5 Mistakes to Avoid When Creating Real Estate Videos

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5 Mistakes to Avoid when Creating Real Estate Videos

I have been shooting video for years for my social media by myself and through professionals. Along way I've made a lot of mistakes and I've learned a lot of things that I can help you when shooting your next real estate video. Here are 5 mistakes that I have made along the way that you will want to AVOID:

#1 Not Having the Correct Setup

First off let's get the technical stuff out of the way. For some this is very common for others this may be new to you - and that's fine. This is something I learned as well when shooting video. Let me also be clear that you do NOT need an expensive camera set up. You just need to know how to properly set up the tools that you do have.

What I would normally do is kind of just set up a camera and then get in front of it and start rolling! But there's a lot more to it than that. There is a few things that can help make your video pop a little more.

First thing is framing. You want to have everything framed correctly. You also want to have proper lighting and make sure you're close enough for audio but for sure make sure you are framed correctly.

Knowing the rule of 3rds:

What I like to do if I'm filming on my camera or on my phone is I like to bring up the grid.

Depending what phone you have you can go to your menu and select in your options and to turn the grid on. What this does is it will have two lines in the video vertically and two horizontally. Therefore you end up having nine squares in the video. When I am shooting videos that have just me talking I will make sure to have my top horizontal line going right through my face/eyes. Then from there I make sure I am centered within the frame. That way everyone's eyes seem to want to look at you as the subject. If you put yourself way off center then people's eyes get distracted and never seem to want to focus on you.

Now that you have your grid on your phone make sure that your lines are straight with the horizon. It doesn't give it a very good look if you have your phone tilted. Having your grid helps you to keep track of all of this and give you better looking videos.

DO NOT

As you can see I don't have my face going through the top line of the grid and then photo is tilted

DO

This gives it a much better look. My face is now going through the top line and you can see my phone is straight with the horizon. It is much more appealing to the viewer and will likely give you an audience that is more willing to watch your videos

#2 Not Having a Plan

I was very guilty of this all the time. I would have an idea for a video and then just decide to go out and shoot it.

I would possibly have a great idea but unfortunately once I arrived at my location I found myself scrambling of how to put the idea together. Something may not be exactly the way I thought it was going to be and all of a sudden my idea turned into something else. Sometimes I would record and never end up posting what I recorded because there was no flow to it and it didn't make sense.

After doing that numerous times I realized that I needed to have more of a plan. Even just jotting everything down on a sticky note helped a lot. Some will even go as far as doing a storyboard (a storyboard can be a series of text or photos showing how everything is going to be set up for cameras, lights, and what will exactly happen word for word and every action).

For most of the content I shot, I didn't need a big production crew (and neither should you). Therefore I would just plan everything out either on my phone or a piece of paper. Just a simple plan jotting down what order everything would go in or maybe general questions I needed to ask if I am interviewing someone

With a plan it makes it so much easier to shoot because you know what the flow of the video will be. It may not sound like much, but making a plan actually saved me A TON of time in the end. No longer did I have to worry about missing something or having a video that wouldn't make any sense.

#3 No Variety

Don't just be talking about the same thing over and over. For example... so realtors will do market updates (which are great because it is information the public wants to know). But they end up over doing it. They may do a market update every week or every day. It goes over great off the start, but eventually people get tired of it and they start to tune you out. I recommend doing something like this at the most once a month. That way you have other content in between and it keeps your audience engaged. Then when another market update comes your audience is actually attentive and wanting to listen to your update.

It can be the same for my YouTube videos that I create. I can't just talk about video mistakes all of the time. Next video will be a different topic and then the next ones after that will be something different again. Sometimes I even need to change my background up just to give it a different look. You always need to be improving and innovating so that it keeps your audiences attention

Therefore don't be posting about your houses for sale all of the time. Nothing turns people off more than that. Unless they are actively looking for a house they want to see variety and be entertained with something else. Start showing who you are as a person. Posting your houses all the time comes off as salesy and in today's world you need to provide value. Therefore I say it's ok to post houses from time to time (but I would have you in the photo or video describing the story around the house so you can show your personality as well).

