16 Tips to Use Instagram for Real Estate Agent Lead Generation (2024)

Using Instagram for real estate is a great tool for agents to market their services and property listings, and stay top-of-mind of potential clients. To start generating leads from Instagram, real estate agents should start by creating a memorable username. They can also pick interesting hobbies to share, make Reels, or use strategic hashtags to build and grow their brand. Although it can be challenging, real estate marketing with Instagram is an effective way to attract real estate leads. This article will help you learn how to use Instagram for real estate by offering 16 Instagram tips for real estate agents, plus examples of agent Instagrams (Instas).

1. Create a Memorable Username

When you first sign up to use Instagram, you will be asked to give your name and select a username. Your username is what people will see when they look at your Instagram page or search for you. When selecting your realtor Instagram name and username, there are a few unique considerations to make:

• Don’t include a brokerage name—Instagram works best for building a personal, professional brand.
• Keep it simple by using easy-to-spell and real estate-related words to make it easy for users to remember and search.
• Utilize every line to associate yourself with real estate; you can do this with a well-placed pun or simply by inserting real estate-specific words.
• Choose a real estate Instagram name and username that you won’t have to change in the future, even if other things change (like your brokerage, location, or title).
• Make the most of the number of characters in your name and bio that Instagram allows.
• Include your name, title, or location to differentiate yourself from all the other “real estate agents” they see online.

What makes these Instagram username examples good is their relevance to the real estate industry and their enduring, versatile nature. They remain timeless, requiring no alterations in the future. Moreover, they effectively convey to your audience what you specialize in and the valuable services you can provide. The examples on the right fall short due to their potential to convey unprofessionalism and a lack of personalization. This can undermine your credibility as a trustworthy real estate agent.

2. Optimize Your Instagram Bio to Generate Leads

A real estate Instagram bio should immediately set you apart from all the other real estate agents in your area. While there is little space to include your bio, it should convey what makes you unique to generate real estate leads.

Here is some information you should include in your bio to optimize your real estate account:

• Description: Let people know what you do. Simply put, “Realtor” or “Real Estate Agent/Broker” is an excellent Instagram name to describe your field of expertise.
• Location: Be specific about what area you serve. Adding “LA Realtor” or “NY Real Estate Agent” is enough to meet both description and location in a few characters.
• Value proposition: Describe your value proposition and mission as a realtor. For instance, phrases like “Buy with Confidence, Sell with Success!” or “Real Estate That Does More” inform visitors about the value of your services.
• Personality: Show some personality and include your hobbies other than real estate. These will help clients relate to you as a person. Examples below include “Dog Mom” and “Fitness Enthusiast.”
• Brand hashtag: If your real estate firm has a brand or a campaign slogan, consider making it a hashtag and including it in your bio and posts.
• Call to action (CTA): Include the next step for your potential clients. Typically, this is accomplished by clicking on your link. The example above includes “Resources for Buyers, Sellers, and Agents,” which points to the link. You can also add a custom call-to-action button.
• Link: This is a separate link from your CTA. It is a single landing page or website link to send your curious visitors. Use Linktree, a single page where you can create tailored calls to action to generate more leads and differentiate buyers and sellers.

3. Choose a Profile Photo That Fits Your Brand

When browsing Instagram, your followers will only see your name and profile picture until they click over to see your complete profile. Hence, use a professional real estate headshot, a logo, or an image with personality. Ensure your photo is bright and clear, and avoid small text or busy backgrounds. Instagram profile photos can’t be enlarged, so followers should be able to easily see your face or logo without straining. Maintain brand recognition by using the same headshot across all your marketing materials and other online platforms.

4. Invite Your Friends & Family to Follow You

Give your professional Instagram account a boost by announcing your new page to your sphere of influence (SOI)—a way to grow your real estate business on Instagram. In real estate, your SOI includes everyone personally or professionally in your network. Invite friends and family to follow you. Announce your other social networking sites and link to some of the images and videos you’ll showcase on Instagram to get your audience involved across platforms.

Keeping your SOI growing and nurturing is critical because they are one of the most important sources of leads for your real estate business. To be successful in real estate, you must have a large number of social connections, and those connections cannot be shallow. Quality and quantity are crucial, so work hard to expand your SOI while maintaining the relationships you’ve already built by hosting client events, sending mailers, and communicating with them regularly.

5. Stay on Brand (Not Necessarily on Topic)

The ideal real estate content for Instagram is a combination of personality and product. Do you have incredible homes you are listing? Post the listing photos, virtual tours, and who you sell to. Do you have a dog you love that tends to get in trouble around the house? Post that too.

Keep the primary focus on real estate by posting about homes for sale, homes sold, open houses, events in town, and new restaurants or charity events. However, people come to your page to see if you are someone they’d want to work with, not just to see listings. Ryan Serhant, a well-known real estate agent and broker-owner, likes to have fun, which is everywhere on his Instagram. Look at the photo above. Doesn’t it seem like it would be fun to look for real estate with that guy?

