The Essential Guide to Instagram for Real Estate Agents

In the competitive realm of real estate, a robust social media presence is no longer a convenient luxury but an absolute necessity for agents aiming to thrive and stand out from the crowd. It’s a digital extension of an agent’s services and a vital channel for building a brand identity, networking with other professionals, and meaningful lead generation. In this interconnected era, social media and, in particular, Instagram for real estate agents has become a pillar in the new frontier of real estate marketing—a dynamic landscape where visibility equates to viability.

Instagram is unique in the digital marketing space for its visual-centric approach, emerging as an indispensable platform for gaining an online profile as a real estate agent. It’s a platform on which aesthetics meet analytics, providing real estate professionals with a powerful tool for crafting their image, showcasing properties, and engaging with current and prospective clients. Instagram posts for real estate agents offer a plethora of opportunities for committed professionals to captivate an audience, convey their brand’s unique story, and convert passive followers into collaborative leads.

The allure of Instagram lead generation lies in its simplicity and the profound impact that its visual content can have. Instagram for real estate agents offers a direct window into the lifestyle that certain properties can provide. With a good posting schedule, agents can create a daily feed of dreams for the aspirational buyer, along with some actionable, practical solutions for the determined seeker. In a market where first impressions mean so much, Instagram is the perfect platform to make every listing shine and every agent’s expertise stand out proudly.

As we delve deeper into the realm of Instagram for Real Estate Agents, we will explore how this platform can be effectively optimized. With the right approach to a real estate Instagram account, agents can not only reflect the aesthetic appeal of the various properties in their portfolio but also build a tangible sense of community and trust with an audience that values authenticity and engagement. From crafting the perfect real estate Instagram posts to mastering lead generation through the platform, this guide navigates the nuances of one of today’s most influential social media platforms in the industry.

Setting Up an Instagram Account for Real Estate

Creating a real estate account for Instagram tailored for the purposes of digital marketing involves a few steps to ensure a thoughtful setup and strategic branding throughout. With this in mind, we’ve put together a step-by-step guide to properly setting up your Instagram account so you can assert your presence on this visually driven platform.

Step 1: Sign Up

Before you start posting, you need to create an account to work from. 

• Start by downloading the Instagram app on your smartphone or visit Instagram.com on your web browser—both will be usable after sign-up is complete.
• Tap “Sign up” and fill in the details with an email address. Alternatively, if you have a Facebook account, you can log in with it for a quicker setup. Be aware that you’ll have to complete some sort of verification process, whether through email or Facebook. 
• Choose your username carefully, being mindful of other accounts that might have similar titles. Any username you land on should be recognizable and relate to your real estate business. Remember, your username and display name aren’t necessarily the same thing. 
• Create a secure password. Try not to use something that you already use on a different account. If your phone or laptop offers to create a strong password and save it, perhaps take that option.

Step 2: Switch to a Professional Account

When presenting content from your Instagram, it’s important to do so from a business account. This helps to maintain your image as a professional rather than a hobbyist. 

• Go to your profile and tap the menu (three lines) icon in the top right corner of the screen.
• Tap Settings, then Account, and Switch to Professional Account. This will present your account as a business rather than a personal blog for images and videos. 
• Select a category for your business—“Real Estate Agent,” “Real Estate Service,” or “Real Estate.”
• Review your contact information and make sure it’s correct. If you have a distinction between your professional or personal email, consider this before filling in your details. 

Step 3: Optimize Your Profile

Once you’ve set up the bare bones of your real estate agent Instagram account, it’s important to optimize it, ensuring passing viewers are inspired to learn more and continue their searching. 

• Professional Profile Picture: Use a high-quality, professionally shot headshot that is friendly, well-staged, and approachable. A selfie taken from your phone isn’t going to cut it when presenting yourself as a professional collaborator.
• Craft a Bio: Your bio should succinctly state exactly what it is you do, whom you serve primarily, and how clients can contact you. Include a clear value proposition or tagline that sets you apart from the crowd.
• Use Instagram Stories Highlights: Posting stories is a great way to engage with your followers in real time, but you can also use highlights to make them ever-present on your account. Do this by creating highlight albums for testimonials, listings, sold properties, FAQs, and story posts that you feel should have a permanent place.
• Contact Options: Include a clear, enticing call to action with all your possible contact options. Include your phone number, email, and link to your agent’s website or listing database.
• Link in Bio: Use this space wisely and maximize your potential for click-throughs. Consider using link-in-bio tools, such as Linktree or Campsite, to direct followers to multiple links. These can include websites, other social media accounts, or email links.

