Updating your clients using video is a fantastic way to convey an engaging personal message. How often do you receive HTML email newsletters with wads of text and no clear message of informing you of what it is actually about.
Video Blogs can be used in your HTML email newsletter, on your Facebook page, YouTube or on your company website in the news section.
So what would you blog about? Clients of ours video blog about everything from new offices through to internal videos with their team. This video below which was filmed for a Medical Recruitment company in Christchurch shows you that with a camera a good microphone you can video blog almost anywhere! This video was filmed in the snow room at the Antarctic Centre in Christchurch New Zealand.
Quick tips
• Video blogs shouldn’t be any longer than 3 minutes
• The person being filmed should always be looking down the barrel of the camera to ensure a honest friendly feeling for the viewer
• The blogger should read from their head rather than trying to follow a script to give a natural approach
• One take is best if you can manage it
• Changing shots from wide to tight where possible will give your video some variation
• Always use professional audio! We can’t stress this enough! No one wants to watch a video with poor audio you will discourage your viewers within the first few seconds of the video!
• Include a baseline introducing the video blogger and any company graphics to ensure new viewers can identify with you and your company if the video is shared across social networking sites
Video blogging is great fun and has high success rates!
More and more companies are using video to promote themselves online.
Research indicates that if users cannot quickly ascertain details regarding the person or company they are contemplating dealing with then they simply move on to the next option.
Video profiles are a great way to get your message across quickly and professionally. As you can use your Video profiles across a range of networks such as Facebook and YouTube, new customers can find you quicker than when trawling through numerous Real Estate websites. Even better, you can also see how many times your video is being viewed which is an option that wasn’t available to John Wanamaker in 1903 when he commented that; ”Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half”
Our selection of Video Profiles will provide you with a point of difference and help you to grow your Real Estate Business. Bespoke or “tailored” requirements are also no problem along with assisting you to develop your own Facebook Pages, Twitter Accounts or YouTube pages. These can promote both yourself as well as your Listings.
We offer various types of Video Profiles to cater for a range of budgets … we know everyone isn’t that keen to jump in front of the camera so we also offer a video profile which is made using still photos and a voice over (see example below).
A comment that we often hear is “I’m not sitting in front of the camera” or “that’s just not me”. We agree, being filmed is a new experience for most of us but is no different from when you are sitting with clients and building re pore.
If you are thinking about making a video yourself think very carefully about what message you want to get across. Getting a professional video profile will be the difference between someone pushing play and stop within 5 seconds and someone watching the full 90 seconds and picking up the phone and making the call. Poor sound, poor cinematography and poor content can turn viewers off. Also, if you aren’t prepared to invest in quality marketing for yourself then it doesn’t set a very good example to potential clients or vendors that are thinking about listing their home with you.
For as little as $350 you can get yourself a video profile to put on your website, post to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. All Grid City Video Profiles include hosting so you will receive a hit counter each week informing you of how many hits your video has had. Below are some Video Profile examples as you will see you can include client testimonials, background music and graphics. It all depends on what look and feel you want to achieve.
Online Video Profile using still photographs- Trudy Hudson, Harcourts Four Seasons
Online Video Profile with Client Testimonials – Jo Rodgers, Ray White
Online Video Profile – Laura Gregory DBR Property Financiers
Online Video Profile – Eddie McLean Harcourts Grenadier
To find out more about a video profile. Don’t hesitate to get in touch
Creating an animation for our very own homepage was probably one of the hardest jobs we have done lately.
Struggling for inspiration we consulted with Getty Images library and found a vector image that looked very similar to our Grid City buildings that we use in our logo. See image below.
Our starting point ... Pink City
So we downloaded the pink and baby blue city and Matt got to work.
A colour change, a sun, some broadcasting signals and a Grid City sign transformed the image. See below.
Goodbye Pink City ... hello Grid City
From here this we then made 6 different videos transitioning from morning through the next morning. You can view an example of our night animation below. For this one Matt used After Effects to add some flashing lights to the side of the building, some lights to the aeroplanes along with sound effects – techno music, cicadas and the sound of the moon snoring.
It just shows you what you can turn a pink city into
I would like to share a helpful hint when it comes to creating motion graphics. Simple is often better. Too many times I have found myself building something ‘fantabulous’ only to cut it right back till I like it. So why not start simple and build from there? I recently worked on a motion graphics animation for Projectmanager.com, this is a perfect example of starting simple and building from there.
Firstly it might help if you watch the finished product below
To create that I used
Photoshop CS4
After Effect CS4
Side note: It doesn’t matter what ‘CS’ is used, just like it doesn’t matter what car you drive or what hand bag you wear. It still gets you from A to B and carries all your stuff.
I was given
A Projectmanager.com logo
Various icons they currently use on their website
A script
With those things, I went into Photoshop a did this:
Placed a two tone blue gradient down for a background
Placed the logo and 3 of the icons I was given on the page
Done! Simple. I now have an opening to the video “welcome to project manager.com” Now to ‘build from there’.
This looks cool right? But it’s a bit flat, not a lot of oomph! At this point I have no idea what I want to improve. So I find things I already like and see if I can make them a wee bit better. I like the gradient background, so Ill change the blues and see what happens. I like the icons so I make them look a little bit more three-dimensional by adding reflections. And I like the logo how it is. In retrospect my design decisions are primarily based around the logo, it’s one of the most important references I have for my overall style decisions. After those few changes are made this is what I’m left with.
I’m stuck now; I want a busier background because I know it’s the only part of the animation viewers will see for the entire time. At this point I need some inspiration. Luckily I’m really awesome and came up with an idea in minutes. What did I use for inspiration?
The default desktop from Mac OS X Tiger
So my current design plus inspiration equals
It may not look like much of an improvement but trust me, some flowy lines that move ever so slightly can make the difference between the client saying “I don’t like it” to “great, send me the invoice”.
Now all that’s left is to animate. I’m not going to go into detail but instead give a few pieces of advice. If you view the opening of the video all you will see is the logo and icons moving on and off screen, nothing special, some scale and position key frames is all. The trick is to make it flow, and keep the timing right. I can’t teach timing but I can let you in on a couple of secrets to help make it flow.
Technique #1
I am going to assume you know a little bit about After Effects, and know what key frames are used for. A setting I use regularly when animating key frames is the ‘Easy Ease’ option. This means to ease speed coming both into and out of selected key frames. So rather than a constant speed from one key frame to another the change begins slowly, speeds up and then slows before stopping at the second key frame. This provides a more smooth transition. You can make your key frames Easy Ease by selecting them and hitting ‘F9’ or by right clicking and under ‘key frame assistant’ hit ‘Easy Ease’
Technique #2
Lets say you are animating that bar graph icon on the right. You want it to enter the screen and stop where it is, you know easy ease key frames will help it look better, but what else could you do? Make it more realistic maybe? Find a ruler. Hold it still. Now give it a flick like your trying to catapult something at the guy or girl you didn’t like very much at school. See how it doesn’t just go from one point to the other? But it flexes many times before coming to a stop. Try and incorporate that kind of realism when animating. I’ve provided two examples here. The first using easy ease key frames as well as the ‘realism’ technique and the second with standard A to B key frames. You can decide which flows best.
Example 1
Example 2
Small things make all the difference
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