The 7 Step Instagram Plan for REALTORS® that Leads to Closings
This post originally aired as a podcast!
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Working with more home buyers and sellers thanks to Instagram is entirely possible. In fact, Instagram is my preferred social platform to build a brand as an agent and develop relationships that lead to closings.
And I know that many agents see the opportunity as well and are eager to start seeing results from their efforts. So, they dive right into posting on Instagram and creating content.
The challenge then becomes not only being consistent but most importantly, successful. But simply posting on Instagram isn't guaranteed to get you there.
It's one thing to post on Instagram. It's another thing entirely to have a strategy that works to fuel your sales pipeline. Instead, I recommend a personalized approach to Instagram built on seven key steps designed to work for you, in your market, and to attract your dream customers.
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One of the biggest mistakes I see agents make with their real estate marketing is completing tasks and trying new ideas as individual efforts. For example, you want to generate business from Instagram, so you create a post and share it. Maybe you take it one step further and schedule an entire month of posts so you're showing up on the platform consistently. It might not seem intuitive to you, but posting on Instagram is just one piece of a puzzle. All of the marketing actions you take don't live in a vacuum. They are part of your overall strategy which should be harmonious and work towards an end goal.
This concept is especially true when it comes to Instagram.
If you've ever felt like you're not seeing the results you're looking for or it's taking you more time than it's worth, you're probably missing an overarching strategy that guides your efforts.
For Instagram marketing to truly work for your real estate business with less stress and more results, you need a well-thought-out plan that you can follow. Then, once you have your personalized plan in place, you can start leveraging features of Instagram like Reels and posting content that works to engage your next customer.
Because your strategy should guide everything you do on Instagram - that way, you are maximizing your time and marketing to have the biggest impact.
So, in today's episode & blog, I'm sharing the exact seven steps to creating a personalized Instagram plan that will work for your business - not a plan that works for an agent down the street or across the country - a plan that will empower you!
Step 1: Setting Yourself Up for Success
To achieve success from Instagram, you have to begin by positioning yourself for success. But I'm talking much more than the mindset, "results go where energy flows." I want you to take proactive steps to ensure that you get results from Instagram marketing, and your first step begins by defining success.
Defining Success
How can you achieve success from a marketing effort if you first don't define what success looks like? So, before you begin marketing on Instagram as a REALTOR®, it's important that you take time to create a realistic goal of what success means to you. While general goals such as working with more buyers or sellers might be initially motivating, they are not trackable. Take the time to ask yourself what would not only be worth your time, but also lead to a significant impact or advantage in your business. Once you have a goal we can work towards you can start building the strategy to accomplish it.
Leverage Target Marketing
It's nearly impossible to effectively market to everybody and anybody, especially on Instagram. There are millions of accounts people could be following. What makes them want to follow you as their trusted real estate advisor?
To stand out from the noise, I highly recommend you implement a target marketing strategy. This is where you clearly define who your ideal customer is so you can create content and posts, and engage on the platform in a way that's going to work to attract more home buyers and sellers to you.
Purposeful Account Setup
After you've identified who you are most interested in attracting, you can optimize your profile to increase the likelihood of people finding you on Instagram. You can do this by writing a strategic Instagram bio, choosing the right type of Instagram account, and embracing Instagram SEO.
Step 2: Branding Yourself to Attract Your Dream Customer
After you know WHO you will be attracting on Instagram, then you can lean into branding yourself as the go-to local agent on the platform. After all, we want people to want to remember you and want to work with you. That's why it's so important to establish a branding strategy from the beginning of your plan.
Embracing Modern Branding
Your branding strategy begins by embracing the concept of modern agent branding and recognizing that as an individual agent, you are a personal brand. If you're a team or brokerage, you're also a brand made up of people. So, to portray your brand image, you need to incorporate the mindset that branding extends beyond colors and logos - it's how you portray yourselves to the world and form connections.
Discovering Your Agent Brand
To help you develop your branding approach, we first look at what makes you unique, the advantages you have, and what you want to be known for. Whether you're a brand new agent or an experienced one, take the time to complete a branding discovery session. This is where you'll pinpoint key aspects of yourself and also give yourself the opportunity to determine how and what you want to be known for. This is both a practical and aspirational process.
