Have you seen the new social media app Periscope? If you are on Twitter, I am sure you have seen a few updates in your stream and maybe you are wondering what it is.
Periscope is a live video streaming service which is now owned by Twitter, so you know the integration going forward is only going to get tighter.
I have been using Periscope for about two weeks now and am really starting to enjoy it. It has allowed me to connect with new people in my community, new agents and to reach a good size audience.
How I have been using Periscope for real estate purposes
There are two things I have been doing on Periscope. One is community highlights. Periscope is great to highlight your favorite parts of your community and for showing it off to your followers. This helps you and your business by extending the branding of yourself as a community expert in a new way.
The second thing I have been doing, and the thing I am getting the most interaction on is house tours. People seem to love looking at houses even a quick walk through on their mobile device. With my house tours, most of them get over 70 viewers per tour.
When I am out doing showings I either show up 10 minutes early or I stay for a few minutes after my clients leave, I fire up periscope and do a walk through of the house. I only do this with vacant homes, never with occupied houses.
It has been amazing to see the wide variety of people who show up and ask questions. I have even had former professional athletes who see my broadcast show up.
When it comes to the other end, viewing, I have been able to connect with several new members in the local Phoenix area. The best way to find people to follow locally is with the map feature. (Sorry Android users, this is only iOS as of 6/18/15). When you look at the map feature you can zoom in to your local area and see anyone who is Periscoping and has their location turned on. The number of Scopers is still low, so there are usually only a few at a time in the Phoenix metro area.
Now, every now and then you will open a stream that is a kid Scoping from their bedroom or a 20-something doing a bong hit. That is ok, just leave quickly and move on. One thing that I love about Periscope, is I hear early on there was a lot of let’s say, adult content, but Periscope quickly closes those accounts down so luckily I have not had that issue myself.
When you do find someone local, chat with them, ask them questions, interact with them and follow them. This is like the early days of Twitter where it is really easy to connect with local people as there is still a relatively small audience on Periscope.
Tips
Leave location on – You are looking for people on the map, they will look for you there, too.
Do a variety of things that show you know your local market.
Give people what they want, and they seem to want to see houses!
Talk to people who type questions in your broadcasts.
Block the trolls, they are always out there and Periscope makes it easy to block them.
Give people you are watching lots of hearts! Hearts is the same as a Like on Facebook, but you can repeatedly leave hearts by double tapping the screen.
Keep the camera in portrait mode so the comments are easy to read for you and your viewers.
Turn on save video to camera roll.
Meet new local people!
What I don’t like
One thing I really don’t like on Periscope is them limiting the replay of videos for only 24 hours. That means if I were to film a Scope at 9am today, and another one at noon time, if someone looked at my profile at 1pm tomorrow afternoon they would see 0 recent broadcasts. I would at least like to see Periscope change this to 72 hours or a week or something a little longer so you could see how active people really are.
Who to follow
Of course, I hope you follow me @DeanOuellette, and my partners on this site @NickBastianAZ and @SharRundio, but here are few of my favorite follows, both real estate and non real estate related
Who to follow on Periscope – Real Estate
First is Sonia Figueroa who can be found at @soniafigueroaRE. Sonia is the one who gave me the idea about doing home walk throughs. Sonia is a Chicago based agent who does a good job showing her city.
Julie Ziemelis – What is it like to live in Kona Hawaii? @JulieZiemelis shows you some of the best places in the 50th state. I will warn you, if you get jealous easy, don’t tune in to Julie.
Mobile Agent TV is doing a good job giving you some insight on how they think you should be using Periscope. Michael Thorne has been fairly active early on as you would expect from @MobileAgentTV.
Raj Qsar of the Boutique Real Estate Group as usual has been on the cutting edge also. If you want to see what the luxury real estate market in Orange County California is like, give @RajQsar a follow
Three others that have crossed my radar recently who are very active, although I don’t have a great sense of their work yet because they are so new to my radar, but worth watching are California agent @HerbieSoCal, Baltimore agent @AlyssiaEssig and Naples Florida agent @RedHotNaples.
Who else to follow for education, fun, and entertainment
Here are a few people I find either entertaining or informative and worth a follow:
@KatieLance, former Inman Connect social media director, is very active.
@JasonStolken, a comedian who has a great game of #ScopeCharades.
@Feynwomen, because hey, science is cool.
@CathyHackl, want some great Periscope info, she is among the best.
@MarkKayeShow, LOVE THIS. Informative and educational, no not really, but the #ScopeMob is so fun. Yes it can kill your productivity for 15 mimutes a day, but everyone needs a release of some type.
Originally posted on Phoenix Real Estate Guy. If you are reading this anywhere but inside your RSS feed reader or your email client, the site you are on is guilty of stealing content.
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