10 Real Estate Marketing Apps To Improve Your Videos and Images in 2020

When we recently asked some of the top agents on HomeLight’s platform to tell us about the pain points in their business, this was a common theme in their replies: When it comes to technology, there’s too much to choose from!

We’re going to do our best to help here in HomeLight’s Agent Resource Center, with articles, podcasts, and whatever kind of guidance we can provide to ease the pain of dealing with So. Much. Technology.

In this article, we tell you about 10 mobile apps that will make your marketing efforts easier and more efficient in 2020, especially with the videos and images you create and share online.

Video Marketing Apps

PromptSmart Pro

It’s tough to remember everything you need to say when you’re shooting marketing videos, isn’t it? PromptSmart is a teleprompter app for your smartphone that will speed up the process of shooting videos wherever you are — in your office, at your latest listing, or anywhere else. Your prewritten script can be in Microsoft Word, PDF, RTF/TXT, or in a Google Doc, and the app will connect to services like Google Drive, Dropbox, iCloud, and others to access your document(s). Maybe the best feature of all is that the app uses voice recognition — it scrolls as you speak and pauses when you pause. (It’ll also pause if you go off-script.) It’s available for Android and iOS, with varying costs for a one-time purchase or an ongoing subscription.

Download: Android | iOS

ClipoMatic

You’ve probably heard that a lot of people (especially on Facebook) watch videos with the sound off. With Clipomatic, you can record new videos and add captions as you speak. You can record your video in either landscape or vertical size, choose from different text styles for the captions, and even add filters to your video. When you’re done recording the video, there’s an editor in the app in case you need to correct part of the caption. Clipomatic says it currently supports 40 languages. The app is iOS only and costs $4.99.

Download: iOS

https://www.instagram.com/p/B1XYro0lHjy/

LifeLapse

Stop-motion video has been around practically forever, but is very underused in the real estate industry and can help you stand out in your market. You could use stop-motion to show the process of building a home or renovating a room, or even setting up and holding an open house. LifeLapse promises to simplify the process by doing most of the work for you right in the app. You just choose a couple settings and let the app do its thing. It shoots video in different sizes (landscape, square, etc.) so you’re covered on different social media and video platforms. Available for iOS and Android, with either monthly or annual subscription costs.

Download: Android | iOS

Ripl

Ripl is both a video and image app that lets agents/teams/brokerages create branded social media content. You upload a logo and set your brand styles (like colors and fonts) in the app. Then the videos and images you create are all branded, which is a nice feature to help set your content apart on social media. It includes “hundreds” of design templates to speed up the creation process, and supports sharing to multiple platforms at once — Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc. You can even schedule posts in advance. It’s available on Android, iOS, and on your desktop computer.

Download: Android | iOS
Desktop: https://www.ripl.com/ripl-for-desktop/

Quik

Ostensibly created for action-loving GoPro camera users, this video editing app works just fine with videos that you shoot with any camera. The premise is that Quik can take your videos and photos, identify the most compelling moments, and then create snack-size “stories” from your originals. There are more than 20 themes, each with different graphics and transitions that will be used in the final story video. You can also add music from more than 100 free songs, and customize the text overlays. This probably isn’t the app you’ll use for listing videos or the like, but it could be a great app to use for making really short video stories after your latest client appreciation event.

Download: Android | iOS
Desktop: https://gopro.com/en/us/shop/softwareandapp/quik-%7C-desktop/Quik-Desktop.html

Story Slicer

Story Slicer essentially does one thing. It lets you take videos that are too long for social media and edit them down into several shorter clips that meet the time-limits of Instagram and Facebook stories. In other words, you can take a 2-minute long video and let Story Slicer edit down into six different 20-second videos that will work with Facebook Stories. It does this with no ads and no watermarks. The app is iOS only and has a one-time $1.99 cost.

Download: iOS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6wGpZlUBC8

Instories

If Instagram Stories, Facebook Stories, or Snapchat are part of your marketing strategy, Instories promises to help take your stories to the next level. The app offers more than 150 templates and transitions, plus more than 20 fonts for adding text to help tell the story. No account is required. The app is iOS only and requires either a monthly or annual subscription. Some templates have an additional cost, too.

Download: iOS

https://www.instagram.com/p/B5UZSW3qAaK/

Images & Graphics

Word Swag

Word Swag is all about marrying text and images. It can add stylized text to your own images, or create text-based images from scratch using more than 1.3 million backgrounds sourced from the free image site, Pixabay. If you’re looking for inspiration, the app even offers hundreds of quotes and captions that you can add to whatever background you want. The app is available for both Android and iOS. The Android version costs $4; the iOS app is free, but offers an optional “pro” level for $5 that supports logo uploads, custom font colors, and more.

Download: Android | iOS

https://www.instagram.com/p/B4KoTA_H5mx/

Canva

Where an app like Word Swag aims to make graphic design software unnecessary, Canva wholly embraces its role as a full-featured graphic design software. Yes, you can use Canva to make social media-friendly images and videos, like many of the apps on this list, but it also gives you the ability to make print items like business cards, event invitations, holiday cards, and more. The desktop version of Canva is more of a competitor to Photoshop (and even Vistaprint) than any of the apps we’ve mentioned in this article (and has tiered accounts that range from free to $30/month per user). Our focus in this article is more on the apps, and Canva is a winner on both Android and iOS. Even on mobile, it offers much more functionality than what you’d expect (and maybe need). It’s free to download, but offers in-app purchases of credit to gain access to various features. App users can also upgrade to a pro-level monthly subscription for additional benefits, like saving your brand’s logo and colors for use on any content you make in the app.

Download: Android | iOS

Adobe Spark Post / Spark Video / Spark Page

Spark is a suite of Adobe apps that serves as a sort of bridge between a full-featured app like Canva and the simpler apps like Word Swag. With the Spark Post app, you can make social media-friendly images with your own images, or from templates inside the app. You can add text, filters, and/or animations to your images. Spark Video is an app that supports the creation of short videos, and you can add photos, transitions, pre-existing audio, or your own vocals. Spark Web lets you combine your images, videos, and text into mobile-friendly (desktop, too) slideshows or web pages that sort of mimic reading an online magazine article. Like Canva, the Spark suite works on the web and also offers mobile apps. But only Spark Post is available on Android and iOS — the other two are iOS only. There’s a free level with limited options, or monthly/annual plans for either individuals or teams.

Download: Spark Post Android | Spark Post iOS | Spark Page iOS | Spark Video iOS

So there you go! With some/all of those 10 apps, you’ll be able to up your marketing game when it comes to creating videos and images for social media, YouTube, your website, or wherever you publish visual content.

If there’s a great app that you’d love to share with your industry peers, email us at tips [at] homelight.com anytime, or message us on social media: Facebook / LinkedIn / Twitter.

Header image source: (Gerd Altmann / Pixabay)

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