How to Set Up Your Instagram for Real Estate Agents

So the thing about your Instagram account for your real estate business is that it should actually work for you, right? And so what we want to see from a really solid dialed in Instagram account for your real estate business is that it's doing a couple of things. Number one, it should allow you to be found. So people should be following you and they should be like real people who are located in your area. Number two, it should be engaging those people. So, so people should be watching your content, liking your content, leaving comments, that sort of thing. And also it should be generating leads for you. So people should be watching your content and then sliding into your direct messages and learning how they can work with you or better yet, filling out a lead capture that you have linked in your Lincoln bio. So if these things are not happening for you, or if you're listening to this and you're like, Whoa, that went way over my head stuff. Then you are totally in the right place because we are going to do a quick Instagram audits together here on this video. Now I'm going to walk you through a quick Instagram audit, just like I would if you had joined the market authority Academy and hopped on one of our coaching calls and came to me and said, Steph, I love the idea of generating leads for free, finding my ideal clients right there on Instagram, but I feel like something is off and it's just not clicking yet. Can you take a look at it and let me know what you think. That's what we're going to do today. I'm going to give you some quick feedback and rapid fire tips that you can use to implement immediately, to clean up your Instagram bio, optimize it, to get found and start generating leads. Okay. So I have my Instagram up on my desktop. You can pull it up and just follow along. Let's pretend that we're looking at the same one. As I look at my Instagram here, this is my account, Bryce and Stephanie. There's a couple of things that I do. And just so you know, when I'm looking at these Instagram accounts, I'm just giving my like immediate feedback from what I see from going from the top all the way scrolling to the bottom. Okay. Now let's start at the beginning. So starting at the very top, I am looking at your username. Now your username is where it, for me, it says Bryce and Stephanie. This is also called your Instagram handle. This is the at Bryce and Stephanie at your username where people will actually search or include in a hyperlink to find your Instagram profile. We don't want to change this unless it's absolutely necessary. The only instances that I would say you should change this as if it was misspelled or, um, maybe just not professional, maybe from like your past life where you haven't really represented it a really solid handle or username is your name. Like you have to own your brand. And my highest recommendation is always something along the lines of first name, last name, or first name, last name, Arizona living, anything that includes references to real estates. Don't do realtor or the area that you are located and selling in is going to be just fine. Now you'll see that mine is Bryce and Stephanie. That is because we are a husband and wife duo. Now, if it was just me, mine would be Stephanie Lugo. That's it. If it was just Bryce, it would be Bryce Lugo. That's it. So you can make your own decision here, but take a look at it. And if you need to make any updates, go ahead and do that. The only reason I will never update this username is because it would be incredibly expensive to rebrand since that username is on all of my collateral. It's on my listing science is on our open house signs. It's on all of our beautiful prints, like everything you can imagine that has our branding on it. The Instagram is there. So that's why I don't change mine. Next let's look at the photo. So the photo really matters here at the very bare minimum. It should be a clear up-to-date photo of you. It needs to look like you, it needs to be high quality, and it needs to be zoomed in on your face as much as possible. If you are with a duo, like if you're a husband and wife team, like I am, make sure you're both in there and just make sure you can clearly see who is who. So if you look at mine, for example, Bryce and I are in different tone clothing. We kind of are able to be told apart and Bryce is sitting on a stool and I'm next to him. So you can see really clearly that we are like well centered in the actual photo frame. My other recommendation here is if you're able to make sure this is a big one, make sure that it is the same photo or in the similar, like the same photo shoot, but the same similar photo across all of your social media platforms. The reason for that is because when you have a new client who's interested in hiring you, the first thing they're going to do is scope you out. They're going to vet you. We want to make it as easy as possible for them to find you and they a lot of times will do that by looking for the picture. So if it's the same picture across all the platforms that you wish to be found at, that will make it so much easier. Next we have the name field. Now the name field is where it says Bryce and Stephanie Lugo real estate. This is a really important SEO keyword search field that Instagram will actually use in order to suggest your account for others who are looking for that kind of content. Now it's very important here that you are accomplishing a few things. Number one, your first and last name has to be here and you have to have some indication of real estate, real tour with the reserve symbol, right? And if possible, the geographic location that you serve. You might want to look at a couple of different examples of where people are really fine tuning this name field. For example, here's another profile from our success coach at Market Authority, Karen Ann Campbell. She is a real estate agent out of Georgia. And so you'll see here hers says Karen Ann real estate in Georgia. So you have a couple of different