Connecting with Your Ideal Customers
The next integral aspect of your branding is analyzing your ideal customers. What are they like as individuals? What are their wants, needs, struggles, concerns, and preferences? Knowing who they are and how you can relate to them is key to creating content and strategic posts that work to generate business for you.
Creating Instagram Branding Guidelines
After you've taken the time to establish who you are, who your customer is, and how you can connect, then you can develop branding guidelines. Instagram is a visual platform whether you are looking at the overall aesthetic of your feed, each individual post, and even the way you create videos and Instagram reels. It's incredibly useful to set guidelines for how you want to look on the platform. Now, the look can vary from incredibly purposeful and cohesive to more organic. So, consider everything from images to colors to overall aesthetic and document it in a branding guideline.
Step 3: Figure Out What to Post to Grow Your Business
One of the top reasons agents don't get results from social is that the content they share is not strategic or engaging enough. Don't let this happen to you! There's a formula that can guide you to know exactly what to post and why.
Create Content Pillars
The formula I recommend and teach is based on the concept of content pillars. Content pillars are basically overarching topics that guide your posts. If you have a small number of content pillars, you can schedule a content pillar for each day of the week, and your posts will naturally flow from there. These content pillars should also be designed with your ideal customer in mind.
Establish Posts for Your Pillars
After you've determined what your content pillars are, move into post ideas. As a starting place, I'd recommend coming up with 2-5 posts for each of your content pillars. This will not only provide you with future content, it's also an easy way to determine if your strategy is coming together and makes sense to achieve your goals. Remember, the posts you create and share should be designed to engage the ideal customer you've already identified.
Step 4: Learn to Create Strategic, Engaging Posts
Once you know what you will be posting, you can work on optimizing and maximizing all of your individual posts. Over time, each of these posts will build on each other to create the momentum you're looking for with your Instagram marketing.
Capture Attention with Visuals
The first thing people will notice when you share a post on Instagram is the visual itself, which can be an image post, carousel, video, graphic, Reel, or even an Instagram Story. The more appealing this is, the more likely your potential buyer or seller will stop their scroll and pay attention to what you're posting. So, make sure you're either creating content that pops or leveraging resources like my Business Boosting Social Kit that's already designed to make you stand out.
Craft Compelling Captions
Once you have their attention, keep it going with a compelling caption that further develops your relationship with the post viewer or promotes a call-to-action. I like to think of captions as having a beginning, middle, and end. Be sure to hook people right away in the beginning. Use the middle to prove your point, provide more info, or get them even more interested. Finally, use the end to tie everything up or as an opportunity for engagement. Don't skip out on a well-thought-out caption, because captions are an opportunity for connection!
Optimize Each Post
Just like your profile, each post can be optimized as well. So, don't miss out on all of the smaller features you have within Instagram that make an impact, like geotagging and even keywords. Instagram wants users to spend as much time on the platform as possible, and to do so, the algorithms work to connect like users and related content together. Give Instagram all the cues you can about your content and who it's meant for.
Step 5: Curate Personal Branding Photos with Confidence
On Instagram, people want to follow people and brands that they can connect with personally. So, whether you're an individual real estate agent, a team, or a brokerage, it's important to show off the human side of your brand through the use of personal branding photos.
Now, what makes personal branding photos different than your average selfie, is that they are purposefully created to highlight your unique brand while giving people the chance to get to know you. They're a way to not only build connections but also to grow your personal brand as more people see you on Instagram time and time again. If you want to see an example of them in use and how many different ways you can leverage branding images, check out my Instagram - @IdeasforRealEstate.
Show Up with Confidence
The first place to begin is by showing up with confidence. While it might feel unnatural to have photos taken of yourself, boost your confidence by thinking about how much these images can help your business and enable you to connect with more customers who could benefit from your services. It all starts with the right mindset!
Plan Your Photoshoots for Consistency
Next, actively schedule time in your calendar to take these photos. It might make sense to do them twice a year, quarterly, or even monthly depending on how much you use them. However, if you don't schedule them, you're making it very easy to not do them!
