I first proposed the idea behind iViewProperty back in 2011, to an estate agent I'd known and worked with for years - Peter Waterson of Watersons Independent Estate Agents in Altrincham. I'd seen how video marketing was being introduced by companies across every sector, to improve marketing & communication with potential & existing customers, and wondered why it was so rarely used in estate agency?

The few examples I could find looked wonderful … beautiful panning shots of fireplaces, & vases on expensive kitchen worktops … but I never felt that I'd learned much, if anything, about the property. I wanted to know if I could fit my family & life into a home; get a feel for the 'flow' and start to understand if it was somewhere I could live. Surely a tour of the property, showing how each room related to the next would be more useful?

I decided that a walk-through tour was what was needed, so started filming every home I could to refine the idea and perfect my technique. Before long I convinced myself that I'd cracked it and had the answer to every estate agent's problems. I took my latest example along to show Peter, who watched it intently before giving his considered view: "It's terrible!" my heart sank, before he continued "but if you change one or two things then I think you might be on to something" Phew!

Peter explained that estate agents look at houses differently to the rest of us. We talked about space & angles, and how buyers prioritise rooms and features, and that all of this needed to be incorporated into each video.  After taking everything on board I returned to re-film every home I could access, before going back to present my updated video.

Peter was happy with what he saw and ready to introduce my new service to his vendors. He committed to offering a video tour to his next 20 vendors, and would decide how to proceed after reviewing the results. That was in late 2011 … Watersons are still including video for their vendors to this day, so I guess we can call the trial a success!

Obviously we've been working on & improving the service ever since. We've filmed over 6,000 homes, and  work with some of the best and most innovative estate agents in our area, and have learned an enormous amount about how to maximise the benefits of video for everyone in the property market.

Social media has become an important part of our lives since we launched, and video is an increasingly integral element on all the social platforms. Facebook (who know a thing or two about consumer engagement!) are targeting 90%+ video content on their platform, and have launched Instagram TV to satisfy demand. Twitter encourages users to post video natively within tweets so viewers see the video start to play as they scroll through their feed. The reason that the social platforms love video so much is that WE love video so much … we spend more time watching video and engage more with video posts, so the platforms typically show video posts to 2-3 times as many people. They want us to stay on their platforms & use video to keep us there.

What all this means for the property market is:

• Greater exposure for brands (2-3 times as many people seeing each post)
• Greater brand loyalty - we love watching video and want to work with people who offer it
• Faster sales - the increased reach and engagement means more buyers interested in YOUR properties

We don't just give you this information & then leave it up to you. Social media now plays an integral part in what we do. After all, video is great, but it's no use if nobody can watch it! We integrate video within your social marketing, giving you a new lead generation marketing channel at no extra cost.