Kim Rittberg is an award-winning Digital Content Strategist and On-Camera Coach who helps real estate professionals and business owners grow their income leads & credibility with video and podcasts.
She spent 15 years as a media executive at Netflix, PEOPLE Magazine, and in TV News and she launched the first-ever digital video unit for Us Weekly magazine.
Kim coaches real estate agents to be better on-camera and make unforgettable social media, video & podcast content that brings in leads, clients and revenue.
Kim has spoken at the Berkshire Hathaway Home Services National Convention, been featured in Business Insider and Fast Company and has been a speaker and instructor at PENN and Syracuse University. She also hosts The Exit Interview with Kim Rittberg podcast spurred by her decision to quit corporate and launch her own business after working in the hospital while giving birth to her second child. The podcast helps women craft careers that work for their life – instead of the other way around.
If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!
Connect with Kim Rittberg on Instagram.
Grab her free download – Sell More Homes With Better Quality Videos.
This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks.
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:00
Today our resident video expert Kim Rydberg is going to show you how to make great video content. When you’re all alone. Stay tuned to this episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads in interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. There agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And now on to our show.
Kim Rittberg 1:29
Hey, keeping it real folks. I’m Ken rickford. It’s always a pleasure to be here with you. I’m really excited to talk to you today about how to make content alone. And the reason why that’s so important is because all of us need to be making content all the time to grow our business. So as a real estate agent, you need to make content, you don’t always have somebody with you. If you do have an assistant or a social media manager, that’s awesome. But a lot of times you don’t. So I’m going to go through the specific details on how to make content when you’re alone. So I’m Kim Britt Berg, I’m an award winning Digital Marketer. I spent 15 years in media, meaning I was the person writing and producing scripts for national news outlets like inside edition and Fox, I even went to the Oscars for Us Weekly. I was the video head for Us Weekly. And now I love taking all that knowledge about how to write scripts, create content that really appeals to people from social media, and help you real estate agents grow your business. And I’ll tell you the rules about what makes great content never changes, the platform changes how you make it changes, the technology is much more accessible now. But making great content is universal. And you can learn it, it’s a skill you can learn. And I now teach agents across the country, in group courses, my video bootcamp course, and I do one on one work where I work directly with agents to help them make better content specifically to get leads to sell more homes, and to get more clients to grow your revenue. So I want to jump right into how to make content when you’re alone. So I was thinking about this recently, I went to Paris. Very nice, where I went to Paris. And I went to Paris to piggyback my husband’s work trip. And so when did it happen was I had a day where I was by myself and I was like dressed nice. And I want to shoot some content. I’m like, okay, like thinking in advance, what am I going to do when I shoot the content? What am I going to use? What tools am I going to use, and I realized, this is great. This is something I teach my clients and students in my courses, so I wanted to bring you into it. So when you’re thinking about filling by yourself, the situations where you might need it is you might be doing a home tour, you might be filming something in your area, right like a local restaurant or a bar. Again, a big part of being a real estate agent is being that trusted person that trusted resource. And so you want to be bringing people into what’s in your area, presenting yourself as that local expert, you don’t always have someone to film you. Ideally, if it’s a super active filming session, you have someone but you might not. So when you’re on a real estate tour, maybe you’re doing a neighborhood tour, maybe you’re just filming a video about your area. And it’s not necessarily a tour, but you’re featuring like something that you love, right. So it’s very important to understand how to film by yourself. So number one, thinking about what materials you might need. I’m a big advocate of like not over buying things, I have a whole cabinet basically a graveyard of dead equipment that I don’t use. Because even if I know how to use it, I don’t feel like using it. It’s either cumbersome or hard to set up. And if you’re not a super techie, it’s just annoying. So I’m a big advocate of only buying what you really need. When we’re talking about filming by yourself. What you can do, I think the bare minimum is really some sort of tripod with a ring light. And now if you’re sitting in your office and you’re not out on the go, a standing tripod, meaning there’s like three tries three things on the bottom, a stand, you can put your phone in it and a light around it, that’s gonna light you nicely and that’s not going to have your phone bubble around. Now if you’re on the go, it’s important to get something like that but that really can fit in your bag and your briefcase, whatever, that you can Bring with you. Not too big, not too cumbersome. So, one thing is if you’re filming content on the go, like for example, like I mentioned, I was in Paris, I had a selfie stick, that then doubles as a tripod. Why is that a great physical and to have so the selfie stick, you can hold it across, you can hold it out from you, and then you can film yourself. But when I opened the tripod, that’s when I could sit it on the street and walk by and create content capture content without needing someone to help me. So that was an all in one. So I bought us a little selfie stick, that then had a little tripod that opens out from the selfie stick. So selfie stick has like an arm, a metal arm, those little tripod legs folded out from it, it folded down to a really small size that could fit in my purse. So to me, that’s very important. I’m on vacation, I’m not carrying around a backpack, I’m just wearing a regular bag. So that is what I got. So again, I recommend a tripod with a ring light, whatever size fits where you’re going to be. So if