Decide to Go Pro or DIY
While you're planning your shoots, also determine if you'll work with a professional, take photos yourself, or do a mix of the two. I, personally, get professional brand photos taken regularly but also supplement my content with DIY photos. So, choose which path works for you and move forward! And as a bonus, these are images you can use across your marketing and not just on Instagram!
Step 6: Leverage Instagram's Trending Features
Propel your Instagram marketing strategy forward with the use of trending features! Now, trending features are the fun features of Instagram. They're what people enjoy engaging with, what the platform loves to promote, and what you should be doing as well.
Show Up on Stories
The first place to start is with Stories. Stories are a casual way to connect with more customers, share who you are as an agent, and create exciting opportunities for engagement. So, make it a practice to post regularly to Stories and create highlights. A tip for choosing highlights is to use the content pillars you determined earlier.
Share Videos with Purpose
And of course, do video! Share video! Embrace the power of video! Whether you are promoting a listing, your services, or developing your agent branding, video is key. Videos have been shown to increase conversion rates and foster relationships. So, consider including videos in your content mix to keep people interested and to further increase the effectiveness of your marketing.
Create Instagram Reels
And of all types of videos, Reels reign supreme on Instagram! It's incredible how a short video can make such a large impact on the platform. Reels can increase your reach, meaning more opportunities to connect with more customers, and are an excellent way to show off your personality.
If you've been hesitant to try Reels because you're worried about how you'll look or how to create them, don't be! You can lean into trends on Reels with music or you can create Reels just to promote your listings. You can also take advantage of done-for-you Reels in my Social Kit. Whatever approach you take, Reels are essential to modern agent marketing on Instagram.
Step 7: Create Your Personalized Instagram Marketing Plan
The key to long-term success isn't built on one-off wins. For sustainable results, you need to have a doable plan that you can follow into the future. So, round out your plan with an Instagram marketing plan designed specifically for you that includes all of the steps you've learned so far and is positioned for the future.
Be Strategic with Engagement
Part of that future plan is actively scheduling time for engagement. You'll only get out of Instagram what you put into it. So, it pays to engage with your followers and other users on the platform. If you want people to have conversations with you, comment, and reach out, you should be doing the same actions back. It might take some time, but it will boost your overall strategy and lead to genuine relationships.
Proactively Grow Your Following
Next, don't rely on people following you alone. If you want to connect with more home buyers and sellers, you need to connect with more people. This means cross-marketing your Instagram profile throughout your marketing and taking time to follow the people you know, including your sphere and active customers. While quality over quantity is more important when it comes to followers, I still encourage you to make connections with more people in a proactive way.
Create Your 30-Day Plan
Now, we get to the part that we've all been waiting for! You get to schedule your posts and create content. Taking into account all of the steps we've covered so far, create and schedule a month's worth of content. This will not only give you consistency, it's also a great way to test your new strategy. From there, you can make tweaks over time to see what works for you. Because I want your strategy to be effective and realistic so you can carry forward with it.
Move Forward with Best Practices
The best practices that we covered today should guide you as you move forward. From here, you can further refine your branding, identify more opportunities in the market, and create and share content designed to attract & engage more customers for you. I do encourage you to stay at it, as it may take some time to build the strategy you're looking for. So, stay consistent, stay motivated, and stay purposeful to generate the results you're looking for!
Now, I know that was a lot of information, and some of the concepts were high-level overviews, but I can assure you that the basics of this seven-part system will lead you to success on Instagram.
Taking Action on the 7 Steps with More Support & Guidance
In fact, each of these 7 key steps is so essential and proven to work that they form the basis of my complete Instagram course, IG Unlocked for Real Estate!
Inside the course, each of these 7 steps is transformed into a complete module with corresponding lessons. I dive deeper into the concepts and walk you through it all with engaging video trainings accompanied by purposeful action items. That way you not only have an understand of what and why, you also have the how with exact steps to implement all that you learn.
Because as much as I'd love to tell you exactly how to do it all in a podcast episode, it's just not possible! The course is much more comprehensive and has videos that show examples and PDF workbooks to support all you learn.
For example, in today's episode, I shared that Step 1 was Setting Yourself Up for Success and recommended that you set goals, leverage a target marketing strategy, and optimize your Instagram account. In IG Unlocked, I will show you exactly how to set achievable goals, how to identify a target market that will lead to sales, and all the tips and tricks to set-up your Instagram account to maximize results.
