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5 Creative Ways to Use Instagram Stories for your Luxury Real Estate Brand

by Katie Russell | Aug 13, 2019 | Blog, Content Marketing, Real Estate Marketing, Social Media | 0 comments

Luxury real estate brands are capitalizing on Instagram Stories to highlight property features and give followers an inside look at what sets them apart.  

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Highlights: 

• With such a highly visual platform comes the challenge of standing out from other luxury real estate brands. 
• Stories helps boost reach and engagement by giving users ways to engage with your content. 
• Don’t be afraid to make your content pop through filters on your images and videos, use fun fonts and bold text, and create slideshows that break your stories into parts.

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Instagram is a natural fit for real estate marketing. And with the growing popularity of Instagram Stories, marketers are increasingly using this feature to highlight their properties and luxury real estate brand. When implemented as a part of a robust digital marketing strategy, Instagram Stories is an ideal place to showcase your latest projects. 

But with such a highly visual platform comes the challenge of standing out from other luxury real estate brands. If you want to generate leads, increase ROI, and ultimately close deals, you’ll need to think outside of the box.  

Here are five creative ways to use Instagram Stories for your luxury real estate brand 

1. Go behind the scenes

Because of the informal feel of Instagram Stories, it’s a great place to highlight your luxury real estate brand and give viewers a behind-the-scenes look at your property. This intimate view into what makes your brand unique helps build engagement and brand loyalty. 

Some ideas to showcase your luxury real estate brand include: 

• Highlight premier features of your property 
• Snap a picture or short video at local restaurants, bars, and events by your property 
• Upload an image of an office brainstorm or staff meeting 
• Feature new marketing ideas or things your staff are working on

2. Engage

I recently read that Instagram algorithms can make organic reach difficult, which means that engagement can be a challenge. But Stories helps boost reach and engagement by giving users ways to interact with your content. Ask viewers a question or create a poll to encourage audiences to share thoughts with your brand. What’s your favorite feature in the new penthouse unit? What color should we paint our office door? What videos do you find most appealing. And when audiences respond to your questions or polls, make sure you re-engage with them. 

3. Highlights

Looking to get more shelf life out of your Instagram Stories? Try using the Highlights tool.  

“Instagram Stories Highlights can live permanently on your profile. They’re like curated collections of Instagram Stories that your followers — both old and new — can tap into and watch any time they like. 

“And because of their prime location directly under your bio and above your Instagram feed, it’s the perfect place to direct followers to your most valuable and interesting content,” writes Benjamin Chacon for Later.com.  

Highlights is a great tool for gathering several of your most engaged stories and blog posts, and organizing them by topic. For example, your luxury real estate brand can create different highlights for property features, neighborhood information, and office culture. Viewers can easily sort through your content based on their personal needs. 

4. Be visual

56% of marketers said they use visuals in their content almost 100% of the time. Instagram called the feature “Stories” for a reason. Don’t be afraid to make your content pop through filters on your images and videos, use fun fonts and bold text, and create slideshows that break your stories into parts. Visual content has significantly higher engagement rates, so get your camera ready. 

5. Luxury branding

Instagram Stories leverages two things today’s buyers love: beautiful images and engaging videos. The tool extends a brand’s audience, shows the ins and outs of what makes your brand unique and promotes engagement with your Stories, as well as your Instagram posts. All of these elements develop brand awareness and, hopefully, brand loyalty. 

Final thoughts 

I’ve heard some luxury real estate brands are hesitant to use Instagram Stories, because of the informal vibe of the tool, something that’s not usually synonymous with luxury real estate. But as Instagram continues to grow in popularity, it’s important for brands to follow their audiences.  

Remember, Instagram Stories is just one part of your dynamic digital marketing strategy. Have fun with the tool, experiment with posts including videos and pictures, and see what followers engage with the most. You might be surprised how well your Stories perform. 

Still hesitant about getting started? Let us help. 

Related posts: 

• Measure Social Media Success in Terms of Potential, not Dollar Amount 
• How to Use Social Media Hashtags in Real Estate Marketing 
• How to Use Instagram for Real Estate Marketing 

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Drive More Traffic and Generate More Leads with Your Real Estate Blog with our Editorial Calendar Template

by Elizabeth Hines | Jan 31, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Real Estate Marketing, Social Media | 0 comments

Our Editorial Calendar Template will hold you accountable to your content strategy.

Having a documented strategy is critical for content marketing success. An important extension of that idea is making sure your blog content is well-organized and aligns closely with your content strategy.