Step 4: Create a Content Strategy

Whether you plan on posting infographics, property tours, or real estate memes for Instagram, it’s important to have a clear content strategy. With a considered approach, you can ensure your posts have the best possible impact. 

• Define Your Target Audience: Who are you trying to reach with your account? When you know exactly who you’re trying to connect with, you can make a more substantial impact with your posts.
• Content Calendar: Plan your posts, stories, and reel posts in advance. With a clear release strategy, you can maintain a degree of regularity, ensuring you stay engaged with your audience consistently. 
• Content Mix: Strike an effective balance with your posting strategy. This means employing a seamless blend of property showcases, client testimonials, behind-the-scenes educational content, and personal branding posts.

Step 5: Begin Posting

Once you’ve developed a clear content strategy, you can start posting pictures and videos to your feed. Keep these core competencies in mind: 

• Quality Over Quantity: Post high-quality photos and videos of your listings, keeping this same degree of professionalism in mind with any infographics, flyers, or self-portraits. Don’t spam the feed with subpar content. 
• Real Estate Instagram Captions: Always include engaging captions in your posts that provide value, tell a story, or ask a question to encourage engagement. Take time to maintain a consistent, easy-to-read tone of voice that’s likely to inspire interaction. 
• Hashtags: Use relevant hashtags at the bottom of your captions to increase the discoverability of your content. With the right hashtags, you can increase organic traction on your posts. 

Step 6: Engage with Your Community

Once you have started to post from your account, you should build some sort of following. To maintain this following, it’s vital to engage actively with your audience so they feel attended to and cared for. 

• Follow Local Accounts: Engage with other local businesses, community organizations, and potential clients. This will inspire collaborations in the future while positioning you as a community-minded individual. 
• Respond to Comments and Messages: Stay active and create an interactive rapport with your audience. Ensure you really listen to any comments and messages, taking time to send back thoughtful responses. 
• Use Analytics: Use Instagram’s performance analytics to carefully monitor what type of content performs best and adjust your strategy accordingly. Trial and error are everything. 

Tips for Profile Optimization:

• Username: Keep your username consistent with all your other social media handles. Cohesiveness across the board is essential. 
• Bio: Use SEO keywords related to real estate and your local market to help your profile appear as a top result on Instagram and other search engines.
• Profile Picture: Much like your username, it’s important to ensure your profile picture is consistent across all your professional platforms.
• Highlights: As mentioned earlier, story highlights are an essential part of a quality Instagram presentation. Keep them updated with current listings and useful information for buyers and sellers.

The Importance of a Professional Profile Picture and Bio: 

We’ve already touched on it, but we must circle back to two of the most important things when it comes to setting up your Instagram account—your profile picture and account bio. These two aspects of your account are often the first things that a potential client will notice, setting up a base for future viewing and interactions to take place. 

A professional profile picture ensures you make a great first visual impression, instilling trust and conveying professionalism. If you can, hire a photographer with a history of business headshots. Dress well and stage a space properly to ensure you look as reliable and professional as possible. 

Your bio is your Instagram elevator pitch; it’s your first chance to succinctly tell prospective clients who you are, what you offer, and how you can help them. This is also your first opportunity to set up your tone of voice, which should remain consistent between all of your posts and captions. 

Together, a profile picture and account bio form the cornerstone of your Instagram branding and are crucial aspects of an effective real estate marketing strategy.

What to Do with Instagram

Once you’ve set up your Instagram account, you have to start using it effectively. This includes creating content, engaging with your followers, creating leads, measuring your success, and refining your approach. 

Creating Content for Instagram: 

Instagram is a highly visual platform that requires attention-grabbing content to ensure maximum efficacy from your posts. As a professional real estate agent, your content should showcase properties in their best possible light, highlight your expertise as an industry mainstay, and engage your audience actively.

• High-Quality Images and Videos: Whether you’re posting images of your properties, self-portraits, or neighborhood breakdowns, make sure all of your clips and pictures are crisp, clear, and professionally shot.
• Virtual Tours and 360-Degree Views: These dynamic forms of video content can offer viewers a more immersive sense of space when advertising a property. 
• Before and After Shots: People love to buy into a success story, so show transformations of properties you’ve sold or helped stage. This is a great way to showcase your professionalism with real evidence. 
• Market Insights and Tips: Along with an array of photography and video content of properties and locations, share information about your local market. This can include infographics or short videos that provide valuable information to buyers and sellers.
• User-Generated Content: Interaction and engagement can be highly valuable for real estate Instagram accounts. Share stories, reposts, and testimonials from your happy clients or collaborators.
• Stories and Reels: Stories and Reels are the mainstays of good Instagram posting strategies. These are the perfect spaces on the platform for more casual, behind-the-scenes content, quick updates, or to share spontaneous moments.

