How to Get Started on Instagram

When it comes to social media, many Real Estate professionals concentrate their efforts on Facebook and LinkedIn and—while those platforms have their major advantages—Instagram can be a valuable tool to keep in touch with former clients, find new clients, and expand brand recognition. Here are six tips for Real Estate professionals trying to establish a presence on Instagram. 

Connect Your Instagram to Your Facebook Account

Connecting your Instagram account to your Facebook account is a way to quickly and easily start connecting with your friends and family on Instagram. Here’s how you can start following them, and many will follow you back. Need more convincing? Well, everything you post on Instagram can be posted on Facebook with just one click. This allows your photos to reach a wider audience than just your Instagram followers and it’ll remind your Facebook followers that you are active on Instagram and perhaps they’ll follow you there! 

Convert Your Instagram to a Business Account 

If you’re going to use Instagram primarily for business, you’ll want to convert it to a business account; makes sense right? Doing so will give you a grant you access to extra features like a customizable Call-To-Action button and insights (analytics) for your profile and posts. Plus, perhaps most importantly, you can create targeted, promoted posts. 

Use Hashtags Effectively

While it might seem intimidating or confusing at first, using hashtags effectively is really not that difficult. We’re not encouraging you to go overboard with excessive hashtag usage, but it is safe, even recommended, to use a few on each photo. Just make sure that whatever you hashtag is actually related in some way to the photo you posted, #YouDontWantToConfusePeople. 

Also, consider creating a hashtag that is specific to you and included on all your photos. For example, mine could be #GPRealty or #REwithGP (Wait, that one is actually really good…) 

Mix Personal & Professional From Time to Time

Your followers will enjoy seeing your human side from time to time by breaking up the stream of “Just Sold” after “Just Sold,” so don’t be afraid to share a personal post every once in awhile. Whether it’s your birthday or an outing to the local football game, showcasing some personality is usually a good thing. 

Use Your Bio Wisely

Your bio is a way to introduce yourself to new people who might not know you, but want to learn more. Have a clear and concise bio that describes what you do, where you do it, and includes a link to your website or lead capture page of some sort. 

Interact with Others!

Last, but certainly not least, you’ll need to set aside some time for interacting with others. The whole point of social media is to interact and connect with others, and this is especially true on Instagram. Follow other local accounts, “like” their photos, and leave a comment when you feel compelled to do so. To truly capitalize on social media marketing, you want to grow and expand your network, so you should take every opportunity to do so. Following people and interacting with their posts will often prompt them to do the same! 

These tips should help you get off to a good start with your Instagram account which will put you in a great position to connect with clients and grow your network. Once you’re feeling confident with the basics of Instagram, keep an eye out for another post about third-party tools that will help you dominate Instagram. But for now, go get ‘em! 

Support for Lab Coat Agents, and the audio version of this article, comes from Elevated Real Estate Marketing and Travis Thom. Elevated R.E.M. provides Facebook advertising coaching and ad agency services for Real Estate Agents across the globe. Visit ElevatedREM.com for more information.