Does YouTube have a place in this business?

[William Gladstone]

Does anyone have any thoughts or advice on using YouTube to promote your business? Have you had success with it?

[Dave Lewand | @davelewand]

Bill - Great question, Bill! I believe that YouTube will continue to increase in popularity as a channel for marketing real estate companies and properties of all kinds. 20 years ago, email was not a viable marketing channel in our industry. 10 years ago, property-specific email marketing was productive among early adopters of that technological innovation. Today's early adopter holds a 3G mobile device in the palm of his/her hand - and is more likely to be hungry for media that puts that technology to the test. Over the next few years, I would expect emails that link to property-specific video presentations to become mainstream. Of course, that does not mean that all will be well received! The "wow factor" that video induces must be accompanied by content that takes full advantage of that medium and respects the end user. - Dave Lewand

[William Gladstone]

David-
Very interesting thought. I agree with what you are saying - we are looking at doing a second video as we listen to these comments and try to use the "vision" (and the rules) that are being shared with us, such as in your response.
Thanks for your input!
Bill

[CREOPoint Managing Editor]

Bill, you raise a great question, one that has many dimensions. For commercial real estate, it feels like YouTube is still an embryonic channel, even though there are millions of videos on it from all over the world. As Dave points out, it will continue to evolve and grow, and may yet be replaced by more industry focused sites. I think it is only a matter of time before Loopnet and CoStar and other listing companies fully enable video.

Also, in residential real estate, the technology continues to evolve, and just this morning, Animoto announced a new video creation platform that lets anyone quickly and easily create professional-quality videos from their own photos, music and text. They launched Animoto for Real Estate for $249.00 per year. Details here.

[William Gladstone]

Thanks for your point of view. I (and the Bill Gladstone Group) tend to agree with you. That is why we ask all these questions - to try to get ahead of the curve a bit.
Thanks again!
Bill