Post Photo-Quality Content

Instagram is about posting informative and relatable content much like facebook, but in a photo-quality way. People like doing business with other people whose style of which they can relate. Every post does not need to ask for business. Your main post feed should be your best of content much like a portfolio. Use editing apps to make your photos or videos appear better, especially with lighting. Study the overall look of your feed and how it looks as a whole when someone first views it. Instagram Stories is more for posting your daily experiences and a place to have more fun with your posts. Stories posts go away after 24 hours. Since my Instagram and Facebook are linked, any Story or Post I put on Instagram will automatically post to Facebook, too.

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Tag Others in Your Posts

Tag friends, colleagues and team members that will most likely engage you in your posts. Consider tagging Influencers with much larger audiences than you in your posts. If an Influencer responds, your post reach could greatly increase.

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Grow Your Followers

Once you get around at least 2000 followers, you are considered an Influencer. Businesses will reach out to you to send products to review and keep. They will also pay influencers with at least 10k followers for shout-outs and ads. Influencers with over 10,000 followers also have the ability to add links to their Instagram Stories, such as “Swipe Up,” which would be great for linking your real estate listing details there. As for actually growing your followers, engagement is the best way to do this. Search for a hashtag for a specific area or with certain real estate words and then follow and engage those accounts. Often, they will follow you back and engage as well. It is important to note that your account will be shown to more accounts if your follower’s accounts are in related fields of study or work as yours. Random followers that do not relate business-wise to you can sometimes hinder your growth. Know that growing your account can be a time-consuming task. If preferred, you can outsource this work to a virtual assistant. Lastly, always respond to comments. The sooner you can do this, the better as it helps with Instagram showing your posts to more accounts. 
 

Have a Business Profile

Create a public business profile because people need to see your profile and posts. A business profile allows you the ability to add a link to your bio and contact you easily from your profile. I use the linktree.com site that allows multiple website links in one spot. 

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Keep A Consistent Posting Schedule

It is important to have a consistent posting schedule with your business page with at least 3-4 posts per week, but preferably 1-3 times per day. If you plan and schedule your content a month at a time, it becomes much more manageable. You can use the free Facebook Creator Studio or other apps, such as Later.com. Another plus is that if your Facebook and Instagram accounts are linked, your posts to each can post simultaneously. I personally use Later.com because it also will post to Twitter simultaneously as well.

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Use Relevant Hashtags

Research relevant hashtags and use them strategically in your comments area of your posts. 30 is the maximum amount of hashtags that Instagram will allow you to use on a single post. I add my hashtags in the comment section because the more comments your post gets, the more Instagram will show it to others. Also, do not add irrelevant hashtags to posts to try to gain more followers. Instagram will show your posts to less accounts if your hashtags do not match well to your posted photo or video.
 

Create an Informative, Concise Bio

Include your first and last name in your bio if your profile name does not show it. It is important to show your brokerage name as well. Create a Call To Action that will also direct potential clients where you want them to go. I also include a link to my linktree site that enables others to view my informative, multiple links and website. Since Instagram limits the number of characters you can use for your bio, my “Call To Action” is a simple directional arrow emoji symbol that points to my linktree link. (This arrow works great for TikTok as well for the same reason.)

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Analyze Instagram Insights

Instagram Insights allows you to see how many people your posts are reaching and how many people are engaging your posts. Use this to learn which types of posts work well for your business.

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Additional Info:

If you follow, unfollow or like too many accounts in one day, Instagram thinks you are spamming the system with a bot and could block or ban your account for a time.

 

• Instagram only allows you to follow 7500 accounts at any given time. You will need to remove accounts that have not chosen to follow you back or engage your posts. You can download an app that will let you track people that haven’t followed you back. Some are free or cost little per month.

• Don’t Pay For Followers - There are many companies out there that will sell you fake followers, which will never engage your posts. Instagram will penalize your account for this and limit the real accounts it shows your future posts to.

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See Facebook and LinkedIn​ links under the Agent Resources tab for more tips.