Instagram stories 101

Many real estate agents will ignore Instagrams story function all together, missing out on the ability to stay top of mind.

In this episode you’ll learn why this is a massive mistake to ignore such an engaging and personalised tool.

Listen, as we unpack how to build your brand awareness and trust through Instagram stories.

Podcast:

Craig Deveson:
Welcome to your podcast for all things real estate marketing. I’m Craig Devison, and this is The Property Pod.

Gerard Doyle:

If you use Facebook or Instagram, I suspect everyone listening picks at least one of these, whether it be for personal or your real estate business, you already know what a post is, but the big feature that’s cropped up in the last few years that not everyone’s got their head around is stories. So what is a story and how we’re going to use it?

Look, stories are basically a feature that allow you to post a video clip or a photo on a feed that’s going to vanish after 24 hours. Remember Snapchat? I mean, Snapchat still exists, but the idea that you post something that’s going to vanish. The real appeal is that stories often appear at the very top of our feed. And that’s where the appeal comes in.

The big thing for businesses is to understand that you just can’t post all your content for stories. You have to produce content that’s specifically designed for stories if you want to be successful here.

One thing that real estate agents do tend to love about stories is the fact that there’s not comments. So you don’t have to worry about trolls getting onto your post and putting negative comments at the bottom, stories are just you putting a story out there that’s going to disappear after 24 hours.

Now, there’s a lot of reasons why you might use a story and a lot of reasons why you might not. If you want that social proof, that longevity for your post to stick around and for people to see for a long period of time, then maybe a story isn’t a path for you. But if you want to talk about your day, something that’s happening, how busy you are to prep for an auction or an open house, then maybe stories are a really good way to have that casual, engaging social media post with your target market.

For most agents, stories are a way to be casual, a way to get your social media posts at the top of a feed for a short period of time. Think of it like this. If you’re going to post some content that can last for two or three days and still be valid, well, a normal post on Facebook or Instagram is the perfect place to put this. But if you’ve got something that’s really time sensitive, the examples I gave, an open house, an auction, prep. These are things that are only really relevant on that day. So a story allows you that content to automatically disappear off a feed.

I think the behind the scenes, the excitement, the getting ready, all the prep, it creates that real feel that people can engage with who you are as an agent, who your team is working behind the scenes. You don’t just open up the door and the auction happens. It’s the little bits behind the scenes that I think that you can really get there and reveal in a story.

Now, if you want to use a story in an ad, that’s completely possible. We can create ads that can run in the story slot. But the one thing I really stress here is make sure you specifically design your creative to fit in the story format. That is, not the landscape shots. These are the portrait shots. And try to play up to what stories are, keeping it real. This isn’t a hard pitch. This isn’t a sale. This is your opportunity to split between, hey, we’ve got a new listing, which might be a post to here’s us behind the scenes. Here’s us in the office. Here’s us celebrating Jennifer who’s our receptionist who’s just celebrated two years working in our team. They’re the kinds of content that creates a real meaningful local brand.

And finally, I’ll leave you with that last word local. Stories are a great way for real estate agents to tap into the local news and psyche around their target market. Now we’re going to touch on this another podcast, but it’s something to think about with your social media marketing and know that stories is probably one of the best places you can go about inserting that. All right. Best of luck with your digital marketing.

Craig Deveson:

Thanks for listening. To stay up to date on all things real estate marketing, follow us on Instagram and Facebook at property [inaudible 00:04:24]. For a free demo or any business inquiries, head over to property.ai, or click the link below in the show notes.

Follow us on socials