Lights, Camera, Action: Following the Rules with Video Marketing
| April 23, 2013
When it comes to the internet, video is king. Web-surfers are drawn more to quick videos than long articles. So why shouldn’t real estate and mortgage professionals use video in their marketing plans? Easy answer is, they should use it! After all, all it takes is a smart phone and a YouTube account for real estate and mortgage professionals to produce video marketing.
Whether it is to promote themselves, a listing, or their brokerage, industry professionals need to understand the advertising guidelines that apply to print ads, also apply to video.
The most common mistake some industry professionals make when producing and posting video for marketing purposes is not including the name of their brokerage. While sites such as YouTube have rigid design parameters, it is still possible for industry professionals to produce video content and include a clear indication of their brokerage.
On YouTube, for example, each “channel” allows the owner of the channel to include an “About Me/Us” descriptive. There are more than enough characters allowed in that area of copy to clearly indicate your brokerage name. Another option would be to run a line of copy along the bottom of your video that indicates your name and the name of your brokerage. Either of these options will meet RECA’s advertising guidelines for clear indication of your brokerage.
Of course, there are also some industry members who do include their brokerage name, but it is somehow buried or hidden. For example, including a brokerage name in the fine print or maybe as a meta tag for a video, will not satisfy the advertising requirements in the Real Estate Act Rules. Just because required information exists somewhere, somehow within the marketing, does not necessarily mean it suffices as clearly indicated.
Real estate and mortgage professionals including videos in their marketing plans is increasingly popular and will likely become even more so. Just remember, when any new marketing trends emerge, the existing rules and guidelines continue to apply.
For more information, be sure to read RECA’s Advertising Guidelines.
What are your thoughts on industry members creating video-based content for their advertising?
