There’s always something to howl about.

Real Estate Video: My Love Hate Relationship

Video is coming, it’s here, it’s real, and it’s not going away.   It makes me happy that there is some high quality content being created for Agents, and tools to enhance communication.  What I don’t like about video is it’s non-interactive nature, and the sluggish pace that it churns out information.  It’s great for some things (some tutorials, house tours, testamonils), and for those things there’s no equivalent.

But, for a lot of things (other tutorials, deep analysis, and even advocating positions), the format is such that you can’t quickly extract the content YOU want.  There’s got a 1-2 minute investment in whatever your watching to see if you’re going to learn what you want–compared with the speed of glancing at a stack of RSSfeeds  and quickly seeing if it’s valuable.    This is a function of the format and an inherent limitation  of video itself.  I continually find my attention wandering and myself perpetually on the verge of hitting alt-f4 to shut the video up.   For every good example, of what Video can do to enhance the consumer experience there are countless bad examples (with preroll credits and more crap).

I’m BRAND new at messing with video. I’ll get real good at it real soon.   It’s a communication tool, and I am getting over my inherent dislike of it.  I’m not yet  expert, but I’ve made some promises to myself as to what all of my videos are gonna be like,  in true  Bloodhound fashion, I submit it for your criticism and review.

  • Content Dense: If it’s in video, it’s gotta deliver on the promise of being content dense.  That doesn’t always mean talking fast.  It means ensuring that there is content.
  • Quick Preview: spend the first 5 seconds previewing what you’re gonna give ’em, not on some insipid preroll liner.   People will relax, or change the channel.
  • Deliver the content as fast as it can be effectively communicated.  Similar to content density, we want to make sure we know that video is grabbing attention.  No filler.  Fast-as-possible exchange of information.  Remember: they can go back if they missed something, so let’s not condescend.
  • Focus on ONE topic per video, unless they know you. Rambling is for blog posts, twitter tweets, and other nonsense.  If you’re going to have the audacity make a video, show ’em what they came for, then let ’em go.
  • Once You’ve Delivered, Then Call to Action.   If you did what you said you would at the open, you earned the right to ask people to do what you want.   Those people can watch longer videos, manifestos, etc.

Right now, I’m using Camista Studio to produce my videos, but I’ve got some other tools if I don’t find this to be adequate.  As a (for now) PC guy, I seem to start from a disadvantage…but we can always overcome that.

Am I on the right track?  What other rules should we use to make video that doesn’t make me want to claw my eyes out?