5 Easy Ways That Real Estate Agents Can Level Up Their Instagram Stories (& My Hot Take on Stories)
Direct Messages are absolutely essential for any successful social media strategy on Instagram.
What do DMs have to do with Instagram Stories?
Well, first of all, DMs are where the magic happens. DMs are where you get more personal and make real connections with people. But first, you have to provide folks with opportunities to DM you.
That’s where Instagram Stories come in. (Keep in mind that all of these tips are true for Facebook Stories, too!)
Instagram Stories are usually more personal than a post on your main feed. Since it’s so easy to respond to a Story with a DM, this provides an easy way for someone to send a direct message. In fact, Stories and DMs have been where most of Instagram’s recent growth has occurred.
This means that most often, Instagram Stories are the gateway to DMs. Because of this, you want to encourage your followers to check out your Stories, and this means you need to demonstrate to your audience that your IG Stories are consistently high-quality and worth tapping through.
“High-quality” can mean a bunch of different things; it might mean you’re posting something interesting, thoughtful, unique, funny, or valuable.
Why do people watch IG Stories, anyway? They are most likely:
Looking for something entertaining
Feeling a need for some human connection
No matter what it may be, you’ve got a captive audience! So let’s give ‘em something good.
Whether you’re sharing a post from the main feed or sharing something original from your camera roll, here are 5 easy ways you can level up your Stories:
Use your brand colors.
It’s a bummer when a main feed post is shared to a Story and the background color is just whatever blah color Instagram decided for you. There’s so much opportunity here to play with colors and add your branding into the mix.
Add GIFS/stickers.
This is a super quick and easy way to add some personality to your Story. It adds some visual intrigue, could be funny, and might offer some helpful context. (You can also use Instagram’s other Story features like polls, quizzes, the emoji slider, the message feature, etc., but I think starting with some stickers is great.
Write a little something.
This can be anything from a short phrase to several sentences. Again, this is about adding context, sparking conversation, and sharing more of your personality.
Get personal.
While you should be sharing content that’s pertinent to your real estate business, it shouldn’t be all business and no play. Show who you are apart from your headshot and official real estate bio. Provide an opportunity for someone to connect with you or start a conversation you wouldn’t have had otherwise.
Add captions to videos.
Whenever you’re on video in your Stories, you *must* add captions. Not having captions is going to exponentially increase the chance that someone simply swipes past your Story and doesn’t engage.
. . .
Ok, now here’s my hot take I just gotta share:
It drives me bonkers when real estate professionals are on their business accounts and they share posts from the main feed to their Stories without doing anything else. No text, no stickers, no link, no brand colors, no context, no nothin’! There are some cases where I think it’s ok to do this, but it’s rare.
Remember the “social” in “social media”? When people share without context, I feel like it’s the in-person equivalent of walking up to a bunch of people, handing them each a piece of content (a postcard, brochure, business card), not saying anything, and just walking away. (!!!) It’s confusing; you don’t know why this person is handing you something. What are you supposed to do now? Is there some action they want you to take? So mysterious!
Anyway. Thanks for indulging me for a moment there.
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Instagram and Facebook are always changing. If you ever are confused about how to do something in your Stories, Youtube is your friend! There are tons of tutorials on Youtube that will show you how to use all of the features on Instagram. Just be sure that the tutorial you use is the most recent tutorial available. You want to make sure the tutorial has the most recent information so it will apply to the version of Instagram you’re using.
