It’s not just cat videos the public is going crazy over; it’s all videos, including real estate videos. Marki Lemons-Ryhal, REALTOR®, teacher, social media expert and Facebook Live video host, swears by live video. “By the end of 2017, 74 percent of all content viewed online will be in the form of a video,” she says.
Lemons-Ryhal doesn’t just comment on the video phenomena; she’s mastered it. She opened her first real estate company in 2003, and a year later had sold over 60 units and jumped to the top 10 percent of REALTORS® in Chicago, in large part due to her mastery of social media.
In 2009, she was invited to speak at National Association of REALTORS® Conference & Expo and was named Illinois Real Estate Educator of the year in 2010. She currently travels and teaches social media and technology classes for NAR, Chase and Goldman Sachs. She has multiple designations and degrees, including CRB, ABR, ABRM, CRMS, and an MBA from Saint Xavier University.
Her first video, “Crabs in a Bucket,” received 19,442 views. By taking out a $20 Facebook Ad to boost the video, she got 1,241 more views, resulting in 23,683 views. Using those Facebook views, she leveraged the interest in her video into radio and television interviews. “Social media works,” she says. “I don’t teach theory. I practice what I preach. We have come to realize one can receive a 2,100 percent return on their marketing if they implement video.”
Video Can Be Your Best Marketing Tool—If You Know These Facts
The objections to video are the same from all REALTORS®, and Lemons-Ryhal addresses them right upfront:
- Stop procrastinating. Stop “getting ready to get ready” to do video. Just do it.
- Don’t worry about how you look. Everyone already knows how you look. You’re the only one who’s not used to seeing you.
- Cost is not a barrier. All the video equipment you need is included in your cell phone’s camera.
- If you’re not doing video, you’re ignoring a huge audience. Facebook has over two billion users, so you don’t need another app. Live-streaming video is already built into the Facebook app.
- Video rules SEO. If you want to be found through local Search Engine Optimization (SEO), a video is the best way to do that. Facebook has altered its algorithm to promote video over content.
3 Things REALTORS® Don’t Understand About Social Media and Real Estate
- Video is a social media tool first and a real estate tool second. Use video to reach and connect with buyers before selling to them. People buy from REALTORS® they know, like, and trust, and there’s no better way to show buyers who you are than through video.
- “Every buyer has a problem,” Lemons-Ryhal says. Carrie Little, one of the agents Lemons-Ryhal works with, produced a three-minute video that talked about what specific buyers were interested in and got 2,900 viewers who watched her Facebook live broadcast. Out of those 2,900 viewers, she closed on eight of out nine deals for a total production of $1,578,900 and a personal earning of $42,100. What Little did was simple: she focused on the pain of a specific demographic, college graduates. She told her audience, “If you are a recent college graduate with a job and one month’s worth of paycheck stubs, you may be eligible to buy a home. Don’t invest in a landlord; invest in yourself.” That’s how she got their attention. The rest was follow-through.
- “Video’s not enough,” says Lemons-Ryhal. Video is just the beginning. “You want to get viewers off of Facebook and to a landing page, or keep them on Facebook and use something to capture their name and email information. By placing a $20 Facebook Ad, Little was able to generate a 2,105 percent return on her investment.” Not only can she use that same video, Lemons-Ryhal says, but “video is the only form of content that real estate professionals can download and repurpose into 200 different forms of content and marketing opportunities.”
Why Little’s Video Worked
Little didn’t just happen to appeal to college students; she studied the niche, understood their pain points and then found a lender who specialized in loans to recent college grads. Lemons-Ryhal suggests that you do the same thing in your market. “Find a lender with a unique program in your market place,” she says. “Ask them to create a PDF with either an infographic or checklist. That will be your call to action for buyers to download.”
If you’re using Facebook for business purposes, “you need to have established Facebook Live goals,” she says. “You want to decide whether to go live daily, weekly, monthly, or only for special events.” People spend more time watching Facebook Live videos than they do recorded videos. “Take advantage of that,” she says.
If you’d like to learn more about using Facebook and social media for your business, including a step-by-step tutorial on how to use Facebook Live and dozens of additional tips for getting the most out of your Facebook Live sessions, listen to Marki Lemons-Ryhal’s webinar, “Earn a 2105% Return on Your Marketing Strategy.”
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