6. Steer Clear of Sensitive Topics

Although you should be authentic in your messaging and Instagram real estate marketing, you may also need to censor your typical conversation on public forums. As you’re working to craft an accurate image of your real estate agent expertise, avoid discussing politics and religion when you can. The perfect way to post real estate on Instagram is to have fun and post about things that can’t offend people who might be thinking about working with you.

On Instagram, you should be the person who is above the noise and seems approachable to your ideal clients. Clients come from all backgrounds, religions, and political views, so you want them to feel comfortable contacting you. If you decide to have a personal Instagram account separate from your professional one and address politics or other controversial matters, set that account to “private” so it is only viewable to those you invite into your circle.

7. Use Instagram Stories to Build Engagement & Connection

Using Instagram Stories for real estate agents allows you to position yourself outside of the traditional scrolling feed of your followers—at the very top of their phone screens. You can also open and swipe on your Story to see who viewed it to analyze your effectiveness. Plus, since Stories disappear after 24 hours (unless you save them in a highlight), the sense of urgency helps to attract those on Instagram to watch your videos since they cannot see them again.

What do real estate agents post to their Instagram Stories? They may include polls, like “Is anyone else as obsessed with this indoor pool as I am?” and “Neutral colored interior or Dull colored interior?” or special behind-the-scenes footage of property listings to promote the properties in a creative and fun way.

Instagram Stories are one of the best ways to create engagement and build your audience because of their extensive tools, like layout, question/quiz stickers, poll, filters, and additional tools like Music and Location stickers.

8. Save Instagram Story Highlights as Resources

Another great way to use Instagram for real estate agents is to use Story Highlights to transform your Instagram profile into a resource for buyers and sellers. To save or download Instagram Story highlights, open your Instagram and click your profile icon. Then, click the highlight cover image to play it, tap the seen by count on the highlight you want to download, and click the download button.

For example, real estate agent Heavenly Pilioglas posts a group of pictures and videos to her Story, explaining concepts like earnest money deposits, disclosures, loans, and buyer tips. This social media marketing strategy enables you to gain trust and followers without having to post completely new content every 24 hours.

9. Consistently Post High-quality Photos

Your real estate Instagram posts should stop scrolling thumbs. The best Instagram tip for real estate agents to capture audience attention is consistently posting beautiful, clear, appealing photos. For Instagram growth in real estate, in particular, post images of happy customers, lovely homes, neighborhood events, and even photos that showcase the perks of living in your area and working with you.

Instagram offers several built-in filters that can help make your images pop. Still, if you want to add other elements that can reinforce your brands, like a watermark or critical information about a listing, you should check out photo editing tools like Canva. Canva is free and provides hundreds of stock images and templates for posts and Stories.

Visit Canva

10. Write Strategic Captions

Even though a photo communicates beautiful messages to your audience, the caption is an essential piece of the puzzle. Instagram allows you to post 2,200 characters in length as a caption, and the ideal length is between 138 and 150 characters.

Example of a great real estate caption (Source: Instagram)

Keep your captions engaging when simply listing or showing off your sales (for example, “High-quality construction materials used,” “Make wise and healthy land investments,” and “Trusted by people who love land investments”). You can even use real estate memes to add more of your humor and personality to posts and captions.

11. Use Instagram Feed Video to Attract Followers

There are multiple ways to upload videos onto your Instagram. And one of them is through Instagram feed video, formerly known as IGTV, for one-minute to one-hour-long videos. This is a perfect way to give tips or showcase walk-through property videos, elements about the neighborhood, local events, and interviews to attract new followers. Videos frequently receive more views and engagement than static images, so using this real estate marketing idea is essential.

You don’t have to be a professional video editor to leverage this valuable Instagram strategy. It’s easy to edit and enhance your videos using REDX’s Brand Builder. REDX Brand Builder is a “done-with-you” social media content creation platform designed to help you convert leads from your database through Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. In addition, REDX will convert your raw video into premium content by adding captions, emojis, and stickers. Copywriters will also craft a caption that matches your brand, voice, and message.

Visit REDX

12. Drive Traffic With Instagram Reels

Instagram Reels have quickly become one of the most effective ways to increase views and engagement on your content. Reels are a video format that can last up to 90 seconds, with the ability to include full captions and up to 30 hashtags. Unlike Stories, which are only visible for up to 24 hours, your real estate Reels will remain visible until you delete them, resulting in a wider audience reach and more leads. Additionally, Reels now have their own feed, increasing your chances of being discovered by users who scroll through them.

