This highly engaging Instagram feature may be the key to building your real estate empire 

What are Instagram Stories? 

Instagram, the image sharing social platform with over 200 million active users, created their Stories feature a few years ago. The premise was to have a tool within the app that is similar enough to Snapchat. Users can share posts, images, videos, and more on Instagram Stories. Users can also create polls, quizzes and allow viewers to ask questions. 

The great thing about Instagram Stories is that they are automatically featured at the top of a user’s homepage. The poster can expect their story to generate more exposure than a post in this case.  

While the stories feature can be fun, it can also be a powerful tool for businesses. Companies that sell products will post professional images of their merchandise as well as video testimonials, and more. 

Large retail companies aren’t the only ones benefiting from promoting (organic and paid) on Instagram Stories. Real estate agents joined in on the interactive marketing strategy to promote their brand and their listing properties. 

How it can help with real estate

There are a number of ways real estate agents can use Instagram Stories to leverage their business. Some real estate agents said that sharing their listing on IG Stories helped them with their lead generation efforts. Other real estate agents have actually sold their listing to an interested home buyer through the Instagram Stories tool. 

To learn the ins and outs of using Instagram Stories, check out this article. 

9 tips for using Instagram Stories as a real estate agent: 

1. Post a house tour of your listing

As soon as you publish your listing on your local MLS, go ahead and post your professional real estate images onto your IG Story. You will have the option to add your saved images as a story post. 

You can also create an image collage in the Instagram Layout app. This way, you can highlight multiple listing images on one post. We suggest adding multiple posts of a listing to your story in order to keep users engaged with your content. 

Your listing tour can include location, mentions, and more. We will discuss that in detail below. 

2. Add the location of your listing or farm area

When promoting a listing on Instagram Stories, make sure to add the listing’s location. You can do this by selecting the sticker icon on the toolbar and then selecting location. Here, you will type in your listing’s city and state. 

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Adding a location will gain exposure for your listing in that city. Similar to Snapchat, a story post with a location has the chance of ending up on the location’s story thread. 

3. Add location-specific hashtag

Similar to adding your location as a sticker, you can create a location-specific hashtag. Creating a good hashtag may seem tough, but think about what home buyers in your area would search for on Instagram. Here are some that are worth a try: 

#openhouse(cityname)

#newhome(cityname)

#houseforsale(cityname)

#newbuild(cityname)

#newlisting(cityname)

4. Mention your vendors

It’s always a good idea to encourage cross-promotions on your Instagram Story feed. When you post real estate images of a listing, try tagging the real estate photographer, the staging company, the construction company, and so on. 

It is likely that the vendor you tagged will repost the story to their own feed, giving you double the exposure. 

5. Use relevant stickers and gifs

Show some personality and flair by incorporating fun stickers or gifs on your story post. If you’re having an open house and want to show excitement, type in “excited” on the search tab and see what comes up. You can select the gif or sticker you want and adjust the size of it on your post. 

If stickers and gifs aren’t on brand with your business, it may be better to leave them out. 

6. Post a walk-through video of the listing

Instagram users love behind-the-scenes videos. It allows them to have an exclusive (as IG stories are only up for 24/hrs) look at your day-to-day life or your listing. And besides, who doesn’t love a good walk-through home tour? 

7. Create a highlight for the listing

Until your listing sells, you should consider adding any IG Story pertaining to the listing as a Highlight. This means any story post about the listing can be grouped into one highlight reel. It is located on your IG page for users to explore whenever they want. 

8. Tag local realtors who are buyers’ agents

Whoever you decide to tag in a story will receive a notification that you added them to a story post. This is an effective way to grab the attention of buyers’ agents. Tagged agents can easily share your listing post with their clients through Instagram. 

9. Promote your Instagram post as a story

Lastly, you can bring attention to a post by sharing the post onto your story. This is different than uploading an image to your Instagram Story. 

To share a post to your story:

1. Post an image on your Instagram
2. Go to the post once it’s published
3. Click on the paper airplane (share button)
4. Select “Add post to your story”
5. Add a sticker that says “tap here” or “new post” so viewers know to click on the image to go to the post

Other ways to use Instagram as a real estate agent

Instagram is a social platform that rewards those that use all of their features. While posting an image is a solid first step, you’ll need to also engage with other users, share stories, post on IGTV, create highlights, and more. 

If you want to learn more about social media marketing, check out this article.