Selling your home can be a stressful and difficult process on its own, but the pressure can be significantly increased if you’re on a time crunch. If you’re someone who’s found yourself in this situation before, perhaps because of a job change, an immediate family situation, or countless other circumstances, surely you can attest to the urgency of needing to speed the process along. Unfortunately, at that point you’ve likely run out of time for any major improvements or renovations that you could generate more interest, and who wants to invest more money just to get it property off your hands?
As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, the key to a speedy selling process is maximizing your property’s exposure. Utilizing multiple media channels is essential to achieving this goal. Instagram is a free and easy platform that you can use to your benefit during this difficult time. I’ve had my Instagram account for nearly a decade as I joined the social media site soon after its start in 2010. As a naive middle school girl, accessing the network through my iPod touch at the time, I was no tech wiz, and you don’t need to be either. In the past, I viewed the network as Since then, Instagram has evolved to host approximately a billion users’ accounts, and is listed as one of the top social media apps for marketers. Within its lifetime, Instagram has evolved from just a photo-sharing platform to an extremely well developed resource with various features that can surely help you to promote your listing.
It’s extremely useful when promoting any kind of content through social media to understand the app’s demographics. For Instagram, it’s important to note that half of the user base consists of people younger than thirty four and the majority of users fall into the eighteen to twenty four year old age group, making it a much different crowd than other platforms such as Facebook, which is now more consistently used by older generations. This makes Instagram a great place to reach first time home buyers. By recognizing these statistics you can better target your audience, and by utilizing both platforms you can expand your listing to reach people of all age groups.
This platform is well suited for real estate because of the visual features the app provides. Users can upload multiple photos and videos within the same post, which allows you to show off numerous features and amenities at once. To add, Instagram stories are a great way to draw attention to your property. Although stories only last for twenty-four hours, they can be pinned to your profile and permanently featured as one of your highlights. Instagram stories appear at the top of the user’s newsfeed and are often one of the first things that people see when opening the app. You can even get creative by creating collages or adding music to your story to make it more entertaining and keep your potential buyers engaged longer. This social media also gives their users a platform where they can do live video tours and interact with their viewers by answering any questions that are commented during the walk through; this feature has proved to be especially useful throughout the pandemic.
Get creative with your caption. Instagram allows you to write captions that are up to 2,200 characters long, which gives you lots of opportunity to include information about the property. This is a great place to include your contact information, a link to a more in depth listing, or an invitation for anyone who is interested to reach out to you. Be sure to take advantage of hashtags! Hashtags are a great tool that helps to organize similar content, making it easy for users to find related posts. You can use hashtags to reach people outside of your own account’s following. The more hashtags you use, the more potential your post has. By including hashtags that have to do with real estate, the community, the property’s features, etc. you’re able to market the listing to people who may be searching for just that.
Have you ever sold real estate through Instagram? Did you find your forever home through this app? Which of Instagram’s features did you find to be most helpful when selling, buying, or searching for your property? First hand insight is always appreciated by our community and I’d love to hear your experiences with this new-age real estate technique. If you found this post to be interesting or helpful, please leave a comment below.
If you have any questions about the topics covered in this blog, don’t hesitate to reach out through the comments section, by email, or my social media. I’d be happy to address any confusion or concerns in future blogs. If you think you know someone else who may be interested in learning about all of the beneficial aspects of using Instagram to promote your property, share this blog to your own friends or followers to help us grow our community! Remember to like this blog and subscribe to my “Media Promotion Within Real Estate, A ‘How To’ Blog” so that you don’t miss any new content.
Resources:
Bruner, R. (2016, July 16). Take a Look Back at Instagram’s First Ever Posts. Retrieved January 01, 2021, from https://time.com/4408374/instagram-anniversary/
Chen, J. (2020, August 28). Important Instagram stats you need to know for 2020. Retrieved January 01, 2021, from https://sproutsocial.com/insights/instagram-stats/
Gigante, M. D. (2020, February 11). 10 Powerful Ways to Use Instagram for Real Estate Marketing. Retrieved January 01, 2021, from https://www.mdgadvertising.com/marketing-insights/10-powerful-ways-to-use-instagram-for-real-estate-marketing/
Jackson, D. (2020, December 11). Know Your Limit: The Ideal Length of Every Social Media Post. Retrieved January 01, 2021, from https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-character-counter/
Tran, T. (2020, November 03). 20 of the Best Social Media Apps for Marketers in 2020. Retrieved January 01, 2021, from https://blog.hootsuite.com/best-social-media-apps-list/