The White House Channel on YouTube

A recent article on Social Media Examiner explored the marketing impact of YouTube.  Particularly compelling in that article were these YouTube usage stats:

• In 2009, approximately 100 million Americans watched 6 billion videos on YouTube each month
• Six out of seven U.S Internet users watch online videos every month
• YouTube accounted for 70% of all U.S. visits to some 60 online video sites (Google was #2 with a 4.6% share)
• In December 2009, U.S. Internet users watched an average of 187 videos per person
• Sixty-two percent of YouTube viewers are over 35; about half have college degrees and incomes of $75,000 or more
• In December, 2009, there were 9.7 billion search queries on Google, 3.9 billion on YouTube, 2.5 billion on Yahoo!, and 1.4 billion on Bing. (That makes YouTube the #2 search engine in the U.S.)

Yet despite the dominance of YouTube in popular culture and on the Internet, real estate professionals, for the most part, aren’t using it.

YouTube makes it easy to create a channel, allowing you to place all of your videos together in one place.  You can customize the channel with your company’s colors and logo, and you can upload the videos of your choosing to tell your story or showcase your properties.  Viewers can even subscribe, which allows them to stay up to date on your latest uploads.

Lots of companies and organizations have YouTube channels (click to view the White House Channel, for example).  Yet despite the popularity of YouTube and the simplicity of the channel concept, there seem to be only a handful of agents, brokers or boards using YouTube in any organized way.  (One very notable standout is the Houston Association of Realtors, which regularly posts content to YouTube.  Click here to visit their YouTube channel.)

Most of us think of YouTube as the place our kids go on the Internet to watch silly videos.  And while that may be true, it’s also the venue more and more businesses and professionals are using for marketing and PR.  It’s a powerful tool that reaches millions of people. So why is real estate absent?

A video you create can be uploaded to YouTube.  Once it’s there, you can link to it or embed it into your blog.  Or, if you prefer, you can include the link in your e-mails and  your Twitter posts.   If it’s tagged properly on YouTube and it’s something people want to see, a certain number of people will find it on their own.

We’ve created links here to several videos to spark your imagination and give you an idea of what can be done.  Each of these could probably be improved upon, but all of them make their point.

• Videos can educate consumers, as in this classic created by Daniel Rothamel, The Real Estate Zebra or this highly rated one by Susan Boticelli. Both were created in 2007.

• Gary and Lisa Schoeffler have uploaded a professionally produced piece that serves as their online commercial.
• Videos can introduce prospective buyers to your home town and show it off as the perfect relocation destination.  That’s how the Christopher Cotto Team portrays Charlotte, North Carolina in this video.

• Many agents use video to showcase their listings.  Here’s one example created by Tour Factory for John Hurlbutt.

• And what would YouTube be without humor?  Jim the Realtor (Jim Klinge) has posted dozens of these, but this one is among my favorites.