we’re talking about filming on your own, and you’re going into an apartment and you’re kind of by yourself, yeah, just bring a tripod with a ring light set it up. But if you really think you’re gonna be out on the go, I would recommend getting like a traveling tripod a small one. And if you’re looking for like specific materials, you can message me you can message me on Instagram. I’m Kim Rydberg ri TTP ERG message me and I’ll give you some ideas. So once you have your materials, you bought your equipment, you have to think about what you’re gonna film, right. So you have to have a plan in mind. So let’s say for example, you want to film something awesome in your town, maybe you want to feature a really great new restaurant. So we’re talking about what are you going to film you have to think about? How am I filming this? Where am I going to be? What might it look like? So knowing where you’re going to film. So I’m going to go back to the example of me being in Paris, and I have a video that I have on Instagram, it says like how I filmed myself when I was in Paris, you can set up the tripod, put it on the ground. And again, this depends on on how big your tripod is where you’re at, you’re gonna put it down on a surface either on the ground, or on a table or something like that. You’re going to turn it on, the best resolution of the camera is not the selfie mode, it’s the regular mode. But if you can’t manage that do selfie mode, so that way you can see the screen. You prop it up on the tripod and you set it down. And let’s say you want a shot of you like walking into the restaurant, right or maybe you’re walking in. So for me in Paris, I wanted a shot of me walking by the camera on the Sen river. I just it was like a cool shot. It’s just like you see the water next to me a little pedestrian overpass, you could see people kind of walking around it looked Parisian. And I wanted to get the idea that I was in Paris right that I was there. So I was I walked really far away from the tripod. Don’t look at the camera, and you walk consistently past the camera. This is called B roll footage. It’s footage where someone’s it’s not the action is not your sorry, it’s not you talking to the camera, it’s kind of action that shows what’s going on. So let’s say again, you’re going to the restaurant, maybe you set up the tripod where you’re seeing the name of the restaurant above you, and you’re walking through it. So maybe we’re seeing the I’m going to like pick a random restaurant in New York City.
White Horse tavern, it’s a bar near I used to live in the West Village in New York City, White Horse tavern, the sign is above you, the tripod is set up across the street, you walk across the doorway, and you’re setting up that you’re going in. Or maybe you’re walking, you’re walking from one side, you’re going into the door, and then you close the door. And the tripod is catching that from across the street. Or maybe it’s set on a table outside. But again, you’re getting the signage to you’re showing somebody where you’re at. So it’s one shot, you know, you’re getting, again, you have to visualize what am I going to do? What am I going to film to tell the story. So if you know you’re going to talk to camera and explain a little bit about what’s happening, you can be setting up that camera where you’re talking to camera. So we just got the shot where you’re walking in, and you’re walking into the restaurant. And then you can be setting up that little tripod at a table or you can bring it inside where you’re filming as long as it’s not loud. Set it up talk to camera, we’re talking about framing it meaning like what is what does it look like? What does the composition look like? You don’t want to be too close you want it to be so that there’s a little bit of space above your head. There’s you know more of your body in the shot. And when you’re really trying to establish where you are you want to film wide enough wide enough shot so that you’re seeing more behind you. A lot of times we see a lot of content on social media, it’s like the same background. We’re talking to camera, you’re in your office, it’s a lot of the same when you’re out and about really make it look different. Like capture that cool stuff. If this restaurant has some really cool fountain. If this restaurant has a really amazing mosaic wall, maybe it has like a cool living wall of plants. Maybe it has a cool smoker Maybe it’s like a barbecue pit with an amazing smoker. really capture that whether you’re in the shot or not. You want to be capturing that content. Okay. And we talked a little bit before I mentioned about prepping your video. Have write it down. Have your overall idea ready, I like to say prepare your script. A script makes it seem like you’ve to write it out like an article, even just three bullet points of what you know you’re going to cover that will help keep you organized, it will keep you moving. It will make sure your video is more interesting. And it will make sure you don’t ramble, I think it’s very important to understand without a structure, a script or bullet points, you’re just gonna ramble because you don’t really know what you’re covering. So it’s always important to go in with the plan. So let’s say you say, Okay, I’m going to walk into the restaurant, I’m going to show the sign in the restaurant, I want to cover the kitchen, I want to film the actual, like dining area. And I want to talk to the camera about what I think is interesting about it. So you have to be thinking about the shots. So you know, you want that exterior shot that says the name of the restaurant, and you’re gonna want to show the actual inside of the restaurant. And but for that shot, you can hold your camera and be turning camera ever so slightly, very slowly to show all the different sides of the restaurant. If you do not have a steady hand, you can always film it study, you can play with a lot of things in edit, don’t worry about it. If you do think you’re going to be doing a lot of like moving walking shots. In terms of materials, you can always get a stabilizer or a gimbal to put on your camera. Totally optional, not mandatory. Again, in terms of preparing it if you’re filming for vertical social media, like tick tock or Instagram, you’re gonna be filming things things vertically. If you’re filming them for YouTube, and vertical, you’re gonna start to film horizontal. And then you can always edit it down to be vertical later, make sure you’re always filming the highest resolution, go check your camera settings, Google, how do I get the highest camera settings possible, make sure for your own camera, you’re filming on the