Using Screencast.com for Real Estate Video Storage and Sharing

YouTube is indeed free, as is MetaCafe, Yahoo Video, and Google Video. All four have their place in a real estate video strategy. However, there is a quality trade-off in using these sites. They must downsize file size to accommodate the huge volume of videos stored, as well as simplify processes for users.

You should use these services for your videos, as they provide exposure to the millions of visitors each day to the sites. However, using their code to embed a video into your site will result in an easy way for the viewer to leave your site to view other related videos.

Use a paid solution for your site.

The increasing importance of video on the web will result in increased reliance on it for our real estate marketing. YouTube and the other free services will always have value in exposing our video to more viewers. However, you will have no control over changes in policy or technology that may impact the quality or usefulness of your video.

The time and money you'll spend in producing video for the web demands that you retain control of the base video files for other uses in the future, as well as to protect your investment. Using a paid solution gives you that control.

Though its primary value is in video upload, storage and sharing, Screencast.com can also do the same thing for documents and presentations. You set up a file and folder system to keep your videos organized, and then upload the video for storage.

As long as you maintain your account status, you have complete control of your video, and you can share a link to the video in email or on a website, as well as embed the video in a website or blog, so that it is part of the site, without taking the viewer away from your site, as is the case with the free services.

If you see a website with a YouTube or other video residing in the page of the site, and not a link that opens another window or site, then it is likely there via a piece of HTML code, called the "embed code."

This code makes a place on the site for the video, calls the appropriate player type, and displays the video for the viewer to play right there. It is the best solution, particularly for display of home listing video with the listing details. Blogs are a great way to utilize embed code without extra formatting problems or HTML knowledge.

You can try the service for 60 days at no cost. After that, there are several levels of service, each priced based on the amount of storage and monthly transfer bandwidth. The storage is the space taken up by the videos, while the transfer bandwidth is the amount of download used by viewers when they watch the videos.

The Basic service, at $6.95/month, or $69.50/year, will likely get you going and work for many new users for quite a while. As your use of video grows, and your viewership increases, you'll need more, but it's worth it if you have that much traffic on your site.

Here are the suggested uses for each:

• For exposure to huge numbers of viewers - Free Services
• For viewing on your site or brokerage site - Embed from Screencast
• For exposure through allowing embedding on other sites - Free Services
• For email to clients or prospects - Screencast
• To show to prospects/clients in the office - Screencast
• For MPEG video for cell phones and handheld players, and iTunes, you can store on Screencast, as YouTube is Flash Video.

YouTube automatically takes your camera video, or video produced by the free Windows Movie Maker application, and converts it to Flash format. Screencast.com doesn't care what format you upload, as their system will play it. However, for the best compatibility with all computers and operating systems, you'll need to convert your videos to a Flash .swf or .flv format.

Check out this article for flash video conversion resources at low or no cost.

You simply cannot ignore online video as a marketing tool. Your clients will gradually begin to demand it, and you will be falling behind competitively without it.

Once you get the appropriate hardware, software and storage solutions, you'll find that it's not a big deal to do video. And you don't have to be a Hollywood producer. You'll see articles that tell you that a professional should be hired, but check the author. They could be promoting their services. The state of the art should continue to adapt to allow the normal individual with inexpensive equipment to produce videos that are very acceptable quality-wise.

The idea is to promote your area, your listings, and yourself with video content that gets the point across to the widest audience. You can get the audience on the free sites, while you can boost the quality of the presentation for your site or selected sites, such as your brokerage website.