Shhhh
By now, {if you are one of our clients} You already know the benefits of using video in your real estate business. You can literally crush your competition if you know how to create valuable content {your ideal client is looking for} and how to help them find it when they have a need. “90% of all web traffic will be video” and the majority of consumers, especially in the real estate space, prefer video. Video conveys much more than pictures or text ever could. Video allows consumers to “mentally move in” to a property.
When a consumer lands on your real estate website, a video can give you a face. It can show your demeanor, personality, authenticity – it can also de-commoditize you from your competition. Consumers won’t care about you until YOU give them a reason to. Video has changed my business. In addition to helping me get found online it has shortened my sales cycle. 50% of all my leads come from my videos. Below I am going to show you some little known YouTube tricks that will help your videos “standout” and deliver a message. They range from auto play to no YouTube Branding to starting your video at a specific point to hiding related videos {your competitors}.
Ready? As an example, we are going to use our welcome video. Our technology team at Grand Canyon Title will be sending this video to the real estate agents that attend any one of our real estate marketing classes here in Phoenix. It is designed to do a few things. 1} Thank them for attending. 2} Tell them about other classes we offer. 3} Get them thinking about the possibilities of using video in their real estate business. 4} Differentiate us from our competition. {we do this one quite well}
Navigate to your YouTube channel and find a video that is already uploaded that you want to use. If you upload the video and don’t want people to find it on YouTube {through YouTube or Google search} make sure to make the video “unlisted” but still allow embedding. {displaying your video in another website, in this case WordPress – self hosted}
For this example, I’m going to use this video —> http://youtu.be/AqdpzePiciQ
Here we go… From the the video URL, click on “Share” and then “Embed”. {see below}
YouTube Embed
AutoPlay . Video will play when consumer lands on your page.
When you get the embed code from youtube, add ?autoplay=1 to the end of the Youtube URL.
Result
Autohide. Hide all YouTube controls. {Play, Pause, etc}
To do this add ?autohide=1 after the video url in the embed code.
Result
Hide YouTube Logo. No YouTube Logo Displayed
To do this add ?modestbranding=1 after the video url in the embed code.
Result
Hide Related Videos. No competing video will be displayed after your video
To do this add ?rel=0 after the video url in the embed code.
Result
Start Video At Specific Point.
To do this add ?start=## replacing ## with the actual number of seconds you want the video to start in.
Result
Hide Video Information. No identifying information displayed. Title, who uploaded, description.
To do this add ?showinfo=0 after the video url in the embed code.
Result
Takeaway
All of this assumes you have a real estate website. The best real estate website in my opinion, the industry standard, is WordPress. It’s easy to use, change, mobile friendly, supports video, designed to get found online and best of all, YOU OWN IT. Check out iFoundAgent for self hosted WordPress built on the Genesis framework – they even have their own indexable IDX. No more leasing a website that goes away if and when you change brokers. If you have not had the chance yet – watch Do You Own IT – it will save you a lot of time, money and frustration in the future. Of course all these YouTube tricks will mean absolutely nothing if your videos suck. Your real estate videos ALWAYS NEED TO BE OF VALUE. If your videos do not provide value: help a consumer gather information or solve a problem, make them smarter, help them avoid pain – if your videos are not of value – no one will watch them. If there is one thing you need to know it is this: You need to create content consumers want to see not necessarily what you want to make. This is a huge shift for the traditional real estate agents who’s marketing focuses almost entirely on them or their company. Why you are a fantastic real estate agent is worthless, why your brokerage is better than another is irrelevant (97% of consumers don’t care about BRAND as it relates to real estate) – no one is scouring the Internet for either of them.
I hope these YouTube embed codes bring you hours of fun. If you need help with any of them you can call, email, tweet (@MyTitleGuy) or simply fill out the form below.
