I had an opportunity recently to speak with Jeff Bernheisel (@JBern) who is the the Marketing Director for M Realty in Portland. Jeff has a proven track record for Search Engine Optimization results for his company when it comes to VERY competitive search terms like “Portland Real Estate”.

Jeff has built several websites that dominate Google including one that was dedicated to the ever popular Angry Birds game! In less than 5 months he ranked the site in the top 5 results of Google for the search term “Angry Birds”, in the process generating 20,000-30,000 hits a day!

I wanted Jeff to share in our interview some of his best SEO tips and how agents can achieve comparable results in their own market.

(Can’t view the video? Click here)

My takeaway? Content and links are king.

Angry Birds, Viagra and real estate SEO all in one interview. Surely worthy of 3 golden eggs.

I hope you enjoy our chat and if you have any specific questions for Jeff after watching feel free to leave those in the comments below.

Chris Smith, Chief Evangelist, Inman News, @chris_smth

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Guest post by Veneeta Eason, Director, Worldwide Marketing Manager – Real Estate for Kodak.

If pictures are worth a thousand words, can you imagine how much a video is worth?  People are watching over 2 billion videos a day on YouTube.  Video creates a more personal connection, and if nothing else, that’s what Real Estate professionals do every day.   Video has the ability to increase your business, build better relationships, and amplify your credibility.  With today’s technology, it is easier than ever to capture great video.

Here are five easy ways to integrate video into your marketing efforts:

1.    Cover a Local Event. This is a powerful way to position yourself as an authority within your community.  The one who holds the microphone will naturally be perceived as the expert.  Examples of events are a parade, picnic celebration or school fundraiser.  Interview neighbors, dignitaries, teachers and students (with parent permission, of course).  There is an emotional connection to these types of events and what better place for you to be than in the midst of that positive connection.

2.    Interview Local Vendors. This is a low-hanging fruit opportunity to become the dominant video source for your area.  People in the community are looking for information on businesses within their community.  Restaurants, repair services, child-care facilities and dry cleaners are just a few examples.  Focus the interview on why the proprietor loves serving the community.  Be creative.  Offer an “Interview Corner” and feature one per week.   As viewers find these videos, they will find you too!   Here is a sample shot by our real estate group using a simple pocket video camera.

3.    Make a Video Testimonial. What sells you better than having real clients raving about how invaluable you were in the process of buying or selling a home?  At the closing, set your camera up on a tabletop tripod and simply ask the client to talk about their experience working with you.  Make it informal and have 3 or 4 questions prepared where they can offer up 20 second answers. These testimonials can be posted on your YouTube channel, your Facebook page, LinkedIn, and even mentioned in Twitter.

4.    Capture Home Tour Vignettes for Buyers. How often have you shown multiple homes to a buyer and they can’t distinguish one home from another or even remember what they saw?  Now you have to schlep them back to the same homes again.  As you walk through the homes, shoot quick videos of each home…what the buyer liked or didn’t like.  When you send the video to the buyer, they will inevitably share with friends and family…voila, viral marketing for you.

5.    Become the Go-To Expert for Real Estate. You can provide information on market trends, short sale and foreclosure tips or interview an expert (i.e. lenders, title professionals, home inspectors).   For example, you can interview a home inspector highlighting what things to look for before buying a home.  Create an editorial calendar of the content you would like to provide, identify who you will team up with (if necessary) and ask them to participate.

Creating video has never been easier.  To get started:

• Get a great pocket video camera like the new KODAK PLAYTOUCH Video Camera. The KODAK PLAYTOUCH offers an external microphone jack, which will give you excellent sound quality. This is a “must have” feature for agent marketing videos.
• Shoot the video in 720p or 1080p High Definition. Use a tripod as it steadies the video and will allow you to have a natural stance behind the camera and frees up your hands to be in front of the camera.
• Easily edit your video using your camera’s on-screen editing features or import your video into video editing software. Some easy-to-use packages are Windows Movie Maker and iMovie.
• Post it on YouTube, and get a share icon to embed on your website and within your signature on your email.
• Tag all your videos properly. Use keywords that will help them get found on searches, and include the city names of the areas that you are marketing in.  A great free tool is YouTube’s Keywords Tool. Use it to research the most commonly used terms for your area.

Above all, remember to have fun. Sometimes we forget that behind every great agent and broker is an individual with family and friends.  You may not be able to generate business with the video you capture of those family and friends, but isn’t that what life is all about?

Don’t forget to have fun and keep your video camera handy for all of life’s incredible Kodak Moments.

To receive 20% off the KODAK PLAYTOUCH Video Camera, visit www.kodak.com/go/redeal.

(Note to our readers: I was able to “play” with a KODAK PLAYTOUCH camera at Agent Reboot and Real Estate Connect NYC and it was a blast! It was super easy to use and I was able to get some great impromptu videos. Thanks Kodak! – Katie Lance, Senior Marketing Manager, Inman News @katielance)

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Do you  hear the BUZZ in the air? This video is a great example of how FIRED UP people are about Real Estate Connect NYC January 13-15th, 2010.

Thanks @dcrealtorgirl for submitting this video! You rock!

See you at Connect!

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A guest perspective from Kurt Weinsheimer, General Manager of Local Marketing Services at SpotRunner.com.

With the economic crisis continuing to cripple Wall Street, real estate agents are now forced to develop new ways to grow their business and attract buyers. As consumer spending and confidence in the market plummets, people will buy real estate and services with more discretion and in a more competitive business environment.

For years now, agents have been using search advertising as a way to generate leads and sales. However, with keyword pricing on the rise, online video has quickly become a preferred method of marketing. Search engines like Google, MSN, AOL and Yahoo! have begun to index video higher up in search results, increasing visibility for their campaigns.

