Instagram for Real Estate Agents 101: The Beginner’s Guide

Instagram is dominating the world of business on social media. Especially after changes were made to the Facebook business’s organic reach, Instagram is getting more and more exposure for companies seeking to market themselves online on social media. Thanks to its massive user base, various businesses are already making fortunes through its diverse features. Unfortunately, numerous Real Estate agents fail to set up a good profile on Instagram for Real Estate, let alone use it in the best way possible. Hence, we wrote this guide to help Real Estate agents new to the platform, get the hang of the basics and avoid common mistakes many make. Here is our Instagram for Real Estate agents 101 beginners guide.

Instagram for Real Estate Agents 101: Common Mistakes and Solutions

Here are some of the most common mistakes agents make on their Instagram account for Real Estate:

Bad Profile Photo

We start our list of common mistakes agents make on Instagram with this very obvious issue and that is where agents fail to have a decent profile photo. Trust me, we have seen unbelievably poor profile photos that fail every standard for a business account. As a Real Estate agent, you need to be a professional and the first thing your visitors will see is your profile photo.

How a cropped family photo is supposed to be professional? How would you expect your followers to take you as a pro when your profile photo is poor in quality and your face is barely recognizable? Wearing sunglasses, looking away from the camera, looking at your phone, using poor paint-level edits on your photo, etc are just a few samples of the mistakes agents make for their profile photos on Instagram. Please incent in a professional headshot ar at least follow Real Estate Agent headshot tips

Poor Bio

Oh well. This one is a real bummer. Poor bio, where agents fail to introduce themselves well to the visitor who stumbles on their account for the first time. It really won’t hurt to spend some time writing a decent bio for yourself that you can use on your website and take an excerpt for Instagram. It is a critical mistake to think of your Real Estate business page as causal as your personal account. See how the agent below has not even bothered to write a few words about themselves.

People need to know you. Tell them who you are in a few words and go beyond listing your achievements (top 1% etc,) only. Read our guide on how to write a Real Estate agent bio. If you are a new agent then read our guide for Real Estate bio for new agents.

No Brokerage Mentioned

The brokerage you work for adds to your credibility. As a matter of fact, it gives your audience a better understanding of who you are and the level at which you work. Agents naively ignore or forget to put their brokerage info on their Instagram profile and instead focus on titles such as “luxury agent”, etc which barely add any value.

Personal Account / Too Much Personal Content on a Business Account

Unlike Facebook where the business version does terrible in terms of organic reach, Instagram business does not force users to use personal accounts for their business. Therefore, It is not recommended to post about your business where you post daily personal content. This will look like you do not take your business seriously and do it as a side project casually. Create a separate business Instagram page for your Real Estate business and commit to it. Look at the account below where there is one Real Estate related content among many personal posts.

Merging Businesses / Irrelevant Content

Sometimes Real Estate agents handle other businesses alongside Real Estate and use their Instagram account for both of those services. The result is a combination of posts related to different topics which are usually heavily imbalanced. Such practice results in visitor confusion. On the other hand, people who follow you for Real Estate may not be interested in other services you provide, and you kind of force them to see other content as well which many find annoying. Do not merge accounts and keep them separated. See how the agent below posts about Real Estate and another business in the same account.

Infrequent Content

Posting infrequently is another bad mistake that agents make. Some log in and post 10 pieces of content just vanish for two months. People on social media are quite picky about who they follow. They are just as quick to unfollow inactive pages as they are when following new pages. If you go silent for a couple of days you can expect to see a plunge in the number of people who follow your page. The agent below has not posted anything in almost two month. Make sure you always have a plan for the content you are going to share on social media and if you are too busy you can use a Real Estate social media automation system.

Poor Quality Content

This can be labeled the most important mistake agents make on social media. The key to success on social media is to provide VALUABLE content that helps your audience in some way. If not why people should waste time following you? All agents need to ask this question before posting anything on social media: “Is this content going to help my audience?” if the answer is no they should reconsider. Most agents share content that only themselves find interesting. Remeber, it is not about you and what you like. It is about what your audience expects to see on your page. Running out of ideas? Have no time? You can use roomvu’s ready-made, easy-to-share Real Estate content on your social media.

Few Posts

This one is also found on many Real Estate accounts where the agent has posted a few pieces of content either as posts or stories then has left the account untouched. When people visit your account and see the number 17 for post count they will by no means consider your page to be serious. A low number of posts and story highlights suggest that the page is abandoned or has little to no value to offer. Make sure you supply your page with a steady flow of content on a daily basis.

Broken/No Website Links

Broken or lack of website links for Real Estate is one of the most annoying mistakes that can be found on Instagram. How people are supposed to find more information about you? By Googling you? No thanks. Almost all visitors will not bother to go that long to find more info about you.

Sometimes the link agents provide for their website does not work. Either because their domain is expired or the server is down. All these issues will hurt your credibility as a pro agent.

No Farming Area

People look for all sorts of info on Instagram. In fact:

That means half of Gen Z and many others will use Instagram’s search feature to find an agent in their area. They will enter keywords like Chicago Realtor and go through the results. However, if you fail to mention your area or the word “REALTOR” or “Agent” on your profile you will not be featured in the results. You can not take the platform for granted. You should make sure you have taken care of all the minute details available to use. Mention you are a Realtor and say where you cover.

Being Too Informal

People like to work with professionals. They look for signs of professionalism in the agents they see on social media as well. However, sometimes agents take things casually and treat their business casually as well. Although a little informality wont hurt anyone, too much of it can be quite damaging to your business. Avoid going with nicknames on your social media or posting too much fun content or photos. Keep it pro and people will trust you easier. Look how Denise Mai keeps her page proper for business.

Lack of Contact Details

Another common mistake found frequently on agents’ IG account is that they fail to provide contact information on their account. How are people supposed to contact you in case they decide to work with you? You might think that you have IG messaging available and that should od it. However, it is easy to miss IG messages. ALways provide other channels like your website, email, and phone number so that people can get in touch easily.

Not Attending to Messages and Comments

People want to be seen. They want to be cared for. One of the ways you can show your audience you care for them is answering to their comments and messages on Instagram. When people send you a message on IG or leave a comment make sure you reply as soon as possible, even if the message is not about working with you. Comments as minor as a smiley need to be replied to. Ignoring messages and comments will make your audience think that the agent is not in charge of the account or they do not care enough to reply. Either way, that is a bad sign for people looking for an agent. You can use Meta Business Suite to easily handle messages and comments you get on Instagram.

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No Branding

Branding is what helps people recognize you across different channels or platforms. You business has an identity which shows itself through your branding. If you are not sure about your branding, take care of it as soon as possible using the help of a marketing pro. then make sure your branding is easily recognizable on your content on Instagram. The idea is to make your audience familiar with your brand, increase awareness, etc. This will in return result in trust and confidence in working with you. See how the following agent uses its brand color, logo, etc on his content.