Step 2: Branding Yourself to Attract Your Dream Customer is Module 2 and a favorite of my past students. While you'll learn about strategy and positioning yourself for success, you'll also get to see everything that I'm talking about as branding on Instagram relies heavily on the visuals. So, you'll be able to see exactly what I'm talking about and create a branding strategy that empowers you to stand out in your market while being authentic to you.
In Module 3, you'll learn exactly what to post and why. So, if you've ever struggled with consistency, coming up with content, and most importantly, get results from what you post, this module is for you. I share my signature content pillar system that you can easily use to create engaging, strategic content that helps you attract more home buyers and sellers. Trust me, after almost a decade of social media marketing for real estate, I've figured out a winning formula that works to generate business.
I also mentioned that step 4 was "learning to create strategic, engaging posts." While "strategy" and "engagement" are often buzzwords, they can be difficult to put into practice. That's why in Module 4, I share my best tips and checklists so that your Instagram posts perform better and help you connect with more home buyers and sellers. You'll learn how to write captions that attract attention and get people talking, how to make your posts pop on Instagram, and how to take advantage of all the SEO and optimization options within Instagram that you might not be leveraging.
Step 5: Curate Personal Branding Photos with Confidence is also an entire Module because I believe so strongly in the power of branding images and I want to show you exactly how to implement these images into your Instagram strategy. So, you'll learn tips for confidence building, how to plan your shoots, choosing photographers, and how to work with with a PRO or take the DIY approach. Remember, you are the face of your brand, so it's important that you show up as yourself on Instagram in a way designed to move your business forward while building your brand.
Now, Module 6 is another favorite, because we're talking Trending Features such as video, Stories, and Reels! Whether you're a Reel expert or have never shared a Reel before, you'll walk away from this module with the "how-to" knowledge. I also share some of my best practices for creating video and content in a way that will work for you. I know that many Instagram courses start with Reels and videos now. What makes IG Unlocked different is that you'll learn to use these features in a way that works for your business and your goals. So, we'll leverage what's "trending" to enhance your overall strategy and not use what's "trending" to distract you from marketing that works!
Finally, Module 7 is Your Personalized Instagram Marketing Plan, this is what we've been building up to. Because my goal with IG Unlocked isn't that you just get a better understanding of Instagram, my goal is that you have a solid plan moving forward that works to help you reach your goals. So, in this final module, you'll put everything that you've learned so far together to create your exact 30-day plan. You'll also learn how to proactively engage and start conversations using my 3R Approach to Engagement and what best practices you should follow to continue seeing success. By the end of this final Module you'll know exactly what to do to get results from Instagram that works for you.
Now, I know that it seems like a lot of info, but I promise you that I keep the lessons as impactful as possible. And if you like the podcast, then I know you'll love my step-by-step approach inside IG Unlocked. Plus, if you have any questions along the way, I have a special support bonus where you can access myself and my team if you ever get stuck or are looking for extra guidance.
And while direct support can be invaluable, IG Unlocked also comes with my 30-Day Social Bundle Pack designed exclusively for the course. Inside you'll find read-to-share Instagram posts and content that follow the principles you learn in IG Unlocked and all of the content is broken down using my signature content pillars. So, you can take these posts and work them into your personalized Instagram strategy.
Now, the doors to IG Unlocked are officially open! If you'd like the exact framework to successful Instagram marketing for REALTORS®, then I encourage you to join! Head to IGUnlocked.com to learn more (or check the link in the show description).
I can't wait to be by your side in the course and see all that you can achieve in your business thanks to an Instagram marketing plan that is meant for you! I'll see you over at IGUnlocked.com!
⬇️ P.S. See what other agents are saying about IG Unlocked ⬇️
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UP NEXT:
It's time for seasonal marketing! Fall-themed real estate content and marketing on social media is not only trending, it also works in your Instagram Reels, posts, carousels, and more. The secret is to customize this content with photos and videos of you. So, in today's episode, let's plan an easy fall content shoot for you as a REALTOR to use in your marketing strategies this season!