Morgul Marketing

    Social media for a commercial brokerage filming in Middle Tennessee

    A brokerage with a camera in this region runs into problems that do not exist in most markets. Out in the counties the most consequential fact about a site is the rock under it, which is one of the few subjects a camera explains better than a document. Downtown, the ambient sound belongs to somebody else and an automated system will notice. A nightly rental economy sits close enough to commercial property in language that it answers every post about buildings. And a good part of the office inventory is not office buildings at all, it is converted houses. Below is what to film across Davidson, Williamson, Rutherford, Sumner and Wilson counties, and what to do about the audio.

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    Point the camera at the rock, because a spreadsheet cannot show a hammer

    Shallow bedrock is the most consequential thing about building in this area, and it is one of the few subjects a camera explains better than a document.

    Across much of Middle Tennessee, excavation is a rock problem rather than a soil problem. Limestone changes what a pad costs, how long a site takes and whether a deal pencils at all.

    Footage of it is available on almost every job. A hoe ram working a pad, a trench that stopped at bedrock, a finished site with the spoil still stacked beside it. A minute of that lands with a buyer from a deep soil market in a way no written summary manages.

    Shoot it with something in frame for scale. A trench with a bucket or a person beside it reads as a depth. The same trench shot tight reads as a hole, and a viewer who has never worked here cannot tell the difference.

    Land and development buyers watch that footage differently than a tenant does. They are pricing a pad, so the useful clip lingers on the cut face and the spoil pile rather than moving on to the finished slab.

    Every post about property here is read by somebody running nightly rentals

    A tourism economy sitting on top of a commercial market means the wrong audience finds anything you publish about buildings.

    A large share of the residential stock downtown and in the neighborhoods around it is operated as a business by managers who live somewhere else. In their vocabulary, commercial property in Nashville means a house that sleeps twelve.

    So the people who arrive under a leasing post are frequently not the ones you were addressing, and an account that spends its replies on them ends up with an audience of operators who will never take space.

    Metro Nashville and the surrounding counties do not treat those properties the same way either, so an answer that is true in Davidson is wrong in Williamson, and a brokerage typing it into a comment box has taken on a question that was never its business.

    The dependable filter is subject matter rather than wording. Industrial in Mount Juliet, land in Rutherford County, medical office, flex space off Briley Parkway: none of it reads as a nightly rental question, and the people asking about one do not stay for the other.

    Music Row and Berry Hill are leased by the house, so walk it like one

    A long stretch of the office and studio inventory in this city is converted residential structures, and nothing about a floor plan prepares an occupier for that.

    Bungalows on Music Row and in Berry Hill were turned into commercial space decades ago and are still leased that way, with bedrooms as offices, a converted garage out back and a front yard that became the parking.

    A plan of one of those buildings tells an occupier almost nothing. Room sizes read as residential, the circulation runs down what used to be a hallway, and the stair to the second floor is a stair out of a house.

    So walk it the way a person would walk a house, in one take. In the front door, through every room in order, up the stair, out the back to the parking. Cutting it into pieces is what loses the viewer, because the whole value of the clip is that they keep their bearings.

    Count the parking on camera. On a converted lot the spaces in the yard decide which uses fit, and a studio, a clinic or a small agency doing that arithmetic will stop watching a video that never shows them.

    The parts of this that are not particular to Nashville, from what a brokerage should be publishing to how the work gets staffed, sit in our wider piece on social media for commercial real estate.

    Questions we get

    Can we film inside a space on Broadway or in The Gulch?
    With the landlord's permission, yes, but plan for the audio. Live music bleeding through a wall can trigger an automated content match that mutes or removes the post, and clearing music rights is not something a brokerage can do. Record silent and narrate afterward. Shooting early on a weekday helps twice over, because the rooms are quieter and the sidewalk is thin enough to show the storefront.
    Why do our property posts fill up with short-term rental questions?
    Because a large part of the residential stock near downtown is run as a business, and the people running it use the same words you do. The fix is in what you choose to film rather than in how you word a caption. Industrial, land, flex and medical office bring the audience you want. If the questions arrive anyway, remember that Metro Nashville and the collar counties do not treat those properties alike, so the answer you would type is probably wrong for whoever is asking.
    Is footage of site work actually worth publishing?
    In this region it is some of the most valuable material a brokerage can own. Rock excavation is the single biggest surprise for a buyer arriving from a deep soil market, and it is visible. A hoe ram running on a pad, a trench that stopped at bedrock, spoil stacked at the edge of a finished site. Put something in frame for scale, or the viewer cannot read the depth and the clip does no work.
    Can we use music in a property video here?
    Use a licensed library track or none at all, and be more careful than you would elsewhere. An unusual number of the people watching your account here make their living from recorded music, and a clip built on somebody's song gets noticed rather than ignored. Silence with clean narration reads as professional. It also travels better, because a great deal of watching happens with the sound off anyway.
    How do we show a converted house on Music Row or in Berry Hill?
    One continuous walk, front door to back parking, without cuts. Those buildings were houses, so the rooms are residential in size and the circulation makes no sense on a plan. A viewer who watches somebody walk it keeps their bearings. Show the yard parking while you are out there, because on a converted lot the space count is what decides whether a given use works at all.

    Rules that affect your marketing

    Brokerage is licensed and advertising generally has to identify the brokerage rather than only the individual. The more practical constraint is that this industry is bought at submarket grain: a downtown tower and a suburban flex park are different products with different tenants, and content pitched at a whole metro tends to speak to neither.

    Commercial Real Estate Social Media Strategy & Execution elsewhere

    Written by KC Thompson, Morgul Marketing. Updated .

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