We have created a blog editorial calendar template to help you organize and improve your real estate content marketing efforts. This template is designed to keep you on track as you develop content that will attract and engage your prospects and customers. It will help you map out your content in a strategic manner, maximize productivity, and keep you organized. It includes weekly and monthly worksheets, as well as an ideas worksheet for tracking blog post ideas.

Why do you need an editorial calendar?

Having an editorial calendar gives structure to your blogging efforts. It’s a commitment to your potential investors, and gives you built-in accountability for your overall real estate marketing strategy.

The editorial calendar is a dynamic, internal document that will help your team determine what activities you’ll focus on, and when they’ll be completed. This enables you to optimize how you connect and engage potential buyers and tenants with your blog content.

Organized week-by-week, an editorial calendar makes it easy to visualize your marketing strategy, ensuring consistently scheduled blog posts and a diversity of topics.

Beyond scheduling blog posts, the use of an editorial calendar keeps other essential considerations front of mind. By including related information — such as keyword assignments, target persona(s), and associated promotions or calls-to-action — will make your editorial calendar an indispensable guide to your blogging success.

We’ve created this template to guide your blogging efforts. Designed to keep you on track as you develop content that will attract and engage potential buyers and renters, our free template will help you map out your content in a strategic manner, maximize productivity, and keep you organized.

Download the free resource below.

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These are the Busiest Day of the Year for Real Estate Searches

by Elizabeth Hines | Nov 21, 2017 | Blog, Content Marketing, Current Events, Real Estate Marketing | 0 comments

Real estate searches peak the weekend after Thanksgiving, December 28, January 1, and July 6, so don’t stop marketing your property during the holidays.

If you’re a marketing professional outside the retail industry, chances are you slow things down during the holidays. But before you settle in for a second helping of leftovers, consider this: according to a study by Realtor.com, December 28 is statistically one of the busiest days for real estate searches.

It makes sense: Potential buyers use their post-holiday downtime to consider real estate investment. Other days when real estate searches spike include:

• the weekend after Thanksgiving
• New Year’s Day
• July 6

It’s important for real estate marketers to be aware of these dates so that you don’t stop all your marketing activities. The good news is that real estate searches are typically lowest on actual holidays, so putting a pause on your pay-per-click advertising, for example, on those days makes sense.

I bring this up because, recently, a client asked to stop all marketing activities between mid-December and New Year’s Day due to “seasonal decline” in sales. While it’s true that December typically sees lower numbers in terms of web traffic, leads, and conversions, that doesn’t mean there is not enormous, largely untapped opportunities for this client — if we are strategic about how we spend marketing dollars over the holidays.

Leveraging the post-holiday uptick in real estate searches

While spending the holidays relaxing with family and friends is something we all deserve, keeping a few strategic marketing activities going can mean big wins for your property/properties. Here are a few things I recommend, and why.

1) Publish blog posts on a normal schedule.

Blog posts are the gifts that keep on giving, meaning the majority of traffic will visit your posts months after they’re published. In fact, 80% of our page views occur on blog posts published at least 6 months prior. It’s a great time to write about trends or happenings in the coming year in an effort to capture future searches.

Search engines value consistency in your publishing schedule, so keeping up your normal posting frequency will help your rankings.  If you have the resources to post on schedule, it would benefit you to do so.

2) Be strategic about social media.

Social media management can be time-consuming, so you should dial back your posting on the days you know prospects won’t be spending much time online (e.g. December 25). That being said, you should plan to post on days when you know real estate searches peak (e.g. December 28). Chances are, many of your competitors will be shut down for the holiday, and your posts will be front and center in your prospects’ newsfeeds.

3) Be strategic about digital advertising.

The same goes for digital advertising. Knowing that post-holiday real estate searches peak on December 28, you should budget your pay-per-click and social advertising dollars to spend more on this day. Particularly focus on your Google AdWords spend because that will capture prospects using search engines to find information about potential real estate investments — as opposed to sponsored social posts, which display your ads in the newsfeed of a prospect who may or may not be ready to buy.

Related posts:

• Search Marketing Can Increase Web Traffic

• 4 Tools for Determining the Best Time to Post on Social Media for Your Property

• Peak Season Demands Real-Time Analytics for Perfect Fulfillment

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5 Tips to Step Up Your Real Estate Social Media Marketing

by Katie Russell | Jan 22, 2019 | Blog, Content Marketing, Real Estate Marketing | 0 comments

Real estate marketers are increasingly turning to social media as a strategic tool to grow brand awareness, gain market intelligence, and generate organic traffic. Here are five tips to boost your real estate social media marketing efforts. 

 If you’re a real estate marketer, it’s probably old news that the vast majority of the real estate market has moved online. Increasingly, traditional marketing tactics are giving way to newer methods, and inbound marketing is taking the place of outbound. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: real estate and social media are a match made in heaven. 

