Presenter: @darinpersinger.

73% of homeowners prefer to work with agents who use video but only .8% of agents use video. Big opportunity to create a point of difference.

Grab a a pocket size camera. Get one with an external mike connector.

1. Check out Ian Watt. Share information about what’s happening in your local real estate market.
2. Share information about your community (lifestyle branding). Check out Dale Chumley.
3. Do a Q & A or get on camera with someone else.
4. Create a screencast.
5. Give a tour of the community or neighborhood.
6. Client testimonials.
7. Check out Capture.
8. Implement. Keep videos under 2 minutes.
9. Don’t worry about editing. That comes later.

Syndicate video with tubemogul.com but be careful about doing that. Follow up on all comments.

On Facebook I can add my favourite TV shows to my profile but not my favourite YouTube videos. Expect that to change as Facebook work towards more granular demographic profiling. Luckily I have this blog, my own piece of real estate on the web. Here I can say and do pretty much whatever I want. And guess what, I’m able to communicate my preferences without Facebook knowing more about me.

I like, without clicking the Like button.

Here are my  favourite YouTube videos.

Batleb

Gotham City’s Ethnic Crime fighing duo Batleb and Robin saves – well almost – the police commissioner from The Penguin and his cronies. The Penguin: ”Prepare to be devoured!” Batleb: ”What, like the way your mangina has devoured your pants?!” Pure gold from the comic genius of Merrick and Rosso.

Psycho dog man

I’ve never seen a man channel an angry dog better than this dude. He’s scary. Originally interviewed by Tracy Grimshaw on A Current Affair he’s spurned a bunch of clever parody videos.

Cow Sense – cutting horse

I grew up on the back of a horse working sheep and cattle. Feeling a horse come alive cutting a cow out of herd is an amazing experience. There’s a sense of being at one with the horse that is hard to describe. They “know” what the cow’s going to do next through an innate cow sense. But this video takes cow sense into the stratosphere. Watch and be amazed.

Battle at Kruger

Viewed over 58.5 million times it’s an epic battle that takes twists and turns right to the very end. Staggering what happens in the wild and staggering this was all caught in one take with amateur video equipment. If you only watch one video on YouTube make it this one.

The Machine is Us/ing Us

A great explanation of Web 2.0 and social media by Michael Wesch. It got me thinking about the possibilities that come from separating form and content.

They’re my top 5 YouTube videos. I’d love to know what yours are.[tweetmeme]

I’m wondering how a real estate agent might use the clever idea in this video.

It’s beautifully direct and intimate – a bit like the Old Spice commercial. But it uses Google Adwords and a website. I doubt the campaign would work so well without a personal website.

And that’s something I’ve been saying for a long time now. A personal website is an essential component in any online marketing.

It’s been a big week in social media. And there was no bigger story than the launch of the new Old Spice ads. Of course it helped that the star of the show was by all accounts hot (is there a bit of man-crush at work here?) and the ads were witty and cleverly crafted. Jonathon Crossfield argues that ‘Are you influential‘ is the big question facing online marketers. The clear answer is Old Spice has influence in spades.

Of course it helps if the star of the show has the body of Adonis and…I digress.

What got the marketing world all aflutter was the way Old Spice tapped into social media. It must have been tempting for Old Spice to produce a couple of commercials, hit the airwaves and hope some kids sent it to YouTube.

They didn’t.

Old Spice jumped on the front foot. Through their @oldspice Twitter account, Facebook page and YouTube channel they invited the public to pose questions to Isaiah Mustafa. And that’s where the fun begins. The creative team then got busy creating 185 video responses, each cleverly written and completely personalised. They cranked out one every seven minutes.

And then just as fast as it started it ended. There final tweet said simply:

Well friends, like all great things this too must end.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFDqvKtPgZo

Women the world over wept. And not a few men.

So where does Old Spice take things from here? No, that’s the wrong question. The real question is where do marketers go from here. Old Spice have set the bar so high that marketers –well this one anyway–is struggling to draw breath. And no that’s not a man crush thing.

It’s as if Old Spice are playing in an entirely different league. To pinch an Aussie Rules phrase it’s like Old Spice have brought their own footy.

Admittedly this ad and the associated social media campaign isn’t cheap. But it’s the thinking behind the campaign that can be replicated by any marketer.

Follow my thinking here.

Real estate agents meet dozens of people every week. Many ask questions others also want the answer to. Why not answer them? Directly. In a personalised way. In front of a video camera. In a way that’s light and easy and maybe even entertaining. And then put them on YouTube and Facebook and Twitter and let your customers and friends become part  of your success.

Now there’s an idea.

Could you become the next Isaiah Mustafa?

I sense my thesis will address the issue of what constitutes the private and public. Social networking and social networks can be particularly problematic when it comes to defining what is a private or public space.

As Patricia Lange points out, a number of scholars draw the private and public divide without defining what is meant by these terms. Warren and Brandeis’ (actually it was the judge, but we’ll let that slide) said that privacy was the “right to be let alone”. Perhaps this was an easy way to define privacy back then, but defining the notion of a private space is a complex undertaking.

Lange argues that spaces are fractal in that there component parts take on the nature of the context in which they are situated. She provides the example of a home which, to the community is a private space, but within the home there are both private and public spaces. Lange refers to Gal (2002) who proposes that spaces can be defined as both private and public dependant on the perspective of the observer at the time of the observation. In other words, what is a private space at one point of a day may become public at another – a public toilet is no longer a public space when in use.

Lange suggests YouTube videos are posted in a similarly fractalised manner as publicly private (where people post videos that are potentially available to a very wide audience but use the software and coded tags as a way to make the videos fact difficult to find and view except for close friends) and privately public (where people post public videos but actively hide or disguise their identities in the movies and/or their profiles). One such example provided by Lange is that of MadV who actively takes steps to disguise his identity both in the video and an his profile but presents videos that have broad appeal to a wide audience.

In the context of research into the issue of sovereignty between organisations and employees, much of the parry and thrust of the debate must occur in the realm of what constitutes a public space. Does a blog intended for the writer’s family and friends become a public space because it can be found – albeit with some effort – by members of a wider audience? And what rights do companies have to dictate what is said inside walled gardens, such as Facebook? If a person takes active steps to disguise the identity of the subjects of the blog or the writer?

Gal, S. (2002). A semiotics of the public/private distinction. Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, 13 (1), 77-95.