Are you a real estate agent wanting to start getting clients from your YouTube channel? That’s what we’re talking about today, and we are starting right now.
Read the YouTube for Realtors video transcription below
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to my channel. My name is Karin Carr, and I’m a realtor in Savannah, Georgia with Keller Williams.
I am here today to talk to you about using YouTube for Realtors. So many people on Facebook are now messaging me, calling me, texting me, emailing me almost daily to ask me about getting started using video that I thought I would make this video to answer all of your questions.
These are the top five questions that everybody asks me all the time, so let’s go ahead and get started.
Number one is, “Who does your editing and what are you using?” The truth is, I am doing my own editing, and I hope to be able to outsource that to somebody else very soon, but right now, I’m doing it myself.
I have a Mac, and free with my Mac was iMovie. iMovie is a great, little program for beginners, even all the way up to people that are very experienced with editing movies, but it was free and it does everything that I needed to do, so I keep using iMovie.
Number two is, “Where did you get your logo and your intro?” I just ordered my logo off of Etsy, and I then sent the logo to somebody on Fiverr, who made the animated intro for me. I think the intro cost something like $25 or $30 because I got an intro and an outro, so I can have one at the beginning and one at the end, and I got eight different choices of music so that I didn’t have to have the same music playing behind the intro every single time.
Number three is, “What equipment do you use?”
I think you’ll be surprised. I really don’t use a whole lot of equipment. I film on my iPad. Why my iPad? Because the screen is big and I can see it easier. If you just want to record on your phone, that’s great.
The majority of smartphones that were made within the last couple of years, the cameras are so good there’s no reason not to use it, so use your smartphone or your tablet. I do use an external microphone. You can use a $20 microphone, the kind that clips on to your lapel right here. The one I have, I’ll actually put the link down below. None of these are affiliate links.
This is just what I have. It’s the Rode Mic Me… Mobile Me… something like that. I’ll put the link down below. I think it was around 50 bucks. My husband gave it to me for Christmas. Thank you, Chris, and it just plugs right into the phone or the iPad on the headphone’s jack.
Then, you need some decent lighting. If you can record in a place that has lots of natural light, awesome. Don’t have to buy new lights! Me, I bought a couple of these.
I don’t even know what they’re called. I call them ‘Umbrella lights’. It’s basically a tripod with a light bulb screwed in the top, and an umbrella stuck in the front of it, and I have two of those. One on either side.
Number four, and this is a big one, everybody says, “But I hate being on camera, and I hate the sound of my own voice.” There’s a really simple way to get over that. Make videos!
Like seriously, if you make one video every six or eight weeks, you’re never going to get used to how you look on camera and how you sound on camera because you’re not doing it frequently enough. You’ve got to do it regularly. If you made a video once a week, and you spent the time to edit it, and you’re playing it back, and you’re seeing yourself, and you’re hearing your voice, within three weeks, you’d be so over it, like it would never bother you again, because now, it’s completely old hat and you’re used to it, so you just got to start doing it.
Number five, and this is probably the most important in my opinion, is, “Why should Realtors use YouTube and why not other platforms?” Here’s the deal. Video is important. I don’t care where you do it.
But if you prefer Facebook because you have a huge following on Facebook, go for it. For me, I picked YouTube for one reason, and one reason only, and that is SEO, Search Engine Optimization.
If somebody is on Facebook, and they’re just scrolling through their timeline, and your video pops up, awesome. You probably get a lot of views from that, but were they searching for that information?
No. They just stumbled across it. If somebody is on YouTube and they see your video, they were searching for that information, right? Either they searched for that keyword, and you showed up in the search results, or suggested results, so maybe they typed ‘How to buy your first house’, and you made a video called ‘How To Buy Your First Home’. Maybe your video would not show up in the actual search results, but it would show up in the suggested searches on the sidebar, so if you can be showing up as a real estate agent on Youtube when people are looking for the information, that’s huge.
How well does this work?
When I lived in another market (I moved from Atlanta to Savannah.) When I was making videos in Atlanta, I had no strategy. No rhyme or reason. I made a video when I felt like it, and I uploaded it when I had time, and I was still getting people that said, “I’ve watched all your videos. I’m ready to buy a house. Will you help me?”
“I’ve watched all your videos. I’m ready to buy a house. Will you help me?” I thought, “If people are calling me from my YouTube videos when I’m not really even trying and I’m doing a real half-assed job, how much better would it be if I actually had a strategy behind it?”
So I decided in June of 2017, I was going to start making weekly videos, and I put up a video every single week on YouTube. The day that I post it, I share it on Facebook on my personal page and on my business page. I pin it on Pinterest. I share it on Google+. I share it on Instagram. I share in a whole bunch of places the day that I post the video, and then quite honestly, I forget about it.
This is all organic traffic, and these are some of the results that I get.
I get emails like this. “Hey, we found your YouTube channel. We are thinking of moving to Savannah. Can you help us?”
I get “Come list me” phone calls. “Hey, we just found out we’ve moving to Virginia. We need to sell our house. Can you come over and give us a listing presentation?” Then, when I get there, I say, “Hey, it’s so nice to meet you. Who else are you interviewing?” And they say, “Nobody… are we supposed to?”
And I’m like, “Absolutely not. You’ve already called the best. You don’t need to interview anyone else, honey.”
Now you know why you should be doing YouTube videos. I am seriously considering putting together a training video for other real estate agents because I get asked this on such a regular basis.
I want to gauge the interest level. If you would be interested in taking that class if I were to teach it, it would be an online video course, would you be interested in it? Click the link right up here if you want to be notified when that class if available.
Just put your name and email address on my list so that when I release it, I can email it out to everybody and let you know that it’s there.
Thank you so much for watching.
As always, I am Karin Carr with Keller Williams in Savannah, and I always appreciate any referrals you want to send my way. If you like this video and you are interested in doing more video, please subscribe to my channel. It doesn’t matter to me that you’re another real estate agent. You are welcome to watch the videos that I do, get some more ideas, and follow along with me on my journey as I am blowing up my business with video.
Thanks again for watching, and I expect to start seeing some of your videos too.
(BLOOPERS) Do you like my new lamp over there? My husband made that. How cool is that?
You showed up, or is it on this side? On this side.
Thanks so much for … What time is it? Am I supposed to go pick up my son?
If you prefer …
I just had Brussels sprouts with Sriracha for lunch. So spicy.
Are you a real estate agent? Okay. I’ve got to stop taking a giant breath right before I talk.
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About the Author: The article above was provided by Karin Carr, an authority on Savannah area real estate and a leader in the field of real estate blogging and vlogging. She has been a repeat guest on the Easy Agent Pro podcast and teaches video and social media marketing strategies to other real estate agents. Karin has helped literally helped hundreds of families buy and sell homes since 2005.
Looking to buy a home in the Savannah area? Check out our virtual reality home buying program. It’s free of charge and will save you a ton of time and gas money!
Looking to sell? I use the latest technology to get my clients’ homes sold quickly and for as much money as possible.
I help people buy and sell real estate in the following Savannah areas: Rincon, Guyton, Pooler, Richmond Hill, Savannah, and the islands.
