Listen to the podcast episode
Or listen now on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Key Takeaways
Entertain first — relentlessly positive videos are a snooze fest: Conrad once inherited an eight-minute company video of staff reciting ’we value consistency, we value hard work’ — all positive, all boring. Look at any feed: what wins is entertaining, ideally educational too. If you can only manage one of the two, entertain. Personality and humor beat polish every time.
Know which story you’re telling: the property, the place, or the people: The reels from Conrad’s team that went semi-viral won on stunning properties and unique amenities, not editing tricks. If you manage 25 plain white-wall condos, the property isn’t the story — tell the destination’s story or the family history behind the company instead. Dud videos usually trace back to the wrong story, not the wrong camera.
An iPhone and a gimbal make a perfectly good walkthrough: A steady phone, a walk through the rooms, and music over the top is a solid B-plus video strategy. Save Matterport and 360 tours for big properties — a ten-bedroom with a pool and pickleball court needs them; a studio doesn’t. Make a walkthrough part of onboarding every new property; it doubles as a homeowner selling point.
Twenty mediocre videos beat zero perfect ones: People stall on video waiting for perfect. Post 20 so-so walkthroughs, learn the music and stabilization as you go, and your 21st gets genuinely good. Raw iPhone footage often outperforms artsy professional shoots anyway — viewers can picture themselves in the property when it doesn’t look like a commercial.
Your best video belongs on your website, not just the OTAs: Listing sites bury video; your own site can give it a dedicated section next to the booking button. Paul remembers Beachball’s early property walkthroughs pulling so much traffic they occasionally broke the website. If you’re investing real effort in video assets, put them where they shine and where the booking actually happens.
You’ll never get video testimonials you don’t ask for: Create the moment: a selfie spot at the property or office, a checkout-time ask, even a small discount for anyone willing to record one. Raw phone-shot testimonials feel personal in a feed full of produced ads — that’s the point. If 50 of 100 recordings are usable, you’re winning; supercut the best snippets into ads.
First-person influencer stays beat static property tours: A Florida client’s YouTube influencer partnerships — first-person videos of what it’s actually like to stay in the property — drove real brand and property-name search traffic, because the manager gets mentioned throughout. Yes, it’s a manufactured environment. It still engages far better than another room-by-room pan, if the influencer’s audience genuinely fits.
Make the local videos Airbnb never will: Airbnb and Vrbo are not going to shoot a short vertical video about the hiking trail or the two-minute walk to the beach in your town — that’s your lane as the local. Start by converting your best-performing blog content into short-form video. One client hired a local marketer who films a handful of around-town videos in the slow moments.
Test on TikTok, promote the winners to Instagram: One client posts everything to TikTok first — it forgives volume — and only moves proven videos to Instagram, where the algorithm punishes a feed full of duds. Strip watermarks before cross-posting; the TikTok font flops on Reels. Audience overlap runs small, so reposting winners is fine. One channel done well beats four done halfway.
Judge video after 100 posts, not 10: Conrad borrows the rule from Hormozi’s $100M Leads: do more. Ten videos isn’t a test — it’s a warm-up that produces no real data. Commit to volume, lean on editors or a partner’s audience where you’re weak, and expect results that compound slowly, then pay you back for years.
What We Cover In This Episode
Conrad and Paul break down five ways to put video to work for a vacation rental brand: storytelling with actual personality, DIY property walkthroughs, video testimonials and influencer stays, local area content the OTAs will never make, and a smart distribution strategy across TikTok and Instagram.