But again, moral of the story is to mix it up and don't just be posting the same thing all the time. Otherwise you will kill your engagement⠀

#4 Doing what every other Realtor does

This is what I touched on in the last point. Stop posting nothing but houses for sale and your open houses. You need to start posting more about your community and less about real estate! If you are going to post about your listings then do it in a different way then what every other realtor is doing.

If you're shooting a real estate video in most Realtors minds the thing you always go to right away is you try to say what's great about the house or what features it has. Likely people could find that from the feature sheet online and the photos. When you're doing a video don't just go through and be like: "Welcome to this 3 bedroom 2 bathroom... two-story! There's an island..." Well no kidding there's an island because you're right there and they can see that there's an island! This is where the majority realtors want to go is they just want to sell sell sell.

Yes we're sales people but just do it in a different manner.

For me what I would recommend is tell the story of the house so maybe it's an older home. If you can find details from the from the owner how is it constructed or what's a story behind it? Maybe was there some challenges as it was being built or is there anything in the house that was flown in from somewhere? Maybe it has a story about how a product for the house was delayed but it was so worth it because this is how it ended up turning out. When you're telling a story there's always a beginning a middle and an end

Therefore think, what's the most interesting thing about this house or what's the story of it? Then tell that story!

If you can paint the next person a picture of what their lives would be like in that home then you are going to win.

Example: This home was constructed in the 70's and has seen a few families call it their own. Located in the popular neighbourhood The Willows, this home is walking distance to some of the best schools, parks, and even tons of shopping. The previous owners would go for a walk every single Sunday out to the famous ice cream parlour just a few blocks from the house. After that they would walk a couple more blocks to the park which has the most popular slide within the city. The owners had kids that would look forward to visiting the park every week because of the slide (then have a portion of this video showing you go down the slide). After that they would walk back home and chat with multiple neighbours who were always out and about as it's such a friendly neighbourhood. To end the day they would also grab a drink from the outdoor bar and sit in front of the fire pit in the back yard and cook some s'mores to end off the day.

See how that paints a picture of what life could be like in that home? If you just tell someone it has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms it doesn't really give them a visual. People like to see if they can picture themselves in a home. If they can there is a very good chance they are going to buy it. The more you can help them paint that picture the more chance you are going to have of people contacting you. Stories like this are going to get you a lot more traction and engagement. Of course make sure you are being truthful and don't make these stories up!

#5 Not Being Yourself

This one relates back to everything else that I said in these points. Be yourself! No matter what idea you're doing out of these that I gave you, when you're portraying them you need to present it in a way that you would

Far too many of us want to read off of a script and try to be a polished and professional as possible. While scripts are great, don't just read off of them word for word without being natural.

I find the easiest way is to have a general idea of what I am going to talk about and then talk about it. That way it comes natural and doesn't sound scripted. Years ago when I would read off of script I would sound like a robot. I found myself making mistakes and try to redo the video too many times. I now find that my first take is always the best. If I stumble and make a mistake then that is fine, it is actually who I am. If you've watched any of my videos you will realize I make mistakes in them. But that just shows who I am as a person and shows my true self. Because that is how I would talk to someone in real life.

The more you can be yourself the more engaged of an audience you will have. Again likemindedness attracts and therefore the people that feel a connection with you through your videos will be more willing to follow you for who you are. Not who you try to be. People can see past fake. Therefore if you are being fake you will not grow that following like you will be being yourself

You can do it!

Those are some common mistakes to avoid when creating real estate videos. Maybe you are ready to give it a try but are wondering what type of videos you could create as a Realtor. If so, I have you covered. You can CLICK HERE to download my FREE guide on "Easy Real Estate Video Marketing Ideas that can Create 10X More Hot Leads"

About Author: Shawn Bell

After being in the real estate business for 18 years and consistently ranking the top 1% of my franchise for all of Canada, I wanted to teach other Realtors how to do the same through Social Media.

I now run a course where I help realtors go from not knowing what to post on social media and no following to having a strategic social media plan that generates an audience of high quality leads so that they can reduce stress and generate a never ending list of clients