- September 13, 2024
- Reading time about 9 minutes
On an average, a person spends around an hour every day on Instagram browsing content in the form of reels, stories, and posts. Due to the ease and intuitive nature of the platform, users find it easy to spend time searching for what they are looking for. Top-performing realtors have joined this trend due to its potential for exposure, reach, engagement, and conversion.
Instagram is one of the most interactive mediums through which real estate professionals can present their properties, create a strong brand presence, and converse with potential clients. With more than 1.5 billion active users on this platform every month, Instagram opens huge avenues for real estate agents to reach an audience in a visually appealing manner.
Looking at the massive opportunity now is the best time to explore Instagram for the best results. This blog will offer a detailed look at how realtors can make the most of Instagram marketing to accelerate their real estate growth and what role a listing management platform can play in social media success.
Prepare a Roadmap to Chart Success on Instagram
Having a well-defined Instagram strategy is important before you start posting. Ask yourself these important questions:
Who is your target audience?
Are they first-time homebuyers, luxury property seekers, or real estate investors?
What kind of content will engage them?
Finding answers to these questions will help you craft a relevant Instagram strategy. Instagram is a highly thriving platform. The fact that 77% of real estate agents use social media to promote their listings speaks a lot about the potential of this platform. You can either drive traffic, increase engagement, or generate leads through Instagram. Knowing what you want to achieve helps you direct your efforts in the right direction.
Maintain a Polished and Professional Instagram Profile
Your Instagram profile is like your digital business card and is typically what potential clients will see first. It must always be polished and professional. First, your profile picture should be high quality—it could be a professional headshot or business logo, whichever best represents your brand’s identity. Your bio must be clear, concise, and even appealing. Mention your USP and real estate specializations, if any. Also, include a call to action at the end, like, “Click the link to view our latest listings.” Also, don’t forget to use the bio link for routing the followers back to a real estate website or an IDX website where property listings and the services offered can be viewed.
A well-optimized profile speaks volumes about your account’s credibility. In fact, 93% of customers consider visual appearance when making a buying decision—a clear case for keeping your brand’s Instagram presence visually appealing and informative.
Post Compelling Content
In the real estate sector, everything is about appeal. There is no better way to present properties than high-quality images and videos that give potential buyers an immediate sense of the value of the space. Investing in professional photography can make your listings stand out, but if that’s a bridge too far, at the very least, design tools let you quickly and easily create eye-catching content.
Another great way to showcase your properties is through Instagram carousels. Due to the feature allowing you to share more than one image and video in a post, you can literally give people virtual tours of properties or focus on the highlights of a house, like its kitchen, backyard, or other unique architectural details. The format really pays off in terms of user engagement.
Together with static images and carousels, Instagram Reels are a solid way to reach new audiences. These short videos can be just dynamic for trending audio and engaging visuals that capture one’s attention. Reels are great for sharing home tours, renovation before-and-after, or even quick real estate tips. A blend of quality visuals and the interactive features of Instagram will work magic in showcasing your properties and creating more interaction with your audience.
Make the Most of Stories and Highlights
Instagram Stories can be one of the most dynamic tools for sharing real-time updates and creating a vivid, natural level of interaction with your audience. Whether it’s highlighting open houses, showing client testimonials, or covering local community events, stories give you an easier, softer way to keep your followers informed. Also, make good use of Instagram’s interesting features like polls, quizzes, and Q&A sessions for maximum engagement. Not only do these options inflate viewer interactions, but they can also allow you to get a hold of what interests your audience.
You can save your stories as highlights to make them available even after 24 hours. Organizing these highlights into sections, such as Listings, Client Reviews, and Tips, will enable potential clients to flip through and view your content easily. Highlights are a permanent, curated display of the best moments of you, enabling your visitor to view your profile more intuitively and faster.
With over 500 million viewers on Instagram Stories daily, you can increase your visibility quite dramatically if you know just how to leverage the feature.