highest possible settings, this will take up more space, but it will make a much better video. Right. And now you know, if you’re doing a restaurant video, you might want to do something where you’re like showing someone around the restaurant. And even if you don’t want to talk to camera, you’re gonna want to voice it over leader. Voice Over it means when you hear someone’s voice over the footage, write that down. When you’re doing a voiceover, you really want to be concise, so write it down. And then you’re going to record that. Lastly, if you don’t have a tripod, you can always use a shelf. So you know, there’s kind of always like a ledge or a shelf or something, sometimes I’ve used like a my purse, I take my purse, I lean it up against something, I’ve used a water bottle, I mean, it’s just anything that you can get a steady place to put your phone can be a tripod, one thing to remember is lighting. So as you’re filming all of these things, you always want to make sure you’re you’re getting good lighting, meaning it’s not too dark, but it’s also not too light. So if you’re in the middle of the day and have a really, really bright light, that’s going to really be harsh, okay, it’s not gonna look that good. So you kind of want to balance light. And you don’t want to be half in shadow and half out of shadows. So you want to be in one spot. Consider the composition when you’re filming. So it’s good. If you’re, if you’re talking, you can kind of be right in the middle of the frame or slightly to the side. That’s nice. And then you want to kind of have things balanced, you know, the rule of threes, like have things in different thirds. Because we’re doing a lot of vertical vertical content, the composition rules have changed a little bit, if you’ve ever heard the rule of thirds is if you’re looking at something and it’s like horizontal, like a sideways painting, they have the rule of threes, where you want something like not always just in the middle, but kind of in the different thirds. Vertically, it’s a little bit different, right, it does change. So it’s just important to remember that and you just want to have your shots a little bit different, not always like the same thing in the middle all the time, you’re gonna vary your shots a little bit. Um, one thing to remember is very, very important. Always film B roll footage B roll footage is footage of what you’re seeing. So in a restaurant, that’s the restaurant booth sets the kitchen, that’s the entrance sign, it’s anytime that you’re not really talking to camera. The reason why that’s important is because you can always add things later. You could make your whole video without you in it, and just film a lot of that same restaurant, and then you can talk over it afterwards. Or you can add text. But without that B roll without that footage. It’s hard for someone to know what is this restaurant? Where is it? What’s it like? What’s cool about it? And again, when you’re filming something, don’t forget to think about what do you think is cool about it as you’re making that video. So you have to tell the story. From your point of view. This is not a Google article about the restaurant. It’s your point of view in the article. And it’s your point of view on the restaurant. And that’s why people are working with you as their agent. They trust you and they trust your opinion. And so Leslie so you’re getting that B roll, you’re thinking about lighting and composition. And in terms of filming on your own. One last thing when you’re filming and you’re out and about give context to where you are so if this restaurant is on the main street, make sure to show the main street if this restaurant is like a restaurant in the middle of nowhere and as beautiful farm or maybe this beautiful sunset this beautiful beach show that sometimes we live in this like small world like you know the phrase seeing the forest seeing the forest for the trees or seeing the trees of the forest but stepping back, stepping back and saying Great. I’m in this little restaurant. Awesome. Step back. Where is this restaurant? Is it by highway? Is it on the main street is it on the beach? So just giving a little more context to where this says, All right, so today we’re talking about how to make content when you’re alone. So I’m going to recap by the right materials. So figure out what you’re filming. And if you’re going to be on the move a lot, or if you’re kind of standing, you’re going to be getting some sort of tripod with a ring light or like a little travel tripod, maybe with a selfie stick, whatever is good for you, you’re going to prepare your video most important, think ahead about what you’re going to talk about what you want to capture, you can always write it later. But you need the ideas of what you’re going to cover and what you’re going to talk about, you really only get one chance to film it. So make sure to cover filming a lot of it film all the interesting things that you might have noticed. And lastly, so the on that note of making sure you know what you’re filming, if you’re going on vacation, same rules apply. Like think about all the things that make your vacation interesting. So you would want to film the ski slope or the pool or or the ocean or your hotel or an amazing meal you had. So you really want that varied content. The one thing is you don’t want a video of just you talking to camera. When you’re in the Bahamas, I want to see the Bahamas right. So really bring people into your life by capturing as much content as possible. You can always add text or voiceover later. Alright, as you can tell if you could probably tell my voice I love teaching people about video. Video can grow your business, it is the most amazing thing and if you don’t know how to make great video to grow your business, you’re never too late. It’s never too late. You’re never too old. You’re never too young. It’s perfect. So reach out to me on my instagram Kim Ripper KMRI TTB erg. I also have really awesome free downloads you can grab from Kim ripper.com/newsletter drop me an Instagram I love hearing from the keeping it real folks, you’re all really cool. And I’ve now worked with so many of you in my video bootcamp classes that I run twice a year. Reach out I hope to hear from you. And if you’re making content when you’re alone, make sure to tag me in that video. Whether you’re making an Instagram story or a full reel. I want to hear what you’re making when you’re alone. Tag me and I will cheer you on. I am a big cheerleader. Alright, thank you so much for joining me. I am Kim Rydberg and I’ll talk to you next time
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