Vine and Instagram: 5 tips on how to use them to market your real estate listings

Guest contributor Delta Media Group says:

A glimpse of a soothing fireplace. A shot featuring the dark wood contrasting with the deep, granite counter tops and subtle light splashed in the kitchen. A peak through the door of the master bedroom. Then of an outdoor fire nestled warmly in the heart of a patio. Finally, a shot from the road, perfectly framing the front of the home.

This would be enough to grab anyone's interest, and it can all be achieved in six seconds.

That is the exact amount of time a Vine video provides for you to leverage an emotional connection to earn a new lead. Are you up to the task? What message could you communicate in six seconds?

How about 15 seconds, as is the case with Instagram's new video option? These are the questions going through the heads of marketers in recent months as Vine and Instagram videos have sparked a significant amount of interest in this unique, new marketing functionality.

And with good reason. According to Cisco, global "consumer Internet video traffic will be 69 percent of all consumer Internet traffic in 2017, up from 57 percent in 2012." And 52 percent of consumers say they're more confident about purchases after watching product videos, per a study from Invodo.

The good news for you is video, in general, and these new marketing mediums, in particular, parlay perfectly to real estate.

Emotional connections play a large role in home sales. Six-to-15 seconds provides an adequate amount of emotional bait for a consumer to want to inquire about more information.

And the best part? These short videos are something your consumers want to watch. Who doesn't want to see a video montage of a fantastic house and envision themselves in it? Those who utilize videos to build the best emotional connections will produce the most inquiries, and customers will contact you for more information, listing price, and possibly to schedule a showing.

Below are a five helpful tips we've assembled to show how to best use Vine and Instagram videos for real estate applications:

1. Highlight the listing's most appealing features. You have a short window to entice the customer to inquire about more info, so use this window strategically and focus on the most appealing or unique features to set the listing apart.

2. Don't show the entire house. That's what your real estate website is for. Show enough of the areas of the house to make them want to see more.

3. Don't make it a virtual tour. Vine and Instagram shouldn't be used to show a video walk-through of a house. They're made to show an artistic video interpretation of the home's highlights, or tell a short story. Social media videos can be a great resource to build an emotional connection without coming across pushy.

4. Don't try to sell. Social media is a communication channel first. It's not a sales channel, and overly salesy posts tend to turn people away. Enticing posts will sell on their own.

5. Call-to-Action. Yes, even in a Social Media video a good CTA is important. If the viewer is captivated by the first five seconds of clips of the listing, one idea would be to use the last clip to show a closeup of your real estate sign in the front yard, with the listing behind it in the background. You can show the house and make your name synonymous with it, while getting your brand logo in the consumer's head. And you can do this without breaking rule #4.

Video is yet another strong tool to add to your belt of real estate marketing channels. While consumption rates show video has virtually become a necessity, utilizing video the right way through these unique channels can put you far ahead of the competition.

To view the original article, visit the Delta Media Group blog.