Do you really need a Videographer?

In a world where we all have professional cameras built into our smartphones, are videographers becoming obsolete in real estate?

The quick answer? Not really.

But in this podcast you will learn how to create professional videos on your phone for quick, personalised posts that cost a whole lot less.

Craig Deveson:

Welcome to your podcast for all things real estate marketing. I’m Craig Deveson, and this is The Properti Pod.

Gerard Doyle:

The decision to hire a professional photographer or a videographer is not something we debate anymore in real estate. It’s a given, but are there times when we don’t want to use a videographer? On this podcast, I want to suggest to you that there are times when you want to go it alone. You don’t want the professional videographer. You want to make things as natural and as normal as you possibly can. But when is that the case? The key to answering this question is to ask a different question, which is where are your videos going to live? Now, if your video’s going to live on your website, possibly for one or two years, then you definitely want to hire a professional. If your video’s going on to real estate.com.au or domain, then you want a professional. If it’s going from a drone, you want a professional.

If it’s going to be a client shot video of their property to sell, then you’re going to want a professional videographer. But if you want to get across your personality, your brand, your agency’s brand to make you feel human, to feel normal, to feel approachable, to feel local, then maybe you don’t want a professional videographer. These days, we’re all walking around with smartphones in our pockets that have cameras that we would’ve killed for a decade ago. They have great light, great cameras, and we’re all being trained just in our everyday lives how to shoot a good organic video. Now, that doesn’t mean we need to see you holding your phone out in front of your face up close. No, you can still give it to one of your team members to film you, but you can just make it look a little bit more real. So what do I mean by that?

These are shorter videos, in the moment videos, out and about videos, things that are going to go onto reels, go onto stories, that are going to be short-lived, video content that makes you more human, more approachable, more local to the people that you want to sell properties to and for. Now, the one caveat I will put behind this is whilst your phone is absolutely amazing, the one thing it does let itself down on is audio. The cameras are fantastic. They’ll pick you up in low light. You can zoom. You can edit that. But the audio tends to be really noisy. It picks up all the ambient noise. Now, the way you can cover over this is the way a lot of professional Instagram influences get around this. They want their video to look like it’s been just shot from their phone, but they need to pull a few tricks.

The best thing you can invest in is a road directional microphone. It’s a tiny little USB microphone that plugs right into the bottom of your iPhone or your Android phone and it points to where the sound is coming from. It isolates the noise and picks up a slightly richer sound. This matters because, firstly, the person watching the video doesn’t know you’re using this microphone, and secondly, that quality of sound is what gets the deeper engagement. So it’s still the same phone. You still shoot and record the way you always have. You’ve just got a little microphone that sticks to the bottom of your iPhone, and look, it looks a little bit more professional too.

So we need to learn to not be afraid of the native video, the non-professional video, if we want to create that personality, if we want to go above and beyond just the property and we want our own brand to sing. For many real estate agents and principles, you might struggle with how to do this, but the best thing about having a team of slightly younger people working for you is that they know exactly how to film this. You almost have to hand over your phone, put your trust in that 20 or early 30 something person that works for your organization, and they’re going to know where to film, how to hold the camera, how to get you to stand. They’re going to know all the tips and tricks that allow you to punch out short, quick video content.

Hiring a professional is great when you want it to be polished, but if you want to produce lots of video, lots of content and be out there all the time, ever present, then producing the video yourself, shooting the video yourself, hosting the video yourself has got to be the way to go. Now, if you’re already doing that, great. If you’re not, maybe have a think about stepping away from the trusted big camera and the professional and start to think about how you can start to own your own video content, produce it and share it in such a way that you’re working on your own personal brand above and beyond just the property that you’re selling. Best of luck with your digital marketing.

Craig Deveson:

Thanks for listening. To stay up to date on all things real estate marketing, follow us on Instagram and Facebook @propertiapp. For a free demo or any business inquiries, head over to properti.ai, or click the link below in the show notes.