A listing video marketing plan, from coming soon to sold

Take a 3 bed, 2 bath ranch in Austin. 1,640 square feet, a pool, a kitchen redone in 2022. The photographer delivers 22 photos on a Tuesday, the seller wants it live on Thursday, and the agent has to decide what goes out where, and when, for the next month. Most agents post the film once on launch day, get a burst of likes from people they already know, and then the video sits there.

That is a waste of the edit. One cut of one film should become eight or ten posts across four weeks, each timed to something real happening with the listing. This is the plan we would run, day by day.

Know which cut each place wants

Before the calendar, the formats. A Property Video Generator render gives you five cuts from one edit, and each has a home. Getting this wrong is the most common reason a good film underperforms: a 16:9 video posted to Reels plays as a thin strip with black bars, and nobody stops for a strip.

The MLS cut deserves its own sentence. Many MLSs require virtual tour links to be unbranded: no agent name, phone number or logo. Rules vary by MLS, so check yours, but the safe default is a separate cut without contact details. Our MLS video guide goes through the field by field detail.

The calendar

Day 0 is the day the listing goes active in the MLS. Negative days are before that. Adjust the gaps to your market; in a hot market the under contract post might come on day 5, not day 18.

Notice that the same film carries most of these. You do not need ten edits. You need a different first shot, a different hook line, or a different language, each of which is a small change in the editor that re-renders only what changed.

Launch day: the MLS goes first

Post to the MLS before you post to Instagram. Under NAR's Clear Cooperation Policy, which most MLSs still apply as of October 2026, public marketing of a listing generally requires submitting it to the MLS within one business day, and a public social post counts as public marketing. Enforcement varies a lot by MLS right now, and some brokerages are openly fighting the rule, but none of that is a reason to make your listing the test case. Put it in the MLS, then post.

The launch post is the one that matters most for reach, so give it your best hook and your best shot. For the Austin ranch that is the pool at twilight (a virtual twilight edit, labelled "Digitally enhanced" in the film) with "Pool, new kitchen, under $500K" over it. If that price claim is not true for your listing, you already know what to change.

Days 1 to 14: new hooks, not new films

The second Reel on day 2 should not be a repost of the first. Platforms mostly show a new post to people who did not engage with the last one, so a second hook is a second chance at a different audience. Open on the kitchen instead of the pool. Change the line. Keep everything else.

The open house post is the one with an actual reason to act, so it can carry the date and time on screen. Keep it in the top half of the frame; the bottom fifth of a Reel is covered by the caption and buttons. The safe zone checker shows you exactly where.

If you have buyers in the market who are more comfortable in Spanish, a Spanish narration version on day 7 is the cheapest extra reach you will find. Same shots, same music, a new voice track and translated captions. Our captions guide covers what to check before posting a translated film.

Paid boosts, if you use them

Boosting a listing video on Facebook or Instagram puts it in Meta's housing special ad category, which limits targeting: no targeting by age, gender or ZIP code, and location targeting has a minimum radius. That is by design, to keep housing ads from excluding people. In practice it means a boost reaches a broad area around the home, not a hand picked audience, so judge it by showing requests rather than by how targeted it felt.

Our opinion: boost the open house post if you boost anything. It has a date, a place and a clear action, which is what a broad audience needs.

Under contract and sold are content too

The under contract and sold posts are not really about this listing. They are for the next seller, the neighbour two doors down who watched the film and is wondering what their place would go for. Keep them short. A 15 second vertical cut with "Under contract in 9 days" or "Sold" over the best shot does the job.

Ask the seller before posting the sale. Most are happy, some are not, and price details are theirs to share.

The seller report: what to measure, and what not to claim

Sellers want to know the marketing is working. The honest answer is that you can show reach and interest, and you cannot show that a particular Reel sold the house. Buyers see a listing in five places before they book a showing, and none of the platforms will tell you which one did it.

What a good weekly report includes:

• Views per platform, reported separately. Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Facebook each count a view their own way, and some count replays, so adding them into one big number overstates how many people saw it.
• Watch depth on the listing website: how many people played the film and how far they got. A film that most viewers abandon at the kitchen is telling you something about the order.
• Where website visitors came from: the MLS link, the QR code on the sign and flyers, Instagram, email.
• Showing requests, from the listing website form and from every other channel. This is the number the seller actually cares about.
• What you changed and why. "Week one, most viewers dropped at second 8, so we moved the pool to the front" is the sentence that makes a seller trust you.

A listing website from Property Video Generator tracks views, plays, watch depth and sources on its own page, and emails you each showing request. Pull the platform numbers from each app's insights. Write two sentences of interpretation at the top; sellers do not read tables.

How much of this to automate

The calendar inside Property Video Generator writes a caption for each platform and lines the posts up by day. Direct posting turns on platform by platform as each one approves the app; until then you download the right cut and paste the caption, which takes about a minute per post. The decisions in this article (when to post the open house, whether to boost, what to tell the seller) are still yours. See auto posting for what is live today.