NEW YORK — Livestreaming video has become one of the more effective ways for real estate agents to market themselves, but striking the balance between overly dry and hokey schtick can be extremely difficult.
At Inman Connect New York on Thursday, a trio of successful livestreaming agents gave the real estate crowd some insight into what’s worked best for them.
Make it your everyday
Todd Ferris
Todd and Meghan Ferris are a husband and wife team at Tucker Company in Indianapolis, Indiana. Meghan’s best advice: be fun and authentic.
“Livestreaming allows you to show people who you really are,” she said. “So they’re going to know you, and they’re going to trust you, but they also have to like you.”
The Ferrises are trying to take a hyper-local approach to
Megan Ferris
dominating the Indianapolis sales market, so they use their platform to promote the community as much as they do themselves. They’ll “go live” with the local mayor or at a parade in town.
One of Todd’s key pieces of advice was to not get discouraged when you first start testing the livestream feature and notice a paltry number of viewers.
“When you go live, you can’t get sad at first with no viewers,” he said. “Once you’re done, you can post it, that’s when you boost it. For live video, put it out as an ad on Facebook, and boost it.”
Todd said they often look to make fools of themselves as well as be interactive.
While they were in New York City for Connect, they hosted a “choose your own adventure livestream,” where viewers told them where to turn at each intersection until a timer ran out.
At the end, they went to the nearest bar and had a drink — while still live.
Carve out your niche
Jerry Cibulski
Jerry Cibulski is a broker with Century 21 Albertson Realty, on the North Fork of Long Island and literally travels with a branded pitchfork — it even joined him on stage at Connect. His Instagram account, filled with photos of the pitchfork staked in front of various properties has over 1,000 followers, and his videos get hundreds of views.
“When these people are buying and selling, they want to get to know you,” Cibulski explained.
Cibulski has an almost episodic approach to his videos, teasing the locations or open house livestreams like upcoming sitcom episodes. One month, he took a shot of his shoes every single day, and it became something people were expecting, like the pitchfork.
“You have to build a strategy,” Cibulski said. “You can’t just walk out to start your day and say ‘I have to do this.’”
As far as technology goes, Cibulski livestreams on YouTube, which allows him to simultaneously post the videos to other platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, as well as archive the videos on his YouTube page.
In one of the more popular videos on his Facebook page from the last month — it has nearly 800 views — Cibulski tours a smart home and shows off the features to potential customers while walking around the home with his hands full.
Showing features like this on livestreaming videos is an effective tactic for engaging and attracting viewers.
Read all of our coverage from Inman Connect NY 2018.