Here are eight trending tips to take your estate agency video content to the next level this year. ‍

Less is More - The Power of Shorts

Social platforms such as Facebook & Instagram and now even Twitter have introduced ‘stories, reels and fleets’.

Increased mobile usage puts shorter form advertisements at the forefront of most audiences today, making them an efficient key to an estate agent’s digital marketing strategy.

For estate agents ‘shorts’ are a time saving and cost efficient ad format, allowing your agency to put your expertise, properties and services in front of a wide consumer audience.

Collinson Hall understands these advantages and the shorter time period they have to communicate to their audience. In response they break their longer videos such as ‘ 10 Hot Home Staging Trends’ into parts.

Visual Storytelling

A fantastic advantage of these ‘shorts’ is that they can still tell a whole story, even in a few seconds. They are great at telling the story of your brand, of a property or even of an entire local area.

As demonstrated by Quealy & Co when highlighting the beauty of the Faversham area in just 80 seconds!

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Another great example of a short video capturing the vibe of a local area in under a minute is Tempocasa’s guide to Notting Hill.  

Soundless Optimisation

Videos are consumed so much these days even in public, alongside the ‘auto-play’ feature that plays videos without having to be opened, audiences have gotten used to silent, captioned videos.

The key here for estate agents is “soundless optimisation”, developing creative videos that ‘show more than tell’.

Estate agents such as Hudsons realise the impact of visually striking property presentations supported by concise text overlays, allowing viewers to watch at any given time.  

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In addition to text overlays, make sure to use captions on all your videos (Youtube, Facebook & Instagram now have automated caption options), especially on videos that are speech-heavy, such as market updates, people introductions or property walkthroughs given by your team.

In this video of Ben talking about some of Starberry’s collaborations within the ICG, captions have been added as part of the design.

Think mobile-first

The mobile-first experience driven by social media apps has pushed videos into a vertical frame, aforementioned ‘shorts’ allowing only for a vertical viewing also.

Developing videos for optimal experience on mobile and designed to display information in a vertical format brings about the best results.

When marketing a property or presenting information, Duncan Yeardley have mastered posting in vertical format, optimised for mobile instagram their dimensions include all information and imagery with no cut offs.

Take it Live!

Live videos have become popular and will only grow in popularity into 2021, especially with the pandemic reducing the engagement between consumers and businesses, going live or vlogging adds an element of business personality.

Such videos offer an authentic experience that agencies can tap into, whether showing off properties or hosting an event, audiences can involve themselves through likes and comments, improving the overall business to consumer engagement.

Engaging both suppliers and the online audience, Kerfuffle have mastered the art of live video. Bringing together experts for live discussions while allowing the audience to comment creates a level of authentic engagement that cannot be duplicated, demonstrated by their Easter bank holiday special.

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Long-form Content

An agency shouldn’t throw long form content out the window. Longer formats can replace presentations, demos or decks and can be used to educate consumers or train staff, if done correctly.

Estate agents can utilise longer-form videos in a creative manner, such as webinars or podcasts, to provide valuable content to their audience, improving the overall consumer relationship.

Agencies can learn from Orlando Reid, the importance of long-form content isn’t lost to them. Offering their audience insightful debates through podcasts,  a longer running content form that allows for more open-ended discussions that improves the relationship with customers as they tune in.

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360° Property Virtual Tours  

As VR (Virtual Reality)& AR (Augmented Reality) technology improves in 2021 and beyond, customers' expectations for an immersive experience will increase.

Allowing your customers to experience an environment supports the end goal of generating interest in properties. Especially with current world events, providing such an efficient tool from the comfort of homes is key to an efficient digital marketing strategy.

Virtual tours are an efficient technique for marketing properties, the promotional use of virtual tours as teased and illustrated by Preston Baker, agencies can introduce such a tool into their social media mix in order to provide a more immersive experience for those looking to purchase property.

Leverage User Generated Content

Once again lending itself to authenticity, due to the competitive nature of the industry, user-generated content (UGC) is a highly trusted source that will become more prominent in 2021.

Estate agents can leverage such content, by asking happy customers to take photos of their new home, or record their moving day, while tagging the agency. Testimonials can be highlighted and remixed into video advertisement opportunities.

Estate agency Anthony Pepe has a ‘Testimonial Tuesday’ hashtag in which they repost videos made by clients’ highlighting the service they received. Users are most likely to trust other users' reviews about your service, so don’t be afraid to take advantage of the reliability & authenticity of UGC.