Implement these Instagram real estate marketing best practices to grow a Realtor’s Instagram presence and generate more clients.
When it comes to Instagram real estate marketing, the name of the game is becoming first of mind. If your followers see you consistently marketing on Instagram, they are going to see you as a successful agent. Today we are going to talk about the best practices for real estate agents to succeed at marketing on Instagram.
Facebook vs Instagram Real Estate Marketing
Facebook owns Instagram. Instagram did start out as its own entity, and it was very successful. It caught the attention of the executives at Facebook, and Facebook eventually purchased it. For this reason, Facebook and Instagram work in a similar way. And, you can do a lot of cross promoting on these platforms. Another fun fact? A lot of what you already know about how to use Facebook can be applied to Instagram.
One of the similarities between Facebook and Instagram is that they both allow you to have two accounts. You can have a personal account and a business account. A lot of the same rules apply, from a strategy standpoint.
How is Instagram different?
The algorithm on Facebook’s personal page is not applied on Instagram’s personal page. At the time of writing this, Instagram does not show your posts to only those people that like, comment, or otherwise engage with your post. Instagram shows all of your posts to everyone. Because of that, you can actually weave in more frequent business posts on Instagram than we would advise you to on Facebook. That being said, don’t overdo it. Followers on Instagram are still sensitive to too much marketing. It’s an easy way to get unfollowed.
HOT TIP: Get creative on Instagram! You can make a personal post that is also business-related. Tell stories. Make people laugh! You can seamlessly weave the topic of real estate into personal posts, and this is preferred. This is a great tip for Instagram real estate marketing.
Instagram Business Page
On your Instagram business page, you can make posts that are purely business-oriented. At the time of writing this, I actually prefer the Instagram business page setup to the Facebook business page. I think you can get a lot more attention on Instagram because of the way they designed the layout. The setup is more streamlined.
Why do you need to be on Instagram?
As with Facebook, on Instagram, your business page is like your website. When it comes to real estate marketing, the most important social media site for you to be on is Facebook. That being said, Instagram is a close second. It is vital that you join and create a profile on Instagram for your business. Instagram has grown so much in the past several years across all age groups.
Make your homepage shine
When a potential client is looking for someone to buy or sell their house, it is very common for them to look on Instagram. Back in the day, before social media took such a stronghold of our everyday lives, when someone would look up local Realtors, they would go to their online search engine and type in your name. Or, they would type in the name of their city and “Realtor.”
Now, the first stop is looking on social media. It’s easy, and it allows everyone to learn a lot about who you are on a personal level, while also seeing glimpses of your business and marketing skills. This is why you need your Instagram homepage to look good! A potential client will envision seeing their listing on your homepage. They want you to make them look good! The way your homepage looks is a direct indicator of how good you are at marketing.
Instagram Stories and real estate marketing
The Instagram Stories feature has become a popular way to provide daily snapshots to your followers. Your fresh stories are viewable at the top of your feed.
Instagram is always going to show you the stories that you click on the most. So, whichever stories that people click on, those are the stories that Instagram will display first for them going forward. That way, they don’t have to scroll a long way to find what they want to watch. This is a good reason to make sure your stories are always compelling and interesting. People won’t scroll forever to find you.
You must post frequently to increase the likelihood of people watching your stories. If you only do a story every now and then, your chances of being seen decrease significantly. This function is similar to Facebook’s algorithm. Instagram is helping people to see what they enjoy seeing most.
You can also save stories on your homepage, so that followers can view them at a later time. These saved stories appear on your homepage and can be sorted into topics. You can design the icon above each topic, which adds to the branding and overall appeal of your homepage.
Instagram Reels and real estate marketing
This is a great, new feature that, at the time of writing this, is beginning to take off. Reels provide a great way for you to post videos and they make it easy for followers to watch video after video after video. People love to see quick videos without needing to navigate from post to post.
Keys for a successful Instagram business page
Finally, let’s go over seven key factors that will help you develop a successful Instagram business page for your real estate marketing.
- Clean, professional branding (consistent colors, fonts, style)
- Bio includes information that would attract clients
- Contact information is clear and linked
- Stories are posted frequently and are engaging
- Reels are available for easy watching
- Posts are a consistent mix of topics (listings, open houses, clients, testimonials, education, client events, agent photos, etc.)
- Posts are added with a regular cadence (daily is best)
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