This highly engaging Instagram feature may be the key to building your real estate empire.
Instagram Stories are featured at the top of your profile for 24 hours and can receive more engagement than a post. These stories can be a powerful tool for your real estate business. Companies that sell products will post professional images of their merchandise, video testimonials, and more. Large retail companies aren’t the only ones benefiting from promoting (organic and paid) on Instagram Stories. Real estate agents are joining in on the interactive marketing strategy to promote their brand and their listing properties to potential clients. Check out this article to learn how to leverage your Instagram Stories to attract future clients.
How Instagram Stories can help in Real Estate
Real estate agents can use Instagram Stories to leverage their business in the real estate industry in many ways. Some real estate agents said that sharing their listings on IG Stories helped them with their lead generation efforts and other real estate marketing efforts. Some real estate agents have even sold their listings to interested home buyers through the Instagram Stories tool. Social media platforms can make or break your real estate brand regarding brand awareness.
9 tips for using Instagram Stories as a real estate agent:
1. Post a house tour of your listing
As soon as you publish your listing on your local MLS, post your professional real estate images onto your IG Story. You will have the option to add your saved images as a story post.
You can also create an image collage in the Instagram Layout app. This way, you can highlight multiple listing images on one post. We suggest adding various listing posts to your story to keep monthly users engaged with your content. Your listing tour can include location, mentions, and more. We will discuss that in detail below.
2. Add the location of your listing or farm area
When promoting a listing on Instagram Stories, add the listing’s location. You can do this by selecting the sticker icon on the toolbar and a place. Here, you will type in your listing’s city and state. Location will gain exposure for your listing in that city. Like Snapchat, tagging your story post with a location increases its viewership with local audiences.
3. Add location-specific hashtags
Similar to adding your location as a sticker, you can create a location-specific hashtag. Creating a good hashtag may seem tricky, but consider what home buyers in your area would search for on Instagram. Here are some relevant hashtags that are worth a try: #openhouse(cityname) #newhome(cityname) #houseforsale(cityname) #newbuild(cityname) #newlisting(cityname)
4. Mention your vendors
It’s always a good idea to encourage cross-promotion on your Instagram Story feed. When you post images of a listing, tag your real estate photographer, the staging company, the construction company, and so on. The vendors you tagged will likely repost the story to their feed, giving you double the exposure.
Show personality and flair by incorporating fun stickers or gifs on your story post. If you’re having an open house and want to show excitement, type in “excited” on the search tab and see what comes up. You can select the gif or sticker you want and adjust the size of it on your post. If stickers and gifs are off-brand with your business, it may be better to leave them out.
6. Post a walk-through video of the listing
Instagram users love behind-the-scenes videos. It allows them to have an exclusive (as IG stories are only up for 24/hrs) look at your day-to-day life or your listing. And besides, who doesn’t love a good walk-through home tour?
7. Create a highlight for the listing
Until your listing sells, consider adding any IG Story about the listing as a Highlight. You can group story posts about the listing into one highlight reel. It is located on your IG page for users to explore whenever they want.
8. Tag local realtors who are buyers’ agents
Whoever you tag in a story will be notified that you added them to a story post. This is an effective way to grab the attention of buyers’ agents. Tagged agents can easily share your listing post with their clients through Instagram.
9. Promote your Instagram post as a story
Lastly, you can bring attention to a post by sharing the post on your story.
To share a post to your story:
- Post an image on your Instagram
- Go to the post once it’s published
- Click on the paper airplane (share button)
- Select “Add post to your story”
- Add a sticker that says “tap here” or “new post” so viewers know to click on the image to go to the post
Other ways to use Instagram as a real estate agent
Instagram is a social platform that rewards those using all their features. You’ll need to engage with other users, share stories of happy clients, post on IGTV with real estate content, create highlights, and more. Real estate marketers nationwide use Instagram Stories and Instagram Ads to show off high-quality photos of their real estate listings. Be competitive in your local real estate market and start making regular posts to your Instagram Stories! If you want to learn more about social media marketing, check out this article.
How real estate photography enhances your social media
Looking for ways to make your social media posts attention-grabbers? Consider using professional real estate photography across your channels! Virtuance offers beautiful HDReal® images, aerial photography services, and marketing enhancements to help you up your social media game. If you want to outshine your competitors on social media, trust Virtuance to help you shine the brightest!
Instagram, the image-sharing social platform with over 200 million active users, created its Stories feature a few years ago. Instagram Stories are similar to the popular limited-time photo app Snapchat.
You can share posts, images, videos, and more on Instagram Stories. You can also create polls, quizzes and allow viewers to ask questions.
Social media is a powerful platform to reach a larger audience and promote your listings. Social media platforms can help you engage with potential clients, build your brand, and expand your reach!
