Instagram is one of the most used social platforms in the world, but it is also still a relatively untapped market for real estate marketers in Nigeria.

According to Statista, Nigeria had approximately 10.14 million Instagram users in 2021. By 2025, the number of Instagram users in Nigeria is expected to reach 27.84 million.

Given the visual nature and the user behavior, real estate marketing on Instagram makes perfect sense. The organic and ad content formats make it easy to showcase properties, and the mobile-first approach is helpful for geo-targeting.

Wondering how you can leverage this platform to reach more people and generate real estate Instagram leads? Well, let’s dive in.

How to Use Instagram to Grow Your Real Estate Business.

1. Research the target audience and competitors

Before you begin using your Instagram account, take a look around. Begin experimenting with the features to become familiar with them. After that, you should conduct competitor and audience research. This is important in creating the ideal account and content.

Let’s start with competitor research. The competitive analysis enables you to identify market gaps, uncover trends, and market more effectively. Here’s a step-by-step guide to analyzing your competition using Instagram:

Make a list of your top 10 competitors

There are three types of competitors:

• Direct – your direct rival who does exactly what you do.
• Indirect – competitors who provide complementary services
• New entrants – new competitors who appear to be promising

Check out their Instagram account 

Your competitors have been posting content and collecting information. You can figure out what worked for them and what didn’t by studying their accounts and posts. This will help you decide how to set up your account and what to post. To get a clear picture of their strategy, use the following checklist:

• What kind of content are they posting?
• How frequently are they posting?
• Are they using Stories more than feed posts?
• Which features do they use?
• What kind of hashtags are they using?
• How popular are those hashtags? 
• Are they targeting a specific kind of user? 
• Who are they following?
• Who are their followers?

Another factor is Timing. If you notice that most of your competitors are posting at night or in the morning rather than in the afternoon, as most studies recommend, you can try some new times. You should also create a list of all the potential hashtags you can use in your post based on what your top competitors are using.

2. Set up the perfect Instagram business account

With all of the information gathered above, you can now create the ideal Instagram business account. Aside from being able to view Insights on your business account, there are numerous other advantages. Here are a few examples:

• Promote posts: With Instagram’s promoted posts option, you can instantly reach more people by promoting your best-performing organic posts.

• Run ads: You can also run detailed ads on Instagram using the Facebook ads manager. You can use these ads to increase traffic, sales, brand impressions, and followers.

• Make shoppable posts: With a business account, you can connect it to your eCommerce store and tag products in your photos and videos. This will assist you in increasing traffic and sales.
• Add links in Stories: Previously, you had to have more than 10,000 followers to share links in stories. However, Instagram recently introduced a link sticker that business accounts can use regardless of their follower count.

You can switch to a business account by going into your Settings and clicking on ‘Switch to business account.’

On Instagram, if you optimize your business name with keywords that your audience usually searches, you will appear at the top of the results and people will find you quicker.

Here are some quick tips to get it right:

• Add your brand name to make it easy for people to find your account.
• Make sure it is similar to the username you use on other social media. This will make it easy for your followers on other social networks to find you.
• Ensure that it’s unique. Instagram will reject your username if someone already has it.
• If possible, add some keywords as it too can help with your Instagram SEO.

Highlights that appear on your account, below the bio, are a nice way to share more information about your business. When you publish an Instagram story, it usually vanishes within 24 hours, but using highlights you can unarchive it, add an attractive icon, and display it under your bio. Highlights will remain on your account for as long as you keep them.

3. Create a funnel to support your Instagram marketing

Your Instagram real estate marketing strategy has to align with your overall marketing funnel. Instagram could be a tool for increasing brand awareness, acquiring new customers or staying in touch with existing customers. You should have a clear goal based on that.

Assume your goal is to use it as a channel for customer acquisition. Your goal would then be to generate X leads per month or quarter.

Your strategy must now support that. One aspect would be to influence your existing follower base through stories and feed posts, accompanied by the appropriate hashtags. The other component is to increase your organic reach with Reels. Reels are 60-second videos that can be shared on Instagram. It’s a feature introduced by Instagram to help it compete with TikTok. This is why posting Reels tends to reach a larger audience. Use them while Instagram rewards you with additional exposure.

You should optimize your post for the action you want the user to take. You must direct each type of content to a single location – your Instagram profile. Do you want them to make an appointment, read a blog post, go to your website for more information, or join your email list? Include this in your bio and profile buttons.

Email marketing can also be used to nurture leads. If you focus on educating your users through Instagram and guide them through a series of emails that explain the nitty-gritty of homeownership, they will look to you as an expert when the time comes to buy a home.

4. Always Post Stunning Images and Videos

This is an easy pick. On Instagram, high-quality images and videos rule. You don’t even need expensive equipment. The basic principles, regardless of the equipment used, are as follows:

• Use natural light or soft light 
• Avoid overexposing your images
• Use the golden hour if possible. This is the first hour after sunrise and the last hour before sunset. These timings provide the most optimal light for photography. 
• Follow the rule of thirds
• Use leading lines
• Be creative

You don’t want to always rely on Instagram’s built-in tools for photo and video editing. There are numerous free and paid tools available to help you improve the quality of your visual content.

Pro Tip: Include your brand colors in your images and videos on a regular basis. This will help your followers recognize your content as soon as they see it, even if it is posted by someone else.

Consider the following categories of content when deciding what to post:

• Awareness – show your users who you are and what you can do for them
• Education – educate your buyers about real estate and establish your expertise
• Engagement – real estate inspiration, new property listings
• Social proof – your happy clientele and their testimonial

Pay attention to captions as well. They aid in converting users to followers and consequently buyers.

