I just saw this blog post on Linkedin, and thought it was an interesting, and applicable read, to what we are doing with helping to market real estate. It basically says a human has an attention span of 8 seconds, so if you can’t capture the user within that timeframe, they move on. You can read the full post here.
The post says to follow these rules for content marketing some parts copied verbatim):
1. Capture the attention quickly. In our case – the tour has to load quickly to display the content.
2. Content needs to be engaging (e.g. shareable) in the ecosystem it lives in. Eg We focus on floorplan content, something that buyers want to see as it shows how their family can live in a home.
3. Content needs to be authentic. For FPO, each house is different and unique.
4. Employees are your best ambassadors: with FPO, we run an employee-owned company and strive to provide helpful, US-based customer service.
5. It’s a marriage, not a one night stand. If your brand starts producing content for social media, its a commitment to your audience, not an experiment.
I relate this 8 second stat to tours out there today. Matterport has received a lot of press in the last year….yet from a user perspective, it can take 20 to 30 seconds, or more, for it to load. And then, the user has to point and click, spending valuable time, just to screen a property. Don’t get me wrong, it is cool technology, but is it the right technology to use as THE base marketing tool? I say no. Per independent research, buyers want to see #1 – Big Photos and #2 – FloorPlans. Videos, 360s, and everything else are ancillary. That is why we created our Full Screen HD Tour…to showcase a property with big large content and to let people quickly screen properties, to then take the next step.
Look for more to come in the next half of 2015!
Cheers
Kris Cone, CEO/Co-Founder
