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The Beginner's Guide to Snapchat for Real Estate

Written by Posted On Tuesday, 28 March 2017 09:50

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably noticed your Facebook and Instagram feed filling up with fun photos of pets in silly hats, babies wearing over sized sunglasses and you friends transformed into puppies and pigs. In other words, your friends have all caught the Snapchat craze. But Snapchat is more than just silly photo filters. Just ask the 158 million active daily users who average 2.5 billion “snaps” per day – yes, billion

If you haven’t been using Snapchat for your real estate business, today is a great day to jump on this trend. Follow this guide to get started today.

What is Snapchat?

Snapchat is an insanely popular video messaging app where you can take photos, record videos, add text and drawings on top of them and send them to your followers. The photos and videos you send are called “snaps.” Users set a time limit for how long recipients can view their Snaps (from one to 10 seconds.)

Alternatively, you can add your snap to your “story,” a 24-hour collection of all your snaps that’s broadcasted to the world or just your followers.

Because snaps disappear after they’re viewed, you’ll have your followers’ undivided attention. They won’t be scrolling through a news feed at hyper speed because there is no news feed. It’s all about attention — keeping the attention of those we want to see our message.

PRO TIP: Although the snaps self-destruct, you can still save them to your “memories” album in Snapchat.

Speak the lingo

If you want to hang with the cool kids, you gotta speak like them. Here are some of the common terms and phrases used in the Snapchat world. (View the full list.)

Snaps: Photos or videos taken with Snapchat. To take a snap, open Snapchat, then hit the capture button on the Camera screen.

Snapback: A reply to a snap.

Story: A snap you can broadcast to followers. Recipients can view your story an unlimited amount of times in 24 hours, and you can post multiple snaps to your story in one day to create a narrative loop of sorts.

Chat: A feature that lets you directly message other Snapchatters.

Video Chat: This is a feature within Chat that lets you start a live video call. If your friend is available they can choose to “Watch” or “Join.” With “Watch,” you will be unable to see them but they can hear you, see you, and send you chats. With “Join,” you will be able to see and hear each other.

Snapchat screenshots

How does Snapchat work?

Snapchat allows your followers to open your snaps when they want to see them. With Snapchat, you can keep someone’s full attention when they are ready to give it.

Snapchat has caught the attention of the National Association of REALTORS who recently created this Field Guide to Snapchat for Realtors.

Additionally, if you search YouTube for “Snapchat for real estate” there are countless videos to teach you how Snapchat works. Set aside 20-30 minutes, download the app and start playing around with it.

How to use Snapchat for real estate marketing

Inman recently posted a great article, "Why I’m jumping on Snapchat in 2016 -- and why you should, too." The author, Dustin Brohm, is a Snapchat master. He explains that real estate is very visual. Videos and photos are everything, and that’s exactly what Snapchat is all about.

Brohm adds that he likes to record snap videos when he’s previewing a home.

“If the home for sale has a great view of the Salt Lake Valley, I snap it, sometimes with a little narration. The viewer of the snap will get a feel for how the view looks in person. They can then message me within Snapchat and request more info about that particular home.”

Snaplistings

How NYC realtors are selling $6M apartments using Snapchat

CNBC recently posted an article titled "The Real Estate Agents Selling $6 Million NYC Apartments via Snapchat." When New Yorker Dolly Meckler was visiting a friend’s swanky apartment, she was so impressed with it she decided to film and broadcast it to her followers on Snapchat. She was surprised to be inundated with direct messages asking who the real estate broker was and how they could rent similar properties.

So she and friend Michael Hoffman started the Snaplistings account, where four real estate agents show followers inside apartments for sale or rent across the city.

“We both have friends who lost apartments in minutes just because their applications came in two minutes after somebody else’s,” Meckler told CNBC.com’s James Wright. “So the beauty of Snaplistings is that you can chat agents in real time saying ‘I want to come and see this place, where are you? I will come and meet you.'”

Here’s a cool video explaining it all.

Do any of your listings have unique aspects that you want people to see? Record some snaps that show them off. It’s a fun way to showcase your listings while embracing a hot, new trend that will WOW your clients and prospects too!

This article originally appeared on the Housefax blog

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