You should be making the most of this incredible tool for marketing luxury and commercial real estate. Here are our top 5 tips to grow your real estate social media marketing in 2019. 

1. Be authentic 

Social media for real estate marketing is all about the personal. Users on these platforms are looking to connect with the real people behind the brands they follow. Increasingly, social media users are craving authenticity. Part of building your brand is about discovering and cultivating your “corporate personality,” particularly when it comes to social media. Find your brand’s voice, and let it shine through.  

2. Use hashtags strategically 

Using hashtags well can help increase your properties’ visibility, as well as growing organic reach on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Using hashtags in your social media content lets you categorize your content, draw attention quickly and easily, drive conversations, increase visibility, and harness the power of topics on social media. Check out our guide for using hashtags in real estate marketing here. 

3. Make use of the right tools 

With demand comes supply, and as social media marketing has become more and more important, developers have created some extremely helpful tools to help you streamline your efforts. Whether it’s free stock photos, tools that help you create infographics, or automating your social media posts, there’s likely a tool that will help you get the job done more quickly and easily. 

4. Diversify across platforms 

While Facebook still reigns supreme in the social media universe, if you aren’t connecting with users on other platforms, you’re missing out on huge opportunities. While each platform requires its own content and posting strategy, you’re essentially presenting your brand identity from the various angles allowed by different platforms. Not only that, using multiple social media platforms helps improve your search engine rankings.    

5. Engage with your followers 

It may seem painfully obvious, but too many real estate marketers forget that social media is just that: social. When followers engage with your posts, always reply! Encourage comments and shares—and join the conversation. Not only is it a great way to cultivate a loyal following, but you can also gain valuable insights into your audience’s preferences.  

As with any marketing endeavor, a crucial first step for social media marketing is strategy. We’ll leave you with this idea—your real estate social media marketing will benefit immeasurably from a clear, documented strategy, with measurable goals and a mechanism for collecting and analyzing data. Used wisely, social media can help build your brand, engage your potential buyers and renters, generate leads, and establish your reputation as a trusted resource. 

Related posts:

• Social Media Can Be a Strategic Weapon in Real Estate Marketing 
• 10 Social Media Statistics for Real Estate Marketers 2018 
• Top 10 Social Media Posts 2018 

 

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4 Ways a Blog Can Help You Sell Real Estate

by Elizabeth Hines | Feb 13, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Real Estate Marketing | 0 comments

A blog can help you sell real estate by increasing search engine visibility, building relationships and trust, and nurturing leads.

You might think that it seems silly to keep up a blog for your property or real estate company. Blogging can be a significant time investment, and you may wonder who would even want to read your blog after all. But blogs do so much more for real estate than provide news and updates to a small community of interested parties.

A small investment of time and resources can mean big gains for your business. Every time you publish a blog post, you increase the chances that a user searching the internet for real estate will find your website. Here’s why.

4 ways a blog can help you sell real estate

1) Increasing search engine visibility

Search engine algorithms are getting more and more sophisticated. As they do, your site’s content becomes increasingly important.

Your content helps inform search engines about your site, improving your rank in relevant search queries (people who are searching for properties or companies like yours). As you choose content for your blog posts, be mindful of the search topics for which you want to rank highly. Every time you publish a post, you create a new chance to reach someone looking for a property like yours.

2) Building relationships

As your blog starts to gain visibility, you might find that other bloggers will start interacting with you. This can be an amazing asset.

Real estate is an industry built on collaboration. Cultivating good and lasting relationships with partners and prospects helps you build credibility in the industry.

Take a little time each day to read relevant industry blogs — and if you find them particularly relevant or interesting, share them.

3) Nurturing leads

Blog content is ideal to share (and link to) in email or social media marketing campaigns. It can help undecided leads learn more about your property and sway them in a positive direction.  

Create segmented lists of email addresses based on the needs and interests of the different groups you’re trying to reach, and send targeted content from your blog their way. Sharing your blog posts on your social media accounts helps give validity and authority to your company, as you disseminate content you created yourself.

4) Becoming a trusted resource

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: Content marketing is all about being a resource for your audience. At the end of the day, your expertise and ideas are at least as valuable as your properties. People want to hire trustworthy and knowledgeable real estate experts. If you can answer the needs and questions of your potential buyers and renters, you cultivate lasting and fruitful relationships with them.

Related posts:

• Drive More Traffic and Generate More Leads with Your Real Estate Blog with our Editorial Calendar Template
• Social Media Trends for 2018 Real Estate Marketers Need to Know
• How Will Facebook Marketplace Housing Affect Real Estate Marketers?