Social media has become a sure bet when it comes to real estate marketing. Platforms like Facebook and visual social sites like Instagram help Realtors® find homebuyers faster compared to conventional adverts on magazines and newspapers. Successful real estate agents like Fredrik Eklund use Instagram to market real estate listings. However, before you jump into Instagram Real estate marketing, you need to understand some basic factors.
First, it is all about the number of followers on Instagram, to ensure a fast property selling strategy. You will barely receive an expression of interest if you do not have a relevant and sizeable following. Look at Realtors® like Ryan Serhant and Josh Altman who have over half a million followers. Although they will most likely not mention it, it is a fact that Instagram has been instrumental in growing their sales numbers. The secret is that they not only have a huge Instagram following, they also focus on ensuring a majority of their followers have some interest in real estate business.
Thus, the question, how do you grow your Instagram following fast? In this post, I shall take you through effective approaches to growing Instagram following in 2019. Scroll further down, and learn how real estate agents can achieve relevant Instagram following.
- The “Follow you, follow me” strategy
Commonly referred to as “follow4follow” strategy, this has been one of the approaches Realtors® use to grow the Instagram following. By nature, people will look at their “who recently followed notification”, as soon as the notification is sent. Most likely, the person will follow back, after reading the notification. However, to ensure it is a relevant follow, you need to evaluate the person’s interest before following them.
In that regard, you might want to check relevant hashtags to find out who to follow. Ensure you follow those who are receiving a high number of likes and comments when they post using the relevant hashtag. So, how do you do this? Here is a simple illustration.
Step1. Check posts on #realestate or other relevant hashtag.
Step2. Identify a post that attracted many likes and comments.
Step3. Follow the person who sent the post,
Step4. They will most likely follow you back.
That is a simple illustration of how “follow4follow” strategy works. To ensure relevance, you might want to take a more narrowed approach. For instance, check for area hashtags to find followers within the city you are doing business in. On the other hand, you might choose the luxury apartments hashtag to ensure you find an audience of people interested in luxurious apartments. The bottom line is that you want to grow a relevant following. Also note, large influencers are not likely to follow you as they have a cap of how many follows they can have (cap is 7500). However, following large influencers means you will see their posts in which other micro influencers or other relevant industry players are engaging – and those accounts are good to implement the “follow4follow” strategy.
- unfollow people when they unfollow you
Now, on the flipside, we need to unfollow for every unfollow received. Remember that the idea is ensuring a relevant audience. in that regard, when a person unfollows you, it is an indication they are no longer interested in whatever you post, or they only followed you to get a follower. Thus, it is logical to unfollowing such persons, unless you are getting some other value from their posts. You can use apps that automatically unfollow someone who unfollows you. Good examples include, Mass unfollow for Instagram, Unfollow gram, unfollowers for Instagram, turbo unfollow for Instagram, unfollow for Instagram tracker, unfollow users, and several other applications. Download a relevant application and you can set it to unfollow people who unfollow you.
- Hire Instagram Manager
Opening a Real Estate Instagram account is an easy thing to do. However, managing the account is much more involving and requires a dedicated resource. Thus, you will want to ensure you have someone who manages your Instagram account on your behalf. You can hire a social media account manager on Fiverr or Upwork. This will cost you, and to manage the expenses on this account you might want to negotiate an hourly contract. The average cost depends on experience and might range between $20/hr to $60/hr, or even more. It all depends on the experience and level of skill. You might also find the option of hiring on a recurring monthly basis, in which you negotiate a cost for a certain amount of posts and story posts in the period.
- Post Frequently and Ensure Relevant Content
To grow your Real Estate Instagram account, it is advisable that you post regularly. Daily or nearly daily posting of 2-3 posts including a story post is optimal. Moreover, it is all about relevant posts. Confirm what interests your audience have and make sure you feed them with relevant information. It does not have to be just new listings – it could be an informative post or reposting other content (keeping in mind copyright law) or using eye-catching images to engage the audience. Also part of managing an Instagram account is replying to any engagement you receive on the post, promptly and with some thought.
- Make use of Instagram tools
Instagram upgrades its features from time to time. Check for new features and learn how to use these features to grow a relevant audience. For instance, Instagram stories offer an amazing way for growing Instagram following. Check out this article on how to use Instagram stories to attract new leads.
Those are the leading approaches for growing your Instagram following. You can follow us on Instagram, and we will follow you back @PrimoAgentsRealEstateReferrals
If you are an educated, experienced REALTOR® that uses social media in your business, you should apply to join the PrimoAgents REALTOR® Referral Network. You will be given an exclusive area to represent and the opportunity to increase leads and referrals. Click here to apply now. There is no cost to sign up, we only take a 5% referral fee on completed deals.
Here is a link to the Author David Gitonga’s Professional Bio.