options here, but it's just really important that your name is here. And the fact that you sell real estate is here because that is perfect SEO keyword placements that you want to be included there. Now, if you're watching this and you're like, but Stephanie, where do I update my name field? Well, the quick answer is, is you go to your bio settings and you make sure you make those updates. But the real answer is if you're struggling with that, like after you're watching this YouTube video, go back up to the YouTube search bar and say how to find my settings for Instagram. Okay. So now let's look at the next section, which is the bio. This is where you get to do a little bit more of an introduction of who you are, who you serve, and importantly, where you serve. I want you to take a minute. If you do nothing else during this Instagram audit, look at your bio, look at your entire account. Ask yourself this question. Is your location in there clearly in a way that people would understand? Okay. If your location is not included in here, you have no business being on Instagram. Just kidding. But this is one change that is going to massively impact whether or not somebody is willing to reach out to you to inquire about your services. If somebody cannot understand clearly whether or not you help serve in their area where they are looking to be, they are going to pass you over because it is easier to find somebody else who has taken the time to indicate that in their bio than to do a bunch of sleuthing on your social presence to determine it for themselves. So take a moment. Your very first line here has to indicate what you do and where you do it. For me, mine is pretty broad right now. It says your go-to Metro Phoenix Realtors. So the next thing that you really want to make sure that you are indicating here is who you serve and also include any compliance information. So you'll see the second line for me says selling homes with heart because that's kind of what we're all about. And you'll see that we have MHG, which is our brokerage, not our brokerage. We hang our license with our brokerage, my home group. We've been in with them for like 10 years, but that is about the extent of their compliance requirements for us. Now you'll see here, I also am including a little bit of instruction on what I do for real estate agents. Now that's because I have a very seasoned Instagram account at this point, my clients on there know who I am and what I do. So they're excited to work with me. I still get Instagram leads all the time. I can take a little bit of leeway here, but if you are still establishing your brand, what you really want to do is get super hyper-focused on attracting the right people to your business. So again, let's look at Karenann Campbell's example. When I'm looking at her bio, hers says you're a real estate bestie in and around Athens, Georgia. Perfect. So clear. She then goes on to say empowering first-time sellers and buyers. That is absolutely a perfect, concise way to articulate who it is you're working with. That way somebody can easily read that and determine that, oh yes, perfect. I have found my realtor. Then the last thing that we do with the bio is points down to the link and we'll get to the link in a second, but you want to have a very strong call to action here. What are they going to find if they click that link? I know it seems silly, but getting just a random person to click a link and leave a platform that they trust, meaning Instagram, is a tall ask. So make it very clear what they'll find if they do that. Karenann here says resources for your stress-free journey. Absolutely beautiful, like five stars, Karenann. Mine says home finds and realtor resources. Pretty clear, especially for how few characters we have. So that needs to be the bio. We're going to have where you're located, what you do, who you do it for, and how they can engage with you. Now there's a lot more that we can do here, so this might become a second installment. Maybe we have to have another video where we talk about the story's highlights. At the very least, are they branded? Do they have nice, cohesive, aesthetic colors on them? Are your posts in the beginning of your feed pretty well reflective of the promise that you've made in your bio? So for example, if you're saying that you're selling homes of heart in Arizona and helping realtors with systems, your content and your feed should show that, right? That is a totally different conversation, so we can have that conversation in another video. If you want that conversation, hit subscribe to this channel and hit like on this video. That is how I know whether or not this content is resonating with you. But for now, you have some work to do. Go ahead and check out that username, update your bio picture, and go through and format that name field for optimum SEO, keyword searchability, whatever term you want to use there. I think in the next video, if we do a next video, we'll talk about the link in your bio as well, because that is a big one. But alas, another conversation. I really hope you found this conversation and this quick audit helpful. And of course, if you want to go deeper on this topic and you want some hand-holding specifically in revving up your Instagram to become a super valuable lead generator for your business, I can help. I do that all the time with the agents in the Market Authority Academy. The link to book a call, which takes 60 seconds to fill out and apply to the Market Authority Academy are in the description below of this video, so check it out. And hey, if you want to continue this conversation, if you're like, no, I want to do more stuff, check out this video where I'm actually going through how Karen Ann was able to completely rev up her Instagram strategy and really help that boost her real estate business with very little effort. We go all into detail there. Check it out. Really cool case study for you to check out and see what is possible. Thank you so much for tuning in and until next time, keep on crushing it.