Real Estate Agents Move to Video: Imprev Adds YouTube- and SEO-ready “Build Your Own” Video Product

August 1, 2012 (San Francisco) – Consumer consumption of online video continues to skyrocket and that's providing an advantage to real estate agents who use video to market homes as they benefit from the growing popularity of video, the ability to better reach new generations of mobile technology-centric homebuyers, and increased page rank through superior Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Imprev, a leading Seattle-area technology company that provides marketing platforms for the real estate industry, is launching a YouTube-ready "Build Your Own" video product, allowing agents to use their listing photographs, text and music to create a true video file from a large selection of production styles in just minutes. The new video product is integrated directly into YouTube and Vimeo, and plays natively (without plugins) on all iPhone, iPad and Android devices.

"Video is the world's most powerful, pervasive and persuasive medium," said Renwick Congdon, CEO of 12-year old Imprev, based in Bellevue, WA. "The best way for real estate agents to fully promote themselves and their real estate listings online is by using video, and there is no better way to increase exposure to themselves and their listings than with the added SEO power video delivers," Congdon added.

Forrester Research found that videos were 53 times more likely than a traditional web page to receive a non-paid 'page one' Google search ranking. Research also shows videos get much higher click-through rates, Congdon noted.

"The advantage of better SEO from video is stunning," said Congdon, "Google pushes video to the top of its search results, videos are indexed by Google faster and getting video to appear on a page one result is a lot easier than getting web page to show up on the first page of a Google search."

To maximize the power of video SEO, agents can hyper-localize each Imprev video – from customizing the title and description to creating localized tags – all inside their own YouTube channel.

This spring Imprev surveyed top producing real estate agents and brokers and found that video currently ranks as a Top 10 product for agent marketing overall, and when respondents were asked what marketing products they want to have, video ranked fourth.

Since 2008 Imprev has offered a professionally-produced video service for real estate agents, which has been largely used to profile brokerage firms and individual agents. This new video product gives agents a new low-cost ability to post a YouTube video for every single listing.

The "Build Your Own" videos are created inside an Imprev Marketing Center. There agents select from a variety of production styles, add their own photos or choose images from Imprev's stock photo library, pick a professional music soundtrack provided by Imprev or upload their own sound track. Publishing is automated, allowing agents to post the completed video directly to their own YouTube channels, post it on social media, embed it in an email or create a link to add on their own website, all with just a few clicks.

Congdon notes when agents post these additional video links on Facebook and Twitter, these actions will increase the SEO strength of their videos, especially as others share these links.

Congdon points to YouTube's numbers last year as evidence that consumers have already moved to web-based video consumption:

• More than 1 trillion annual views or almost 140 views for every person on Earth
• The world's second most popular search engine
• One hour of YouTube video is uploaded every second: one decade of viewing every single day
• 77 percent of YouTube viewers are 18 years old or older
• Gen-Xers and Millennial comprise the largest group of YouTube traffic – over 50%
• Still one in five YouTube viewers are 50 years or older
• The average time a person spends on a typical Website is less than 60 seconds while a typical YouTube visitors spends an average of 900 seconds on its site

Imprev's new video product helps agents overcome many of the biggest challenges with self-produced videos: the amount of time it takes to create, the typical low-quality of the production, the inability for the video to play on most mobile devices, and the inability for an agent to instantly upload to YouTube.

"Agents have better things to do than spend hours editing a one minute home tour," Congdon said. "This makes it fast and surprisingly simple to create a finished, high-quality, mobile-ready video," said Congdon."

The new video product will be offered to agents beginning August 15 for an annual subscription of $299 for unlimited videos and can be purchased at www.imprev.com/video.

About Imprev
Imprev, Inc. is a leading provider of technology to the real estate industry. For more than a decade, Imprev-powered Marketing Centers have provided leading franchises and brokerage firms with digital and printable marketing products and tools, which now include iPad Apps, Videos, Craigslist display ads, automated eMarketing, social marketing (Facebook, Twitter), Virtual Tours, Flyers and eFlyers, Postcards and ePostcards, Newsletters , eNewsletters and more. Imprev helps agents simply and cost-effectively create an impressive personal image ¬–elegantly merged with the power of their company's brand– to sell more homes. Established in 2000, Imprev is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. Visit Imprev at www.imprev.com.