Real Estate Video Marketing is becoming increasingly a standard in online marketing for Real Estate Agents and Youtube has been the platform of choice from which to launch these videos. Visual marketing plays a huge role in advertising properties and not allowing subscribers to upload a custom thumbnail in Youtube was the only downside. Until now.

Customized Youtube Thumbnail Images

Using a customized thumbnail image you can now have greater control of how your video is presented in Youtube. Optimization can be achieved by using the “Hero” image of a property and including the listing title. The image can include your logo and corporate colours.

To add the custom thumbnail you need to log into your Youtube account and click on your video manager. From there you click on edit for the video you want to add the image to. Then browse to the destination folder on your computer and upload the image. Don’t forget to click save :).

Voila! All done. Have fun creating your own and feel free to comment with a link to your real estate video below.

The infographic below displays in a visual way how video marketing can impact your online real estate marketing.

It clearly highlights engagement, conversion and impact on your bottom line. I would really appreciate you sharing your thoughts below in  comment.  This image is courtesy of Solutions 8 who are Digital Strategists located in Phoenix Arizona.

Many agents I speak to are a little hesitant to go down the path of producing Real Estate Videos, Their hesitation, and righfully so is that they have no idea about what to do once it has been produced. My advice to any agent wanting to use online video marketing is “Investigate your options” It probably isn’t your best option if you only want to play it over and over on your laptop.

A succesfull campaign means broadcasting it to the largest audience you can reach. So here are a few ideas to certainly get you on your way.

Youtube – any digital format video should be uploaded here, it’s free and optimized correctly will rank very competitively in the Google Search results. This is free

Email – Inlcude a link to your video in your email marketing This is free

Real Estate Portals – Nearly all portals allow for a video link to be embedded into the listing.  This won’t cost you anymore then what you are already paying.

Your own website – A no brainer and an extra benefit to the SEO of your own real estate site. You may need to check with your web developer to see if video can be incorporated into your site. If it can’t, then it’s time to upgrade

Print Media using QR Code – This is the link between your printed marketing and your online marketing. QR readers are available for most smartphones and users only need to scan the code to link them directly to the video on youtube. To download the QR reader for your iPhone click this link. Here is a link to the QR App for your Android Phone. Another QR Reader for Blackberry.  And offcourse we can not forget the QR Reader for Windows Phone 7. Once installed you can use the image below to test it out. Just scan it using your smartphone camera straight of the screen or print it and scan it of the paper. There are alos many sites where you can produce QR Codes for free. I use bit.ly.

Real Estate Video QR Code

Social Media – Broadcast to your fans and followers using facebook, twitter, linked in, Google+ Anywhere really where you can place a link or a video.

Window Display TV or in house video – It’s a nice touch to have a screen set up in your reception area or window display which can loop through current listings.

So there are a few ideas to get you started, if anyone has any more great ideas then please share them by placing a comment in this blog post.

Who will be the new star of online real estate video marketing?

This clever real estate video depicts the agent you definetly do not want to deal with. The video uses humour to tell the story of an agent who does everything wrong. Clever Real Estate Video Marketing? I think so.

Real Estate Video Marketing is fast becoming the marketing option of choice to many agents. Compared to a 1 pager with a few images. A compelling real estate video profile can build trust before the buyer or seller has engaged with your business.

This video depicts a US based agent. His video is unique and could be perceived as annoying by many but then the more that watch the better chance Rich the Realtor has of finding more fans.
He could have called his business Wiggle Real Estate