What to Order for a Listing: A Real Estate Media Guide
Real estate media is the photos, video, drone shots, floor plans and tours used to market a property. The hard part isn’t deciding to hire a photographer. It’s deciding what to order. Most media menus read like a parts list, and nobody explains which parts a specific property needs. Here’s the plain version.
What’s on the menu
A typical real estate media menu runs to interior and exterior photos, drone photos and video, video walkthroughs, 2D and 3D floor plans, Matterport 3D tours, editing, a property website with every delivery, and retainer packages for clients who book regularly. Almost no single listing needs all of it.
What each piece is for
Every item answers a different buyer question. Know which question your listing has and most of the decision is made.
- Stills answer “do I want to see this in person.” Every listing needs them.
- Drone answers “what is around it.” Land, acreage, waterfront, a corner lot, a lake or golf course nearby. On a townhouse with no yard it mostly photographs the neighbors’ roofs.
- Video answers “what does it feel like to walk through.” Strongest on homes with flow, views or a wow moment. Weakest on small boxy floor plans where the walkthrough is over in fifteen seconds.
- Floor plans answer “how does this fit my furniture and my family.” Unglamorous, and one of the most useful things you can add to a listing with an odd layout.
- 3D tours answer “can I decide without flying in.” Built for relocation buyers, out of state investors and anyone shopping from a distance.
- A property website answers “how do I get this in front of people.” One comes with every delivery, and it earns its keep when you’re running paid social or pitching a seller on your marketing plan.
The longer version of how these fit together across Upstate SC, Columbia and Richmond is in our 2026 listing playbook.
How to decide what a property needs
Start with the property, not the price. A four hundred thousand dollar house on five acres needs a drone more than a seven hundred thousand dollar condo does. A 1930s house with a strange room layout needs a floor plan more than a builder spec home, because the spec home’s layout is obvious from a handful of photos. A relocating buyer needs a tour more than a local who can drive over Saturday.
And be willing to order less. A rental turnover, an as-is flip headed to a cash buyer list, or a listing that’s already spoken for doesn’t need the whole menu. Stills and a floor plan do the job, and the rest of the budget goes to a property that needs it.
Questions to ask any vendor
Ask these of any vendor. If a photographer can’t answer them quickly, that tells you something.
- Can I see a whole delivered gallery from a house like mine? Anyone can show eight good frames. The bathrooms and the awkward back bedroom show the difference.
- If a drone is involved, does the pilot hold an FAA Part 107 remote pilot certificate, and do they check LAANC for controlled airspace? Some properties sit in the controlled airspace around GSP, Donaldson, CAE or RIC, and approval is never a given.
- What’s the delivery date, in writing, and what happens when weather kills a shoot day?
- What are the usage rights, and what formats do I get back?
- Is there a reshoot policy if something in the gallery isn’t right?
The part that isn’t the photographer’s job
A good gallery starts before anyone shows up with a camera. Lights on and matched, cars off the driveway, counters cleared, blinds set the same way in every room. It isn’t glamorous and it makes a bigger difference than most of the paid add-ons. Our room by room prep checklist is written to be forwarded straight to a seller.
What a shoot day looks like
Most people have never watched one. We show up at the scheduled time, walk the house with whoever’s there, and agree on what’s getting shot and what’s staying out of frame. Then we work exterior first if the light is right, or interior first if it isn’t, and come back outside once the sun has moved. Time on site tracks square footage more than anything else, and a detached shop, a dock or acreage adds more. A floor plan scan or Matterport tour is a separate pass through every room. Which way the front of the house faces decides the best time slot, so have the address ready when you book.
Delivery follows the schedule in your order confirmation, and video takes longer than stills because it gets edited. See our delivery standard and plan the shoot date backward from your go-live date.
What you get back, and who owns it
Ask exactly what comes back and in which sizes. MLS systems re-compress the photos you add and several cap the file size, so a huge original can come back soft and blotchy. A web-sized set built to survive that trip is worth having, alongside a full resolution set for print. If you want a vertical video for social, ask at booking, because cropping a horizontal clip afterward throws away most of the frame, usually including the part you wanted.
On ownership, the photographer typically holds the copyright and the client gets a license. With us, Beyond All Media keeps the rights and you get a license (see our terms of service) to use the delivered photos and video clips to market the property and promote your own business: the MLS and listing portals, social media, your website, print and signs. It doesn’t cover:
- A seller taking the photos to a different brokerage after your agreement ends.
- A builder reusing one house’s interiors across a whole subdivision’s marketing.
- Anybody reselling the images to a third party.
None of that is a trap, and all of it is easy to settle at booking. If you manage rentals and want to reuse a turnover set across several platforms, say so before the shoot and get the terms in writing.
Getting a listing on the schedule
Pick the pieces the property needs, prep the house, book the right light and get the delivery date in writing. When you’re ready, see the packages.
Beyond All Media covers Upstate SC, Columbia and Richmond. South Carolina (864) 714-0724, Richmond (804) 913-3013.