Instagram Dos and Don’ts
For Real Estate Professionals
Good design, consistency and originality on Instagram posts can help you shine from
all of the other thousands of Real Estate professionals.
Following these key concepts will help you create an impressive feed that will attract possible leads and to keep building a relationship with your followers.
Here is a series of dos and don’ts that will greatly improve your Instagram content’s quality and will ensure you get the best results from your social media efforts:
DON’T just screen-cap things from a phone or desktop and post them
Have you ever looked at a great infographic while scrolling through the news on your phone and wanted to share it with your Instagram following? Screen-capping and then posting greatly compresses the image quality and the image will probably look out of place since there’s no consistency with your branding and your feeds look.
DO – Design your own post using key info and adjust it to your branding
Generating a creative graphic or image with real numbers and percentages is a great asset to consider. You can generate this by yourself or get some help from a graphic designer. A professional will know how to make it stand out while making it look good and educating your viewers. Not only will a custom graphic with your branding guidelines and colours look highly professional and attractive but it will help grow brand awareness of your name and build a reputation.
DON’T write typical salesman captions
Your posts on Instagram can have up to 2,200 characters and up to 30 hashtags.
Depending on the type of presence you want to build on your Instagram, your caption may be as short or as long as you desire. What you don’t want to do is to push a caption making it awkward or too forced. Doing so will push your followers away from wanting to engage with you or your brand. Nobody likes obvious sales or advertisement posts.
The most important recommendation to caption creating is to be yourself!
DO – write a short concise caption that invokes a question, makes a shocking/memorable statement, or is funny – or all of the above if possible!
Anything that initiates engagement with your followers is what you should be aiming for when writing captions for your Instagrams.
What is engagement? A comment. Although likes are good, those are often given without much thought, therefore they don’t have as much weight.
DON’T – post at any random time, or just make up hashtags on the spot.
Posting at any time you want may not bring you the results you are after. If you only post at night or in between your appointments, there is a great chance that most of your followers will miss it.
DO – plan your posts ahead of time.
Plan your posts out in a regular cycle, stick to your brand guidelines and use researched and planned out hashtags. Good results take time so make sure you put in the work to get the results you want.
DON’T repost another post just because it’s cool or funny.
When you re-post on your business account things that you normally would on a private and personal profile, it might deter the audience you’re trying to attract. Make sure you know how to separate the two and maintain a professional and on-brand profile on your business account.
This is not to say that a funny post is completely off-limits, however it is important to keep in mind the image you want to give out to potential leads and customers that may follow your Instagram account.
DO – Use your discretion on what to re-post.
If it doesn’t match your branding and you want to post it, have it redesigned to suit you. Consistency on a feed is critical!
