Ian Watt, a Vancouver real estate agent and blogger has started using a FlipVideo camera to document some of his day to day life in the real estate world. Check out these 2 videos that he has shot:
The power of video is awesome. TechCrunch.com, the hugely popular tech blog wrote a post the other day asking for 60 second (video) elevator pitches without using product demos or screenshots. The post was taken off of TechCrunch quite quickly but I emailed in the quick video that I made anyways.
Duncan Riley, the author of the post and the one who suggested people send in videos decided to write a different post about startups using video to promote themselves, and I’m assuming because I got my video into him so quickly he included me. (actually, no idea how he picked, but I’m quite happy that mine was included)
TechCrunch.com has 6 to 8 million visitors per month to their website so this exposure is outstanding. Thanks to Duncan for including me.
Here is the video I submitted:
The beauty about it being video is that it is my message. Not a reworded version or a polished version, it is my words, my version which can’t be adjusted. The really great thing about the use of video to promote your product or service, especially in the Web 2.0 world, is that it is very viral. That post on TechCrunch.com has triggered other bloggers, especially the ones in the real estate community to post on their blogs about Ubertor being written about on TechCrunch, which in turn exposes us to their readers.
Here are a couple of examples:
- Uber-Real Estate Blogger Dustin Luther kindly mentioned and embedded the video in his blog
- TechVibes, Canada’s version of TechCrunch also mentioned and embedded the video in their blog
This video took me a couple of takes and then was loaded onto YouTube. Maybe all in all it took me 1 hour. The exposure is massive and the costs is minimal.
Is there something like this that you could do to promote your real estate business?
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Darren Barefoot points out a video about the construction of the new Canada Line rapid transit system that is going on right now under the streets of Vancouver, BC. The video is an interesting look at the underground construction project as well as our city in general. He has some great shots and it is worth the 3 minutes to watch it.
Eric, a worker on the Canada Line project writes:
“My co-worker Colin is a film maker, and a good one at that. He has two movies that have been accepted into the Sundance film festival coming up in January. As a Christmas gift, he put together a couple of shots of our work-site for the Costa Ricans to show their families the project and the city.”
Check it out:
Leon Ng, the President of the Real Estate Channel emailed me a few days ago to let me know that one of my feature requests for their system had been completed. Hundreds of agents use the Real Estate Channel to promote their listings and their services and now you can embed their videos into your website.
It is an excellent way to take your video and get more exposure for it. All you need to do is grab the embed code and pop it into your website or blog.
Here is Ubertor client Shelly Smee’s latest Real Estate Channel interview:
What a great way to gain more exposure to your videos!!
This is a really great feature and should be utilized by every Real Estate Channel customer. Nice work Leon!
Royal LePage launched www.royallepagetv.ca, a web portal of instructional/educational videos for real estate consumers to watch and learn more about the buying/selling process. From my initial look, the site looks great. It is great to see a Canadian real estate company stepping up and investing to become Web 2.0 friendly in this ever changing business.
One big complaint is that they did not make the videos embeddable. Lately widgets have become all the rage. An embeddable widget would allow users to spread a message. Why not let anyone embed the videos on their website or blog. They have Royal LePage branding so all it could possibly do is help spread the message about the company and get ten times more exposure.
I’m sure the team over at Royal LePage has heard of www.YouTube.com or maybe even www.wellcomemat.com. Both services have embeddable features for their video platform.
Maybe they allow Royal LePage agents to embed videos with a username and password……. I hope that it is something that is in the pipeline and that they will be releasing shortly. The power of the internet is immense if you embrace it.
The guys over at LoftsVancouver.com created a video a few weeks ago that depicts who they are and what they do very well. A great addition to that video is the out takes that they have compiled into another video. It gives you a great sense of these guys and shows you a little bit of the behind the scenes footage that did not make the cut.
Out Takes:
Original Video:
Concord Pacific is promoting its new condo development with a video that does not even talk about the building. It is just pushing the location that the building will be in. This theme is catching on.. .using video to promote real estate without really promoting the real estate itself. Here is Concord Pacific’s video about Gastown:
More on real estate video:
Sitcom used to sell condos
TurnHere.com
WellcomeMat.com (an alternative to YouTube.com)
February 5th 2007 is shaping up to be a great day.
Ubertor Training - 10:00am - 12:00pm
- For those that want to learn more about their Ubertor websites, meet other agents using the Ubertor system and take their existing web presence to the next level then attending the Ubertor training session on Monday, February 5th 2007 is a must. Complete details here (be sure to RSVP)
Real Estate Tech February Meetup - 6:00pm - 8:00pm
- The 4th Real Estate Tech Meetup is shaping up to be a great one. Leon Ng President of RealEstateChannel.ca and Dara Sklar the founder of RealtySupport.ca will both be in attendance. Complete details here (be sure to RSVP)
I
wrote the other day about video killing the virtual tour and it triggered an ton of emails in my inbox. Many agreeing with the post, some not, but it caught the attention of a bunch of our readers. It was a timely post for us, as tonight, with our most recent roll out of upgrades, bug fixes and new features comes a change that has been widely anticipated. The upgrade to the V360 tab within the Ubertor control panel.
Now when you log into your control panel and click on V360 tab within any listing you will notice that it now has the updated interface, the ability to add a link to a 3rd party URL or upload the virtual tour images and the ability to change the tab on your website to anything you want. I assume most people will change Virtual Tour to read Video Tour, but we did not force that decision. You can now change the tab to read whatever you wish.