Engaging with Followers and Potential Clients:

Remember, Instagram is a social media platform designed for interactions, making it perfect for the real estate industry. With this in mind, engagement is crucial for building relationships and expanding your reach on Instagram.

• Reply to Comments and Direct Messages: Make your followers feel heard and seen by responding to any of their questions or reactions promptly. This can be done either through direct messaging or the comment sections on your posts. 
• Interactive Stories: Stories can be a great tool for inspiring effective interactions and communications. Use polls, questions, or quizzes through this medium to encourage interaction and engagement.
• Regular Updates: Consistent posting and updates about your business practices is a great way to keep your audience engaged and informed. Whether simply posting general content or giving a peek behind the curtain, consistency is key. 
• Engage with Other Accounts: Comment on and like posts from other local businesses, past/present clients, and industry leaders in your market. By showcasing your appreciation for your peers, you can drum up collaborations and cross-promotions. 
• Live Sessions: Host Q&A sessions for your audience, share valuable market updates, and create virtual open houses to give your followers some real-time content to engage with.

Generating Leads on Instagram:

Instagram can be a powerful lead-generation tool for real estate agents when used strategically. It’s not just about building a dedicated social media audience within the medium of Instagram; it can be a valuable tool for building a base of actual clients and collaborators.

• Call-to-Action (CTA): Include a CTA in your post captions, encouraging followers to contact you for more information. Whether it leads them to your website, a specific listing, or a blog post you’ve written, always try to encourage a meaningful action. 
• Instagram Ads: Alongside your traditional posting schedule, it’s also worthwhile investing money into paid, targeted ads. These targeted promotional posts can reach potential clients who haven’t found your page organically.
• Link in Bio: Your bio is your opening gambit for expressing who you are to your potential clients, which is why they need to be able to find your other online platforms from it. Use the bio to direct followers to your listing page, contact form, or lead magnet.
• Instagram Shopping: If your account is deemed eligible by Instagram itself, you can use this feature to tag products or listings directly in your posts. Review the Commerce Eligibility Requirements before attempting to integrate this technology. 
• Collaborations and Shoutouts: This is where your communication skills will come in handy. To expand your reach and grow your idea pool. partner with local influencers or businesses for collaborative posts and cross-promotion schemes.

Measuring Success on Instagram:

Understanding the performance of your Instagram posts is essential to better refining your strategy, allowing you to make much more informed marketing decisions. Thankfully, the platform offers several easy ways to properly analyze how your content is doing. 

• Instagram Insights: With a business account, you can access various insights about how your content is performing. These insights can pertain to demographic information, the tracking of engagement rates, and simply which posts are performing best.
• Follower Growth: The easiest way to track your performance is to simply monitor your follower count. This is the most basic, direct measure of your brand’s growing appeal and reach.
• Engagement Rate: Along with your follower count, you can check every post for some clear performance indicators. This means tracking likes, comments, saves, and shares to understand how much each piece of content resonates with your audience.
• Website Traffic: Use tracking links in your bio and on posts to get a better idea of how much traffic comes to your website from Instagram. This is a great way to measure the lead generation capacities of your account. 
• Lead Conversions: Use real estate CRM software to collate your metrics accurately. Keep tabs on the number of leads generated directly from Instagram activities—this will allow you to consider how to best allocate effort and resources.

To sum up, Instagram is not just a space for posting attractive property photos and video tours; it’s about creating a dynamic and engaging environment that tells a story about your brand, reaches out to an audience, and, ultimately, generates more business. An engaging range of content, active participation in your audience community, strategic lead-generation methods, and measurable outcomes are the cornerstones of a successful Instagram strategy for real estate agents.

Successful Instagram Accounts for Real Estate

Countless real estate professionals across the industry have successfully harnessed the power of Instagram to grow their businesses and build their brand identity. We’ve scoured the internet, finding the accounts that have set themselves apart with distinctive strategies that resonate with their audiences.

Make sure to check out and follow these accounts to gain some inspiration to improve your own Instagram strategy. 

 

WSJ Real Estate

@wsjrealestate

As the Instagram page for the Wall Street Journal, it’s no surprise that they take their Instagram page highly seriously. This corporate account stands out from many other real estate Instagram accounts on the platform because of its exceptional use of professional photography and engaging headlines. 

