Building up your Instagram community is a great way to increase brand awareness as a realtor. Instagram ranks as the third most popular social media platform (right behind Facebook & Youtube) with over a billion active users. Similar to our analysis of how to grow your Facebook audience we will be looking at organic growth on Instagram without using paid advertising.
Utilize the ‘Business Account’ Feature
Converting your Instagram into a business account is one of the simplest things you can do to begin to track your content performance! To convert your Instagram to a business account click the ‘settings’ button and tap on ‘account’ scroll down and at the bottom of the page there is a ‘switch to business profile or professional account’ button (your page will have to be made public in order to do so), this will prompt your a page with all of your contact information. After reviewing over your accurate contact information (this will be present on your profile page so confirm it is 100% accurate) click ‘done’. Now that you have converted over to a business account you are able to dig into how many views your profile & posts are getting, statistics on your follower growth/decline, the demographics of your followers etc. This is helpful in knowing your audience & how to gear your content, as well as what type of content on your account performs well and encourages engagement.
Use Hashtags
To grow your following use hashtags in the comment section of your photo (this way it is not clogging up your caption). Finding relevant hashtags for your content is the most important factor in this. Hashtags should be though of similarly to a key word search for your content. For example, if you post a photo of a living room, you’d want to do #livingroom. If you are a realtor focusing on one area within your city (i.e west loop in Chicago) you may want to do #westlooprealtor. You can use a hashtag generator to help you get started like the one. found here.
Consistency is Key
Similar to our recommendation for Facebook, posting at a consistent time is beneficial in growing your engagement & following. Posting is recommended at least once a day, and can be made easy with apps that will automatically post for you like Buffer or HootSuite.Fresh content on your feed keeps your followers excited and coming back for more! Be sure to consider when your audience is likely using social media (i.e if your primary group of followers don’t work weekends, you may want to consider posting 2 or 3 times a day on Saturday & Sunday). Consider featuring a weekly or monthly series that your followers will look forward to!
Following Within Your Network
Following accounts within your niche is a great way to grow your following, and be inspired by others content! As a realtor you likely have a list of clients, other realtors, and those who are deemed very successful in the business to begin following. Growing your network with people you know is beneficial because it will kick off people engaging with your posts! Be sure to engage with posts of accounts you are following as well. Be sure to ask clients to tag you in their posts about their new dream home that you helped them find.
Consider Your ‘Grid’
Your Instagram grid is the total view of your profile to your followers like the photo below. This will likely be one of the first impressions of your account to not only your followers, but to those considering following you. To keep your grid looking consistent, be sure to use the same filter across all of your photos, or use a checkerboard format when including text pieces in your grid. There are great apps that are user-friendly to help you pre-plan your grid like Planoly. Be sure to consider your bio as well, and include your location for geo-tagging!
Video Content
Not only can you use Instagram for visually stimulating photo content, but video content as well! As a realtor using video content for home tours, neighborhood tours etc. is a great tool and helps educate your followers. In-feed videos can be up to sixty seconds, with story videos being up to fifteen. You may also want to consider using the IGTV feature of Instagram to post videos up to an hour long! Dual post these on Youtube for extra exposure to your brand!