Enhance Reach Using Instagram Ads
The targeted advertisement on Instagram lets you reach a vast audience, and that makes it a wonderful tool for realtors. You will be able to use meta-targeting to narrow down your audience based on traits like location, demographics, and interests. This will also allow you to create ads targeting clients who seek what you are offering it seasonal cottages along the lake or luxury apartments in the city. Precise targeting tools guarantee that your ads will be viewed by the right people; in other words, it increases the effectiveness of turning views into leads. Sponsored posts are another way to increase your reach. By creating engaging organic posts and exposing them to audiences, you can reach a new audience set.
When these ads are directed to a well-designed IDX website for realtors, you can drive traffic to your website and generate quality leads. Once visitors are on your site, they can look through additional listings, schedule a tour, or request more information.
Analyze the Post Performance and Adapt
You should regularly check Instagram Insights to understand how your content is performing. If you pay a little more attention to the key metrics like engagement rates, reach, and demographics of your followers, you get a clearer view of what content resonates with your audience and what needs adjustments. For instance, if you have experienced seeing high engagement on posts or stories related to a specific type of property or interactive story, you might want to create more content like that. You can also peek closer at the demographics of your followers to show that your messaging has been targeted toward the right audience.
By appropriately using Instagram Insights, you will achieve significant improvements in your overall strategy. Brands that utilize these insights get better engagement. Keeping an eye on how your performance is going month by month and making changes accordingly, you can make the most out of your content and keep your audience engaging to gain better results for your real estate business.
Link Your IDX Site for Easy Navigation of Properties
If you’re a realtor using an IDX website—a type of website that uses Internet Data Exchange—your Instagram will serve as a funnel to capture potential buyers. Advanced search capabilities, MLS integrations, and dynamic listing updates across IDX websites enable clients to see all available listings in real-time.
You can link directly to your IDX website, where buyers can view properties with one tap, through Instagram’s swipe-up feature in Stories for accounts with over 10k followers. This helps real estate agents show not only their offerings but also guide people to a platform where they can browse listings by location, price range, and other preferences with ease.
Stay Away from these Mistakes
Buying followers might give you a superficial boost in numbers; it will not create meaningful engagement or quality leads. If you want authenticity and credibility, build your following organically. Real followers are more likely to like and comment on your posts, inquire about listings, and become potential clients.
Instead of just posting promotional content, create value-based content that positions you as an expert in the field. Post real estate tips, market insight, or updates about community events happening in your locality. The balance between promotional posts and useful information will keep your profile fresh and informative; followers are more likely to follow you.
Lastly, your account should be professional and open to the public. Keeping it private will drastically limit your reach and potential to grow. You want people to find you and share posts with them so others can see. A well-maintained public profile signals clarity of transparency and professionalism, drawing in a larger following while building trust in the community.
Why is Having a Robust IDX Website for Realtors Crucial for Social Media Success?
Having a robust Instagram presence is so much bigger than a trend—it’s part of every modern marketing strategy. You can build a strong Instagram presence for your real estate business by showcasing properties and communicating with potential clients in visually dynamic ways, using engaging features of the platform, from reels and interactive stories to targeted ads and influencer partnerships. Instagram proves to be a powerful social media platform, as it engages in real-time and connects you to your audience.
To fully capitalize on your Instagram success, it needs to be in perfect sync with a properly optimized real estate website. A strong online presence is never complete without an efficient and smoothly running IDX website for realtors that are capable of showing listings, conducting auctions, managing offers, and converting leads into clients. This is where a specialized real estate website builder comes to the rescue.
The right real estate website builder strikes a perfect balance between digital transformation and social media marketing. A reliable IDX website for realtors will empower you to build an easy-to-navigate, visually pleasing platform that truly represents your brand.
BidHom is a leading real estate website builder and listing management platform, empowering agents and brokers with super features like an IDX website, listing management, seamless online auctions, and marketing automation. As an intuitive real estate website builder, BidHom allows realtors to create their websites in a few simple steps and integrate them with their social media platforms seamlessly. Are you ready to ace the digital real estate space with BidHom?