They supplement their pictures with detailed captions that provide informative stories, making it easier for their audience to buy into the narrative of real estate. Their approach is unique for making complex real estate topics accessible and engaging for readers of all experience levels. The account’s ability to present in-depth information without sacrificing visual appeal makes it a top-tier example for larger real estate businesses and firms to take inspiration from. 

 

Nikol Klein

@nikolklein

Nikol Klein has effectively used Instagram as a space for cross-promotion with her YouTube account, building her online presence through multiple channels. She also uses her platform as a space for driving engagement through interactive stories and sharing personal self-portraits, adding a degree of friendliness and authenticity to the brand. 

Her account is a prime example of how being personable and likable can attract a loyal following. It’s a sort of middle ground between a purely professional business account and a more modern “influencer” approach, which is a great approach for building an audience of casual viewers and potential clients alike. 

 

Cindy Raney and Team

@cindyraneyandteam

This account is a great example of infusing personality with professionalism. Cindy Raney and her team have innovatively created several video series, such as “60 Seconds with Cindy” and “Suburban Chic with Zac & Cindy,” highlighting the team’s collaborative spirit while creating a consistent series with a strong core concept. 

Their success stories are a great way to draw in viewers, allowing people to engage in an aspirational, empathetic way with the business. They also include a comprehensive showcasing of hard work, making this account both inspiring and instructive for other real estate professionals and potential clients alike.

 

Nicole Mickle

@iorlandorealestate

Nicole Mickle’s Instagram account is noteworthy for its dedicated approach to writing high-quality captions, making effective use of high-quality photos and engaging reels. She also makes great use of edited online flyers, such as new-listing presentations, sold alerts, and new-development brochures. 

Nicole uses transparent details about all the properties she represents, along with illuminating some aspects of the buying process, to establish a trustworthy reputation. Her Instagram account is an effective blueprint for building client trust via social media.

 

Jade Mills

@jademillsestates

Jade Mills excels in using her Instagram account to depict the luxury lifestyle associated with high-end real estate effectively, helping to maintain a sense of aspiration throughout her feed. She is another account that strikes a balance between a pure business and an “influencer”-focused approach. 

Her posts include insightful reels about the daily life of a high-powered agent, paired with quick, easy-to-watch videos of her operating in different business situations, providing entertainment and value. This comprehensive content approach makes her account a go-to for luxury real estate insights.

 

Ryan Serhant

@ryanserhant

Ryan Serhant is a renowned real estate personality known as one of the stars of the Bravo reality series Million Dollar Listing. With his existing notoriety, it’s no surprise that he’s developed one of the best real estate Instagram accounts on the internet. It’s clear how well he uses his on-camera charisma to showcase properties compellingly, giving informative, easy-to-watch breakdowns of the properties he works with. 

His enthusiastic approach to property tours and effective use of his public persona are great aspirational things to consider as a real estate professional. Ryan uses his account to provide an engaging method for presenting luxury listings, demonstrating the power that personal branding can have on a social media account.

 

Usaj Realty

@usajrealty

The strength of Usaj Realty’s Instagram lies in the diverse content mix it offers to its audience. Its posting strategy includes sharing client testimonials, informative infographics, and repurposed content from all its other platforms. With less focus on videos and more on online flyers and imagery, all its images are designed with a consistent style. 

It also offers regular market updates and features on new properties, providing real value to its followers with every post. Usaj’s account is a great example of how to maintain a balanced and informative Instagram presence.

Each of these accounts leverages the unique strengths of the Instagram platform, from making use of creative visual storytelling to sharing engaging interactive content. Each of these accounts, with their strengths and weaknesses, sets a unique example of how varied and dynamic a real estate Instagram presence can be. While all of them are effective, it’s still important to make sure you put your own spin on your account, keeping your brand identity in mind with all of your real estate Instagram post ideas.

 

Conclusion

Instagram is an essential platform for real estate agents seeking to forge strong connections with potential clients and build their brand. Through the strategic use of visual content, engaging storytelling, and interactive features, agents can create a dynamic, exciting presence that resonates with their audience.

As showcased by the successful accounts mentioned, Instagram allows for a variety of approaches to real estate digital marketing. From showcasing stunning property visuals and sharing informative content to connecting on a personal level with live interactions, the possibilities of Instagram are endless.

It’s important for real estate agents to view Instagram not just as a broadcasting platform for their original content but also as a community where relationships are built and nurtured. The combination of professional content and authentic engagement can significantly enhance online visibility and lead generation, ultimately resulting in meaningful business opportunities.

Leveraging the insights and strategies from this article, real estate agents can craft an Instagram presence that showcases their portfolio while establishing their reputation as knowledgeable and trustworthy professionals. 

For more information on the real estate industry, check out our blog today.