Instagram is an easy, photo-sharing app for the kids. But brands are using Instagram to generate a lot of leads, and the same can be done for your real estate business.

We’re talking about a real estate marketing strategy for Instagram that will multiply your following and give your brand a boost online. So let’s get right into it.

Does Instagram work for real estate agents?

The short answer is – Yes, it does work well.

The longer answer – Buyers looking for properties love to get a feel for it before they make up their minds. And unlike all the other social media platforms, Instagram offers a simple, distraction-free way for your brand to do just that.

A beautiful photo that goes viral can instantly get your brand shown to thousands of people. Even if your image or video doesn’t go viral, you’re getting attention from at least a few hundred people.

How to captivate your audience on Instagram as a real estate business?

34% of users on Instagram are millennials. With most of your potential customers being under the age of 32, you have the right set of people on Instagram to appeal to.

To start with, get to know who they are, what they like to engage with on Instagram, and the hashtags and accounts they follow. You can begin with this by looking through the profiles of some of your existing buyers.

As you gain the foundational understanding of your audience’s behaviour online, you can move on to following the building of your brand online.

Build your real estate brand on Instagram in 3 steps and generate leads

There are a few first steps that get Instagram’s algorithm triggered to start displaying your content to people. Get these things right, and you’re setting your account for success.

1. Establish your goals

With the right set of goals, your marketing can be targeted and yield much better results. So identify what you want to achieve with your investment. The goals should be specific and precise like, how many leads you wish to generate, how much time do you expect yourself or your marketing team to spend on Instagram and more. Store these goals, along with the information you have for your audience.

2. Set up a real estate business account on Instagram

Business accounts offer a broad set of features that personal accounts don’t. That includes insights about audience engagement, high and low performing campaigns, the hashtags that work, and much more.

Ensure you avoid engaging with any account, post, or account that’s not relevant to your business. This helps establish your real estate business account on Instagram as authentic, not only to your potential customers but also to the platform.

3. Let your bio speak for your business

For any potential buyers that stumble upon your profile, your bio is the first thing they see. Capture their attention right there. Your bio must make them want to take another look.

Talk about the benefits of doing business with you.

For example, say: “I’m Jake, a luxury real estate broker who specialises in satisfying unique demands of buyers searching for their perfect home in Houston.”

By saying a lot about what the business is in a few words, you filter out leads to only those who are your potential buyers.

How to get more Instagram followers for your real estate business?

Now that we’re set up with the profile, it’s time to use the knowledge for how to get more Instagram followers which we gained from our initial steps to reach our potential buyers.

1. Use Geotags and Hashtags to target the city you sell in

There are two aspects to this:

• With your initial audience research, you should get a foundational understanding of which hashtags are followed by your audience.
• Along with that, we should also know where the audience is currently located if you’re targeting people who want to move to your city.

With Instagram, you have the option to add a location to the images and videos you post. By adding locations, you set up your account to be displayed when users are browsing for images clicked at the location.

For example –

• Geotag “Houston, Texas”
• Hashtags – #Houston #HoustonProperties #ForSale #LuxuryHomes #BeautifulInterior

Relevant and targeted hashtags like the ones above will get you in front of those who are browsing around for images in the location.

2. Post relevant images and videos regularly

The right hashtags and Geotags are one part of the story. The second aspect is the content. Great content will go a long way in establishing your brand and getting more attention from potential homebuyers.

Create videos and click professional photos of the interior and exterior of the homes that you have for sale. Every piece of content that you post on your real estate Instagram account should make the viewer want to experience the house.

3. Automate your social media marketing

Instagram’s social algorithm shares a lot of love with accounts that post consistently and post quality content. If you post two images every day, and they receive a few hundred to a few thousand comments and likes, Instagram knows you post high-quality content.

In return, it puts your posts in front of more people.

But you might not have enough time to engage daily. Here’s a simple example of how you can automate posting on Instagram:

• Get a photographer to click multiple photos of a house.
• Create multiple videos whenever you visit a property
• Schedule your posts for the future as and when you get the time.

You can set up your Instagram posts days or even months in advance. And any new image or video you create, adds up to your repository of scheduled posts.

Conclusion

Instagram is a real estate agent’s goldmine. While success on Instagram can be a hit-or-miss depending on your understanding and time dedication to the platform, it continues to be a viable platform for real estate agents and firms to generate high-quality leads with a little upfront effort.