What Makes a Real Estate Video Go Viral?

Viral videos, especially in what can sometimes be a very conservative industry, need to be made up of one, or most, of the following characteristics to achieve the reach

For real estate videos to go viral they should be….

• Funny. One of the easiest ways to get a video to go viral is to make it funny. The tricky part though is figuring out what funny is to your target audience. There’s nothing worse than a video that tries to be funny, but is either tasteless or way off the mark so make sure you know your audience well.
• Creative. The best way to tell if you have something creative is when someone else sees it and says “Ah, I wish I thought of that!” Creativity is respected in just about every social circle and can do a fantastic job at getting viewers more interested in you.
• Short. If you go through some of the most viral videos on YouTube you will notice that most of them are less than 5 minutes long. Viral videos spread quickly due in large part to the fact that most of them are easy to digest and watch multiple times.
• Provocative. Whether some want to accept it or not, sex sells. And even though the real estate industry tries to maintain a conservative persona, the fact is that sex is used to sell real estate all the time – because it works.
• Memorable. You know you’re video has gone viral when people start referring to it by name. There’s no better current example of this than “Gangnam Style” by Psy (a Korean Pop Star). With over 240 million views and 2.4 million likes this catchy, memorable music video has already become one of the most viral videos of all time.

Top Tips to Help Your Video Go Viral

Unless you’re lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time with your video camera, then you’re going to need to do some hard work to create a truly viral real estate video. Here are some of our top tips to help you get there:

• Craft your video around your target audience by using the proper language, content and humor
• Upload your video to a social platform like YouTube or Vimeo so you, and your viewers, can easily share and interact with it
• Give it a descriptive, but memorable title – just as you would for a blog post you’d want people to share
• Keep your company branding and logos to just subtle references
• Don’t use annoying annotations, ads or captions
• Use a celebrity (actor, athlete, musician) in your video if possible
• Optimize it for increased organic search value to drive even more traffic to it
• Use social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest and LinkedIn to get your video in front of people

Primarily, a viral real estate video is intended to take a topic and add another edge to it, to reveal an amusing and fun side to the company. People are more likely to share a video if it meets the characteristics outlined above and you carry out the tips listed here.

10 Viral Real Estate Video Ideas

The main challenge when creating a viral real estate video is coming up with the initial concept.

1. Produce a professional looking short movie of a luxury property
2. Parody a popular song or commercial
3. Record a prank that shows your company’s light side, but also displays its knowledge of a property or an area
4. Use an animated video to explain the history of a property or area
5. Get a video testimonial from a celebrity client
6. Start a web video series about your job (eg. “A Day in the Life of a Realtor”)
7. Make a montage of some of the most hideous properties you’ve ever been asked to list
8. Re-enact funny or memorable situations you’ve experienced as a Realtor
9. Provide a useful tour of a neighborhood that other websites would want (like travel sites, other Realtors, visitor centers, etc)
10. Create a provocative commercial that entices your clientele of young professionals to want to see a property or use your services

Before You Think About Being Famous…

Remember that your viral real estate videos should serve one primary purpose – to create business for you. If you get caught up in the possibility of YouTube fame and lose sight of generating business, then you will probably never see a return on your investment.

So try the tips and ideas above to start creating effective real estate videos that have a chance to go viral.