being HD, according to an analysis of one million videos by Backlinko, an SEO strategies firm. Further, if your high-quality videos generate solid engagement from your followers on social media, there is a greater chance the platforms’ algorithms will promote your content even further, doing the hard work for you. Also, including videos on your website will likely boost your ranking in search engines.
Viewers retain 95% of a message when watching it via video compared to just 10% via text. Further, there is also a demonstrable relationship between sound quality and retention, as illustrated by research conducted at Texas Tech University. So, if you want to boost viewership and increase information retention amongst your viewers—perhaps you want them to remember a standout amenity or surprising asking price—then investing in a high-quality camera might be the right choice for you.
Buying property ‘sight unseen’ is becoming more common
One of the reasons high-quality video content is vital for real estate professionals is the stakes related to it are now higher than ever. A decade ago, the payoff of a well-edited, first-rate video tour posted online would be an in-person tour. But nowadays, especially after the pandemic, more and more buyers are skipping a step and purchasing homes without ever stepping foot in them. Given the fact that these high stakes home-buying decisions are increasingly being made without a real-life tour, that is all the more reason to improve your video content. It’s likely your video tour would be one of the last things a potential buyer sees before making a decision.
A final thought
Instead of doing the shooting themselves, many agents outsource this work and opt to hire a professional videographer to capture a listing in all its high-definition glory. In addition to traditional videography, many of them also offer drone footage, an increasingly popular tool that has been shown to sell homes faster.
Brendan Rascius is RISMedia’s associate editor.
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Video content, particularly online listing tours, is a key tool that industry professionals can leverage to support their business. Read more.
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