So you’ve decided that you want to start producing more video content to go with your real estate marketing strategy. Where do you get started?
In this post, I’m going to talk about a quick and easy way to get started using video by using the Instagram Stories platform.
Instagram Stories is a great platform to casually get started with video because your videos disappear from your “story” after 24 hours. This means that you can create a video, upload it to your story, get the appropriate views/impressions, and then disappear from Instagram after 24 hours.
This is a great way to get started with video because the tone of video on this platform is casual, authentic, and less “produced.”
So if you’re a Realtor who who isn’t ready to invest the time and money to produce professional-grade video content, Instagram Stories is a great way to get started with producing and distributing branded video content.
Here's a 3 step process to help you create an Instagram Story that highlights features of your local neighborhood or community.
My goal is to give you some ideas to start getting comfortable on camera and start positioning yourself as a Realtor who uses video.
According to the National Association of Realtors, nearly 86% of home shoppers use video to find out more about a specific type of community.
Community videos are great for prospective buyers who are moving to a new neighborhood for the very first time and it's a great virtual way for them to look at restaurants, parks, schools, etc.
Realtors have lots of knowledge about their local communities and Instagram Stories are a great way to highlight their knowledge and to get that knowledge in front of new eyeballs (impressions).
Most Realtors see the value in these community videos, but to go out and fully produce one takes time and money that most aren’t willing to invest upfront.
And that's why Instagram Stories are such a great medium to “casually” produce a community video.
You can highlight your local knowledge by building a story with 15-second snippets of you talking about an important feature of your community.
You could start out your first 15-second story by shooting some footage of a local school and talking about why the school is a magnet for the community.
You could follow up on that story by going to a local park and talking about how this park is a great community center and a place where most parents take their kids after school.
Then you can follow that up by going to your favorite restaurant or cafe.
You get the picture: Pick a few local community fixtures and use a 15-second Instagram Story to highlight each one.
The next step is that you actually need to get out there and shoot those videos!
Don’t be shy!
Most of the Realtors I talk to are afraid of video because they think it will come across as unpolished or unprofessional.
That’s exactly why we have “disappearing stories.”
They go away after 24 hours, so the aesthetics of the post aren’t as important as the actual content of the post.
With regular Instagram posts, we want our timeline to look curated and polished, but with Instagram Stories you don’t have to get that perfect shot every time in order to make it post-worthy.
In fact, it’s okay if you mess up while you’re speaking, it adds a little bit to the authenticity of it. There are some best practices that you should think about before you start shooting your video:
Plan out 2-3 bullet points about what you want to say about that neighborhood highlight. These would be things like “This school is one of the top 50 public elementary schools in the nation” or “This school has the highest number of AP classes available of all the schools in the area.” You don't want to write an entire script, but you want to have a high-level idea of what you want to talk about when you shoot that 15-second story. This will help make you a little more comfortable narrating or putting yourself on camera. Bullets are your friend!
Try narrating while you’re shooting your subject (e.g. that school or park) instead of doing a “selfie” style video. This makes it a little bit easier to visually show your audience that community highlight and it also gets you comfortable being on camera, without actually being on camera.
Add stickers and emojis! Instagram Stories can get really fun and give your stories a little bit of personality once you start adding stickers and emojis.
Afraid of doing a selfie-style video recording? Use one of the augmented reality filters! These filters superimpose fun images on your face (like sunglasses, and top hats) and some of them even change your voice. The thought behind using these filters is to take people’s attention off of any mistakes or mess-ups during your video.
Going further with stickers and emojis, don’t forget to add your logo! This is a great branding opportunity and it allows you to put your brand in front of your non-followers who will view your story (more on that in Step 3).
In order to get your local knowledge in front of new eyeballs, we highly recommend you geotag the local city or community that you are in.
Instagram aggregates geotagged stories into “Location Stories” which take all the videos that have been geotagged and put them all into one long story that whoever is interested in that location can see.
Instagram also does a similar thing with hashtags where they aggregate all hashtagged stories into “Hashtag Stories.” For example, if you put together an Instagram Story and geotag “Playa Vista,” that story can show up in the Playa Vista Location Story.
This means that not only do the people who follow you on Instagram have access to this story, but also every person who is viewing the Playa Vista Location Story, will also have access to your story.
We’ve noticed that you’ll double or triple the number of views by geotagging a popular location.
These are all FREE impressions so be sure to take advantage of this really easy way to get your brand and your knowledge in front of a new audience.
This is also why it's important for you to insert a logo in your Instagram Stories because there are going to be people who view your story who don’t know that you’re a Realtor!
And that's it! Just rinse and repeat 3-4 times over different locations and you’ve just started putting together video content that:
We’d also recommend that you download or save these stories (you have the ability to do that inside Instagram) so that you can re-use or repost these stories at a later date.
Keep in mind that if you put emojis or stickers on the story those will also be downloaded with the video. Recycling great video content is always a good idea!
Need some examples of Realtors who are doing it right on IG Stories? Check out the following accounts:
Are you starting to use Instagram Stories to highlight your knowledge as a Realtor? Reach out to us and let us know how you’ve been using Instagram!