How to tell your story with a virtual tour

Looking for an easy-to-follow, step-by-step guide on how to make a virtual tour that tells a story?

Virtual tours have been around for a long time…and for good reason. Visual marketing is critical to a successful real estate business. People want to see the homes they’re interested in, not just read about them, and many people are making decisions about homes online before they even call a local real estate agent.

Using a virtual tour to tell your story is a pretty straightforward process, and with online software, the job is even easier than it used to be. Let’s dive in.

Step 1: Obtain Property Information and Take Pictures of the Home

As a real estate agent, part of your job is to be an expert about the home. After all, potential buyers are looking to you for information and advice throughout the homebuying process. Think about everything you’ll need to input into your MLS (square footage, number of bedrooms, bathrooms, lot size, etc.), and capture all of that information on the front end. Take detailed notes about the property; this will save you some time later.

Next, plan out your photo shoot in advance. Some real estate agents think that hiring a professional photographer is their only option for getting quality photos of the home. If the home requires professional services, by all means, hire a photographer. But keep in mind that many smartphones are capable of capturing great photos as well. Try it out for yourself!

Prior to taking photos, make sure that you review the home’s furniture and decor and consider making some changes that would help the home better appeal to potential buyers. You may even want to add or remove some items like extra furniture, plants, window coverings, etc. This kind of home staging can really help out your marketing.

Also, put the home in its best light…

Take pictures and record video scenes on a sunny day if at all possible, but avoid harsh, direct light.
Avoid backlighting.
When shooting outdoors, make good use of natural light. Photographer Danny Winget says “[t]he easiest way to overcome lighting issues is to shoot outdoors, where even a cloudy day produces enough ambient light to keep your video crisp and colorful.”
When capturing photos and videos of the home’s interior, get a lot of light into the room by using lamps and windows.

So make the best use of natural light, and capture photos of the home’s most attractive features. Take pictures of all of the standard things potential homebuyers would be interested in. And as with any kind of photography, it’s a good idea to take multiple pictures of the same thing so that you can select the best photos to represent the home online.

As I mentioned above, you may even want to shoot some video segments to include in your story. Remember, this is a visual tour of the property, so better visuals (photos and videos) will likely lead to a bigger impact on potential clients.

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Step 2: upload pictures and property information to your MLS

Now that you’ve captured all of the necessary information about the property, it’s time to upload all of it into your MLS. Double check the information you enter, edit your photos, and choose only the best photos of the property to upload to your MLS. Doing a little careful planning on the front end can help homebuyers get the information they need, and it can help you automate story creation and sharing later on.

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Step 3: use software to tell your story

By using storytelling software, you have the ability to edit photos, upload videos, and add branding, contact information, transitions, music, and even voiceovers to your story. Use all of the multimedia tools at your disposal to tell the home’s story in a way that matches the expectations of your buyers.

Regardless of what kind of story you create, you’ll need to put all of your pictures in some kind of order and type out some comments for each photo and video. This is a visual story, but having text descriptions gives you the opportunity to add more information. Comments will also help buyers who need to know the facts or who just prefer reading and following along as the story progresses.

Some software platforms can actually automate a lot of these steps for you. For instance, Paradym saves agents time by pulling photos and text descriptions from the MLS and automatically creates a shareable story for the property. It’s a good idea to take advantage of time-saving tools like automation to help you tell the home’s story.

Here are a couple of ideas to get you started:

You could create a “features” tour of the home, highlighting the most important rooms, views, structures, and other features.
Or you could create a “walkthrough” tour, taking prospective buyers through the home all the way from the front door to the back yard, with everything in between.

Of course there are several different routes you could go, just make sure to tell a story about the home and avoid just dumping picture after picture in there with no way for the buyer to understand how the photos and videos fit together.

Want to see how Paradym can save you time with automation? Click here to set up a demo.

Step 4: customize your story

Once you’re happy with the order of your photos and videos, and you have all of your descriptions in place, take some time to edit the story. What could you improve? Is anything missing? Is anything out of order?

Make some adjustments if needed…

Touch up photos as needed (adjust colors, resize, rotate, crop, etc.).
Add transitions among your photos and video clips. Make sure that your transitions match what you want to communicate about a particular room or feature.
Use pan, tilt, and zoom features to showcase different aspects of the home. For example, if you’re trying to highlight a grand staircase, it would make sense to use a slow tilt in the photo or zoom out slowly. Avoid quick and jerky effects and transitions.
Use text descriptions. Add comments to your story to fill in some of the blanks for potential buyers. Your comments could include basic property information, or you could get creative and use the comments to verbally paint a picture of what buyers get with this home. There’s no rule here about what kind of text works best. Do a little digging in your market to find out exactly what buyers care about, and write text descriptions that help them understand why this home is a good fit for them.

Here are some ideas for things you could include in your text descriptions:

Square footage details
Open house information
Details about the room or space the buyer is viewing
More information about the neighborhood and community
Your contact information
Branding information for your company
Greetings (“Welcome to this__________ home…”) and closings (“Thanks for touring this lovely home…”)
Examples of what you could do with the space (be careful with equal housing language here)
Explanations of why this home is on the market if appropriate

Add some clickable hotspots to your story. Hotspots allow buyers to do things like navigate through the story on their own or “travel” to different rooms within the tour.
Select music to accompany your story. Tip: make sure the music matches the property. For example, if you’re marketing a large, sprawling, luxury listing, classical arrangements might fit your market’s expectations…but they might not! Research your market to make sure all the aspects of story line up with what your audience is looking for.
Record voiceovers to communicate more information. These voiceovers are a great way to add more personality to the story, and you can use them to add more information to supplement your text descriptions of the property. Voiceovers can also help you tell the story of the community that surrounds the home, giving you even more ways to engage buyers. Just make sure to sound positive and upbeat. You may even want to practice recording your comments and listening to them a few times to get the hang of it. If you prefer to have someone else record the voiceovers, ask them!
Consider using auto-voice narration. You can use storytelling software to automatically create voice-overs based on your text comments. This could save you time and eliminate another step in the process.

Once you’re done customizing your story, make sure to proofread all of your text descriptions and watch the story a few times to make sure it’s ready to share. You may even want to get a knowledgable colleague to take a look at the story and give you some feedback.

If everything is good, you’re ready to share your story. Use real estate sites like Realtor.com, Zillow, Trulia, etc. as well as social media channels to get the word out about your listing. And make sure to follow up with the people who are liking, commenting on, and sharing your story.

Start making stories today

Visual marketing matters. Use these tips to help you get started with making engaging stories today!

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