All virtual tours and single property sites are not created equal! Your Mediamax photography, 3D immersive images and video can be displayed within a wide variety of designs. The two most important things to consider when choosing a virtual tour design are easy navigation and mobile responsiveness. In other words, make it easy for consumers to view your visual content and, with so many consumers viewing virtual tours on mobile devices, make sure your virtual tours are a mobile friendly, responsive design.
One of the very cool benefits Mediamax offers are fourteen different virtual tour templates that allow you to choose a design that best fits your style and business. By default we set all tours to our International Design, but check out examples of six other favorite designs and don’t hesitate to let us know if you’d like to make a switch. Simply email helpdesk@mediamaxphotography.com and we can change one or all of your tours to a new design layout.
What’s a virtual tour? Seriously, how would you describe a virtual tour? This might seem like a stupid question but ask ten people to describe a virtual tour and I guarantee you’ll get a wide variety of answers. Most people, and many real estate professionals, will describe a virtual tour as a ‘spinning picture’. After all, in the early days of the Internet a virtual tour was a rotating image within a simple viewer. The words ‘virtual tour’ were first used back around 1999 when a company called iPix first patented immersive imaging technology. The name ‘virtual tour’ became synonymous with spherical immersive images that spun around in simple online viewer.
Well, virtual tours have come a long way since 1999 and they’re much more than just a spinning picture. Today’s ‘Virtual Tours’ contain a variety of visual content and are effectively a ‘Single Property Website’. As virtual tours have evolved over the past eighteen years I’ve been on a mission to clarify terminology to avoid any confusion with our clients. Clients sometimes don’t realize that we include a ‘Virtual Tour’ or ‘Single Property Site’ with every Mediamax photo shoot. Sometimes they don’t understand that when we say ‘Virtual Tour’ we’re referring to the entire online presentation, not just spinning pictures.
Think about the words ‘Virtual’ and ‘Tour’. Virtual refers to something that’s “not physically existing as such but made by software to appear to do so” and Tour refers to “a brief trip through a place, such as a building or site, in order to inspect it”. When combined, a ‘Virtual Tour” is the “online inspection of a place or space that replicates as closely as possible the experience of touring that space in person”. So, a virtual tour can include any text or visual content that helps accomplish this goal. Most modern virtual tours include a still photo slideshow, a neighborhood map, property descriptions, a brochure, video, important documents and immersive imaging to replicate the experience of touring a home in person. That’s it, my definition of a virtual tour and it’s not just a spinning picture!
Don’t forget that in real estate marketing presentation matters and Mediamax offers virtual tour designs that help buyers fall in love with your listings!