How to Host an Effective Facebook Live Open House: Step-by-Step Guide for REALTORS®
Everything Real Estate Agents Need to Know Before Hosting a Successful Facebook Live Showing
Facebook, the most popular social media platform, allows users to broadcast videos right from their mobile devices or computers. Realtors can host Facebook live open houses and showcase properties online. This is convenient for both agents and homebuyers, especially at these troubled times of global pandemics. But as a REALTOR®, how do you tailor Facebook Live for open houses?
Why Facebook Live?
Before delving into Facebook live for real estate it’s important to understand why other businesses, in general, have found the feature so useful. The social nature of Facebook makes these Live videos easily shareable with the people you are connected to and even those you are not. This is a great way to drive traffic to a specific site. Because it is live the feature provides a sense of intimacy and urgency, a “must-be-present” experience.
Why Should Realtors Host Live Virtual Open Houses?
So why use Facebook live in real estate? Facebook Live is a great way to drive engagement, promote your brand, and build a genuine and practical relationship with your audience. These are all needed to build trust, which is such an important aspect of being a successful agent.
Facebook Live videos get 3 times more engagement than conventional videos shared on social media platforms. And the good news is that very few realtors use virtual open houses. This makes it a blue ocean ready for you to fish some leads from.
Virtual Open Houses Offer the Following Benefits:
- They allow realtors to showcase properties conveniently to a wide audience
- If successful they can be recorded and used many times
- They eliminate the need to actually show up at the property. This saves time and energy for home buyers and realtors and has proven to be especially useful during the global pandemic.
People are using the internet to find homes and properties, more and more every day. Why bother and go visit a house when you can check the property at the comfort of your house through your phone?
Homebuyers can check properties online. Create a list of their favorites. Shortlist the ones which fit their needs and preferences by watching virtual open houses, and save the actual visiting of the property for the best one or two.
Using Facebook Live for real estate should involve using it to host a virtual open house.
Equipment for Facebook Live Videos
As mentioned earlier you can broadcast Facebook live videos on both smartphones and computers. However, due to the nature of virtual open houses, mobility is a must. Leave the computers for other Facebook Live videos such as Q&A sessions.
A cell phone alone can be used to have Facebook Live videos. However, there are some tips, tricks, and tools that can enhance the quality of the audio and video being transmitted to your audience:
1. Clean the Lens
It is surprising but many people ignore or are unaware of the fact that a dirty lens can ruin the quality of the images captured by your cell phone camera. You have probably seen images shot by others that seem blurry. A dirty lens is like looking at the world through a dirty window. Even small specks of dirt or greasy fingerprints can cause blurs and smudges on the photos or videos you shoot. These shots are taken 10 seconds apart. One with the dirty lens and the other after cleaning the phone camera lens by a tissue:
The same thing can happen when you are shooting a video, and a dirty lens has a SIGNIFICANT effect on the overall quality of a phone camera.
Your phone’s camera lens is exposed to many surfaces including your fingers (that can be greasy or dirty). The best way to avoid such problems is to clean the lens before you shoot. Use a soft tissue (recommended by your phone’s manufacturer) to regularly clean the lens especially before you shoot. The results are awesome. You can test this for yourself now.
2. Use a Microphone
The phone’s microphone will do a fair job at recording the audio provided that you are not too far from the phone. However, given the likelihood that you are recording in an empty space echoing may contribute to sound not being recorded at its optimum.
See how the sound fails at the beginning of this Facebook Live virtual open house:
In this case, we recommend you to use a separate wireless microphone that is compatible with your phone and the Facebook app. If you are shooting a selfie video the wired earphones and mic will do a good job but the chances are you will have another person do the filming as you are walking around the house.
3. Stabilize with a Tripod
Ideally, if you are moving around the house it is best to have another person filming. You can film yourself but this will lead to less time on the screen, and you want the audience to remember the realtor they will be working with.
If you are making a lot of stops in the virtual open house, a tripod is recommended. This allows you to have the camera fixed without worrying about the shaky hands of the operator.
Read More: Real Estate Marketing Strategies 2019
How to Broadcast on Facebook Live On Your Mobile Phone
Because of mobility, a Facebook Live virtual open house is easier on a cell phone than a computer. Even easier is the set-up, all you need is the Facebook Pages Manager app. You can download it on Apple’s App Store or Google’s Play Store.
The Step-by-Steps for Broadcasting Are:
- Open your business page on the app.
- Click on the “Publish” button.
- Add an attractive description for the live broadcast that describes what the video is about including information about the property, the address, etc.
- Select “Live Video”
- If asked, grant Microphone and Camera access to the app.
- Click Start Live Video
Note: It is not recommended you use a personal account on Facebook to run a Facebook Live virtual open house. In the event that you are the steps are as follows:
- Open Facebook app on your cell phone. You can download it on iPhone’s App Store or Android’s Play Store.
- On “What’s on your mind?” on top of your news feed Select “Live” icon.
- Write an engaging description for the virtual open house providing information about the property.
- Set the “Visibility” as “Public” (It wouldn’t make sense to broadcast only to your friends)
- Start Live Video
This is a summary of the full article published on roomvu Academy blog. To real the full story click on this link.
