Real estate agents may have been a little late to the party, but more are posting their own "Harlem Shake" videos, hopping on the band wagon of a meme that has spread like wildfire throughout February.
"I knew it was hot," said Whitney Pannell, a real estate agent at Prudential A.S. de Movellan Real Estate in Lexington, Ky.
Pannell would seem to have been the first real estate agent to post a "Harlem Shake" video, according to searches on YouTube. She said she knows for certain that the video has secured her at least one prospect.
The Harlem Shake video posted by Whitney Pannell of Prudential A.S. de Movellan Real Estate.
A "Harlem Shake" video follows a straightforward template: each begins with one or two people casually boogieing to the song "Harlem Shake" amid a group of seemingly disinterested peers. But 15 seconds later when the song, produced by artist "Baauer," reaches a climax, the video cuts to a scene of mayhem, with a crowd of people dancing in funky attire and brandishing odd props.
With the first Harlem Shake video posted in early February, 40,000 spin-offs had sprouted by Feb. 15th, garnering about 175 million views between them, according to the YouTube Trend blog.
But for all their purported marketing gusto, agents appear to have dragged their feet in embracing the meme, dubbed "2013’s answer to ‘Gangnam Style’ " by TechCrunch.
Real estate blog Estately has gone so far as to suggest that now that they’re on board, real estate agents and other latecomers have "killed" the fad.
YouTube searches filtered by publish date suggest that Pannell may claim the mantle of first real estate professional to add her own twist to the "Harlem Shake" meme. She posted a video to YouTube on Feb. 13th that featured colleagues and leads letting loose. The video had racked up close to 1,200 views as of Tuesday.
"I try to do cutting-edge," she said about her efforts to seize on Internet trends for marketing purposes. "It’s definitely paid off."
Meanwhile, a video posted by Adam Helton of The Deselms Team, a Franklin, Tenn.-based brokerage, appears to have nabbed the most hits of all agent-produced "Harlem Shake" videos.
"Harlem Shake" video by Adam Helton of The Deselms Team.
The video, which features Helton in a green skateboarding helmet dancing with a cast of bizarrely-dressed characters, had been viewed more then 1,800 times as of Tuesday.
Here’s a sampling of other chuckle-inducing real estate "Harlem Shake" videos:
Agents with Re/Max Essential in Wilmington, N.C. show how they roll.
The crew at Dallas-based Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, David Winans & Associates gets in on the fun.
The Anderson Real Estate Group’s Long Beach, Calif. office goes crazy.