In addition, the number of people watching videos online is on the rise. Roughly 129.5 million people watched online video ads at least once a month, according to an August 2008 study by eMarketer, and that figure is estimated to increase more than 40 percent to 183.3 million in 2013.

Here are six simple rules to help you develop your own online video, and capitalize on this growing opportunity.

Rule Number One: Ensure the content resonates with your target audience.

Unlike TV viewers who are primarily watching for general entertainment or news in a passive way, Internet users are usually task-driven and actively looking for very specific content. Find out how Internet users got to your company home page. Look at the keywords they used and create a video that speaks them.

While they are looking for quality content, people who watch online video don’t usually demand the highest production values or high-definition quality. The important thing is to have relevant content that resonates with your target buyer.

Rule Number Two: Place your video on your Web site and across multiple sharing sites.

Now that you know what the video should include, find a place on your Web site to host these videos. Choose a noticeable, but unobtrusive place on your site’s first page or “home” page, and make sure the video doesn’t launch as soon as someone accesses the page. When a viewer first visits your site, they typically want to have control.

In addition to hosting your video on your own Web site, distribute it across the major video destinations, like YouTube, MySpace TV, Metacafe, and others. Your goal is to be anywhere your target buyer may be, and ensure they are able to find your agency when they’re looking for the services you offer.

Rule Number Three: Make sure people find your videos.

Now that you know what the content should be and where to place it, the next step is helping people find it on the Web. The lesson here is putting in the right “metadata,” or keywords in the title fields, description and “tags” with which search engines use to match search queries.

When writing a headline, keep it short and simple. Some easy things to keep in mind are to include your company name, basic product description and any brand names associated with your business. When conducting basic searches for real estate, most prospects will include their location to narrow results, so include that as well.

Rule Number Four: Keep it short.

While more and more people have broadband connections and fast computers, online videos may still take some time to download and slow down other applications. Think about conveying your message in short videos, or risk losing the attention of your target customer.

Rule Number Five: Track your viewers and measure response.

The goal of tracking your viewers is to understand them better, and turn them into potential buyers. Video hosting sites like YouTube now provide sophisticated reporting tools that yield deeper insight into the origin, geography, demographic and viewing behavior of your video. This type of data can help you determine what types of videos to produce in the future, which takes us to the next rule.

Rule Number Six: Refresh your videos

Many of the sharing sites allow users to subscribe to your videos, so updating them is a good way to keep your company top-of-mind for customers that follow you. Even without a new product/service, you can use different testimonials, or show how your company is connected or relevant to news trends. And again, using customer feedback to develop new types of videos is important.

Conclusion

Sound like a daunting task? Actually, developing and launching an online video ad campaign can be fairly painless and very affordable. The result can not only provide a higher level of engagement and connection with your core customers, but can also lead to a wave of new business. So in short, jumping on the online video “brandwagon” could give the competitive edge you need for survival during this tough economic time.

Interested in contributing a guest perspective to FOREM? Please send your submissions to futureofrealestate [at] gmail.com.

Photo by David A G Wilson

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Online real estate video resource WellcomeMat officially threw off the training wheels this morning and announced it has emerged from Beta.

The company, which I first previewed in 2007 (see WellcomeMat – The Killer App for Real Estate Video) has taken huge strides over the last few years and built out a fantastic network that connects Realtors and brokers with video professionals.

In addition, their video player technology still remains head of its class and as big brokers are starting to wake up to the new world of online video, the company has had some success helping them power their own video plays (see WellcomeMat Powers Halstead Property Real Estate Video).

So what does dropping the Beta mean? Well, not suprisingly, given the current economic times, the site is no longer free.

Their entry level Premier plan now runs $14.95 a month and they also have an Pro account which costs $19.95 a month. Neither of which should be particularly onerous if you are serious about integrating video into your marketing.

But, as a way of saying thanks to its Beta testers, all existing 10,000 members of the site were upgraded to becoming lifetime Premier members for free.

Since I did my last Real Estate Video Shoot Out many of the free video hosts profiled there have disappeared or introduced pay-for-play models. Video streaming is an expensive business and the age of free looks like it may be coming to an end.

Other online video providers include ZIPVO.

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Wish I could be in New York for this. Looks like a fabulous get together.

Surely someone is going to shoot it on video and share with the rest of us right?

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ActiveRain has always had its eye on video. It has dabbled a little bit with its RainTV segments, shot at last summer’s Real Estate Connect conference, and more recently by holding a video contest.

Now, it seems, they are making a bigger play for a piece of the real estate video pie. Through a partnership with Mixpo.com they have just announced a new platform that will more deeply integrate video into ‘Rainers blogs. The plan, which was supposed to be on the d-l, was leaked by some over-enthusiastic Beta participants, prompting this blog post.

You will be able to host and edit your videos directly from video.activerain.com, and then take the videos in your library and embed them directly to your blog posts with the click of one button. You will also be able to embed them wherever on the internet you would like outside of ActiveRain. One of the cool features that fits nicely with everyone’s blogging efforts is the ability to add links directly into your videos. So if you are giving a tour of a listing, to potential buyers, you can include links to the listing on your site, or to surrounding attractions you have written about in your blog.

ActiveRain seems to be making small strides recently to move beyond their early social networking roots towards becoming more of a repository of all of a real estate professionals digital content. Not as a sexy of a business plan, but probably a more sustainable business model.

The platform will cost Realtors $29/month.

This move is also surely a shot across the bow aimed at online provider WellcomeMat, which has been a popular choice for video hosting by Realtors to date. WellcomeMat, which, conversely, just added social networking to it’s video platform (see WellcomeMat Goes Social), has yet to announce publicly its pricing plan.

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