To create the best real estate Reels, consider using trending sounds. These are audio clips, such as popular songs or funny sound bites, that can add personality and humor to your profile—increasing engagement. Create engaging real estate Reels on Instagram by trimming property videos and stitching images together using Instagram’s built-in video editing tools. However, you can also choose to upload a video directly.

13. Go Live on Instagram to Increase Engagement

If you are looking for other realtor Instagram ideas, consider exploring the Instagram Live Video feature. Instagram has more than 500 million monthly users, with 70% of users watching Instagram Stories daily. Video is well-suited to real estate, so give your audience something extraordinary to view, like hosting a live Q&A session or quick tutorial.

Using Instagram Live Video connects you to your followers in real time. Plus, Instagram will notify all your followers when they are in the app. You can leave comments for your followers to discuss what you’re sharing or turn comments off, but it is a captivating way to schedule a “live session” of any sort.

14. Increase Your Reach With Strategic Hashtags

Hashtags on Instagram create searchability and help your posts attract new visitors. Research hashtags before publishing a post to your feed. Hashtags help you target the audience you want to see your posts, gain new followers, and interact with possible leads. While Instagram allows you to use up to 30 hashtags, it’s a good rule of thumb to keep it to around 10 because too many hashtags will make your post look spammy and drown the message.

Here are five effective real estate hashtag categories and a few examples:

• Hashtags for location: #brooklyn, #oklahomacity, #dallastexas
• Hashtags for newly sold or just listed: #justsold, #justlisted
• Hashtags your brokerage: #agentsofcompass, #kellerwilliams
• Hashtags for active buyers: #openhouse, #househunting
• Hashtags great local amenities: #[restaurant], #[coffeeshop]

15. Take Time to Engage With Other Users

To use Instagram in real estate effectively, you have to do more than post—you also have to engage to expect results. This involves interacting with your followers and following other real estate-related accounts. Instead of just liking posts, actively engage with your audience by providing insightful comments and asking questions that stimulate meaningful conversations. Find interesting people in your work sphere and talk to them. Using the full potential of Instagram will require you to do far more than broadcasting.

Instagram works best when you use it as a tool for connection. If you’re laser-focused on posting to make money, it will inevitably come across in your Instagram strategy. Instead, being social and making honest interactions on Instagram is key to maximizing its potential for your real estate business. It takes time and effort to cultivate a following and gain momentum, but it’s a superb way to build your network by posting and using hashtags effectively.

16. Target Your Audience With Paid Ads

Instagram is owned by Facebook and allows you to target an audience and run ads similarly. On Instagram, your ads should fit seamlessly into your target audience’s timeline, expecting that some will begin to follow you for other posts and information.

If you know how to create an ad on Facebook, the Instagram process for running an ad will be almost identical. However, you don’t have to have an Instagram account to run Instagram ads (but it is highly recommended). You will have to:

• Determine your objective
• Select your audience
• Choose your ad placement and budget
• Format your ad

Real estate ads on Instagram can multiply your account growth and generate qualified leads. You can see incredible growth when ads are used correctly in your overall social media strategy.

Real Estate Instagram Statistics

Why should you use Instagram for real estate agent marketing? Here are some statistics to help you understand the benefits of using Instagram for your real estate business and learn how to make the most of this social media platform.

• 27.3% of Millennials, the largest group of first-time homebuyers, use Instagram daily—making this social platform an excellent place to market your services and real estate listings.
• Only 59% of real estate agents are on Instagram, meaning competition is not as fierce as on Facebook.
• Instagram is most popular among individuals aged 18-34, contributing to 52% of total Instagram users.
• The United States has the second-largest Instagram audience in the world, with 143.35 million Instagram users.
• Instagram has 15 times the engagement rate of Facebook and 20 times that of Twitter.
• Instagram has over 500 million monthly users, with 70% of users watching Instagram Stories daily.
• 91% of active Instagram survey respondents watch videos on Instagram weekly.
• 50% of Instagram users become more interested in a brand after seeing an ad for it on Instagram.
• Instagram feed ads see a click-through rate (CTR) of 0.22%, whereas Stories ads see a CTR of 0.33%
• Businesses typically spend $0-$500 monthly on Instagram ads.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

According to the 2022 National Association of Realtors (NAR) Technology Survey, 59% of respondents use Instagram in their real estate business. Some of the best realtors on Instagram that you might want to follow are Jellis Craig, Megan Romine, and Brian Hopper.

Realtors are advised to stick to a regular posting routine. It is recommended that you aim to post around one to three times per day. Even though this may appear to be a lot, you can create your weekly content in advance and schedule it to make it more feasible to manage.

Bottom Line

Using Instagram for real estate agents takes time and effort, but the process of creating posts and engaging with others online can be fun and rewarding. Have an Instagram presence that you work on daily, even briefly, and engage users in the real estate services you offer. While running ads on Instagram can be beneficial when starting, the momentum comes from continued social engagement.