
When a real estate professional hires Hub Media Company to be their video marketing partner, they are not just hiring us to shoot their listing, community or lifestyle video, we believe they are hiring us for our best practices education around real estate video marketing.
We’ve learned a lot about online video since 2008. We always say “it doesn’t mater how great your video is if no one ever sees it”. This is why we provide our free marketing tutorials on video optimization, syndication, annotations and more to each of our real estate partners.
The other day I sent a completed real estate video to an new agent partner, someone not new to real estate by any means, but new to working with us. In the email I included our marketing tutorials. These tutorials revolve around the king of online video – YouTube. His response was “the tutorials are great but (insert expert here) said I shouldn’t worry about YouTube, he said Facebook is where I need to be focusing my video marketing. Facebook has over 1 Billion people on it”.
This is bad advice. Here’s why
The real estate industry is full of people that give bad advice. By that I mean, almost anyone can be on a panel these days – offered up as an expert on anything simply because of their relationship with a sponsor or company. I’ll never forget the time I went to a class on “how to be on page 1 of Google” when the instructor wasn’t himself 🙂 Oh Lawwwwd.
YouTube is the King Of Online Video, Not Facebook.
Real estate agents should be posting their videos to Facebook and Twitter, Linkedin and Pinterest, ActiveRain and Instagram, you should be posting your video everywhere but when it comes to reaching people you don’t know, YouTube, not Facebook, is going to result is more business, more dollars, more deals than Facebook. Here’s my 6 reasons why Facebook is not the king on real estate video.
1) A view on Facebook is not the same as a view on YouTube. This expert referenced above told our partner he would get more video views on Facebook than YouTube. This is true. But views are not created the same. Facebook measures a view after 3 seconds. YouTube measures a view after 30 seconds. Facebook views can result from a video showing up in the new feed. These videos are “autoplay”, did anyone actually watch the video? Maybe. We don’t know. Facebook does not measure intent – Youtube does.
2) YouTube videos show in Google Search. Try searching for your favorite video on Facebook. Good luck with that. Facebook is a HORRIBLE search engine. I find it challenging to find videos I post on my own personal and business pages. Try searching for it in YouTube – surprise, there it is! Do a Google search on anything and you will likely find YouTube videos in the search results – not Facebook. This is important to take notice of as over 90% of consumers start their home search online – Google, not Facebook. They are asking a search engine a question – 5 bedroom, 3 bath home DC Ranch – they are finding YouTube videos, not Facebook videos. Consumers have intent when they are using a search engine, they are being entertained when they use Facebook. If a consumer is looking for homes for sale, information about a geographic area, subdivision, community, jobs, schools, things to do (all things that are related to homes for sale) – they will go to Google or YouTube not Facebook.
3) YouTube is a search engine. Facebook isn’t. Again, do a search in Facebook for something you posted, say last week – good luck with that. YouTube is a search engine. In fact, YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine behind Google. More and more consumers are going directly to YouTube when looking for homes for sale, communities or information because a video is more informational and engaging than text or pictures alone.
4) YouTube has metrics. YouTube can tell me (and you by the way), where your views are coming from – Facebook, twitter, Linkedin, Google, Yahoo, Bing, email etc. YouTube can also tell you how long a consumer is watching your video AND at what point they are leaving your video. This information is pure gold. If you know how people are finding your video you can post more of them there. If you know when people are leaving your video, you can focus on making your videos more engaging. Metrics can help you increase the exposure of your videos. They will tell you if you are reaching your intended audience. The longer someone watches your video the longer they are seeing you as an authority. They are building a relationship with you. Facebook can’t provide this.
5) YouTube videos have volume. One of the most engaging aspects of video is the sound. The music, you talking, the beat. The music sets the tone for the information that will be conveyed. The music helps with consumer engagement and retention. Life is simply not as interesting without music. Facebook videos are muted. The viewer has to manually turn volume on.
6) YouTube videos can be optimized. A properly optimized video can be found online by someone asking Google or YouTube a question. You can optimize your real estate videos for the property address – for the neighbor that wants to know how much the house across the street was listed for. You can optimize your community videos for the most popular communities in your area, the Ocotillo’s, Vistancia’s, DC Ranch’s, Troon’s etc. Facebook videos (without paying for ads) cannot be targeted, nor found in search.
You should be posting your videos to Facebook. You should be uploading your videos directly onto Facebook as well as YouTube. Facebook will help you engage the people you already know. YouTube will help you get found online by the people you don’t. You don’t know that couple in Michigan considering relocating to Arizona. You don’t know that Phoenix couple who’s kids just went off to college who are considering moving to an active adult community. YouTube will help them find you. Facebook likely will not.
I love Facebook. I’m going to post this blog post on my Facebook business page. But I know the limitations of Facebook and I would never advise anyone to focus on any one platform. Video marketing requires a strategy that includes Facebook, YouTube, WordPress, Vine, Pinterest, Email, Google, PPC, ActiveRain and many more. Now, one thing Facebook is awesome at, something it has YouTube get at hands down, something all agents should do on Facebook – Paid ads. That will be the subject of our next post.
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