Here are some guidelines you can use to write the perfect Instagram caption:

• Your first sentence has to be catchy
• Write how you talk
• Use elements of storytelling
• Ask a question or include a CTA
• Use emojis
• Experiment with caption length
• Use the right hashtags

Hashtags on Instagram help in the discovery of your content and serve as keywords in SEO. You can either group them together at the end of your caption or insert them into a separate comment. In general, you should aim for a mix of branded and real estate-specific hashtags. You should select hashtags with a sizable following.

#realestate is an example of a good hashtag as millions of people have already used it. A hashtag like this will help you reach a lot of people.

Tailwind can help you quickly create images and find hashtags. It is primarily a scheduling tool for Instagram. However, it includes features such as Create, which allows you to quickly create images, and Hashtag Finder, which analyzes your images and suggests relevant hashtags.

Don’t Miss: Instagram Content Ideas for Realtors

5. Share live tours

Instagram Live is an underutilized feature that can open new opportunities for your real estate business. When you go live, Instagram sends a push notification to all of your followers and adds your profile’s Live button at the top before other stories.

Go live when your audience is most active, and you can give a live tour of the property, highlighting its best features. Virtual tours are an excellent way to show users what types of properties you deal with and to walk them through the property.

Remember to save the live video to repurpose the content. You can edit with a good editing tool like InVideo and upload it to Instagram and place the most engaging 15 seconds of the video at the beginning.

Other things you can do on Instagram Live are Q&As and hosting experts or influencers. You can also interact with your followers by having them on and answer their real estate questions. 

6. Use ads and partner with influencers

Every month, 130 million Instagram users click on shopping posts. That is the main difference between Instagram and other social media platforms. Users follow brands and almost expect to be served with a targeted advertisement. You can use ads and influencers to quickly generate attention in your properties.

You can only use organic methods, but it takes time to build a large enough audience. Furthermore, the Instagram algorithm reduces the reach of organic posts. That story or feed post you posted earlier will not reach as many people as you’d like to. This is why it is critical to combine organic and paid methods.

There are two ways you can go about this: 

• Promote existing posts that are performing well
• Create multi-platform ads with Ads Manager

Here are some stats on Instagram ads that can help inform your decision: 

• Instagram story ads are popular. 4 million businesses use them monthly
• 63% of the time, mobile-shot Story ads outperform studio-shot ads
• 89% of the time, story ads with an emphasis on the CTA perform better

While you could promote existing posts, Stories outperform ads in the feed and have a lower CPM.

However, depending on your campaign objectives, an ad campaign can be quite pricey. Influencer marketing is a viable alternative. Most people credit their purchasing decision to an influencer.

The best way to find the right influencer is to look at real estate agents that understand the business and have an engaged, sizable following.

7. Share customer testimonials

When it comes to the real estate industry, I am all about testimonials, and you should be as well if you are a real estate marketer! Why? What could be more important than establishing trust in such a personal and financially costly industry? Your leads are in the process of making a decision that will have a significant impact on their daily lives and will come at a high cost. Building and maintaining trust is one of the most important aspects of marketing to your target audience.

What better way to accomplish this than to let your satisfied customers speak for you?

A series of videos showing off your happy clients in their new homes and how their lives have changed since making their big purchase along with a short testimonial can be effective. That way, you’ll have not only a resounding endorsement for your services but also evidence of what buyers can achieve by working with you: ending up in a home they really wanted at a reasonable price.

What Not To Do

To this point, we’ve talked about how to increase your real estate Instagram followers.  Now let’s talk a little about what not to do.

1. Don’t Pay For Followers

There are numerous businesses out there that will sell you, followers. Hundreds, thousands, and even millions Do not buy them! It may appear to be the easiest way at first, but these are fake accounts, and none of them will interact with your posts. Instagram will penalize your account for this because it will appear like no one likes your posts, so they will limit the real accounts to which your future posts are shown.

2. Follow/Unfollow at Random

Determine who your target demographic is and go after them. If you target random accounts to follow and they don’t relate to your content, even if they follow you back, they will most likely not engage with your posts, lowering your engagement level.

3. Don’t Make Your Profile Private

People must see your posts before deciding whether or not to follow you. People can’t see your posts if you have a private profile until you approve their follow request. This will significantly reduce your follow rate.

4. Do Not Leave Comments Unresponded To

The more likes and comments you receive, the higher your engagement and the greater the number of people Instagram will show your future posts too. Respond to comments if you receive them to increase engagement. Furthermore, followers will be more likely to leave a comment if they see you are active in responding to all of their comments.

5. Do Not Misuse Hashtags

Don’t use irrelevant hashtags in your posts. You’re better off using more smaller hashtags that are relevant to your post than using irrelevant larger hashtags just to get more exposure.

6. Don’t Post at the Wrong Time

The amount of exposure your post receives is directly proportional to the rate at which it receives likes. The number of people who see your post in the first few hours after you publish it is determined by Instagram. Get a lot of likes and comments quickly, and your post will be seen by a lot more people. Every day of the week, the best time to post on Instagram is 2 p.m.

7. Don’t Post Images with the Wrong Scaling

Photos in your main real estate Instagram feed should be scaled to a 4:5 vertical format. Instagram Stories should be cropped to a 9:16 vertical ratio. This allows your photos to take up the most screen real estate when someone scrolls through their feed, making your posts stand out even more. Particularly since the majority of people still use 1:1 square images.

8. Don’t Be Overly Promotional

This applies to both the posts in your feed and the comments you leave on others’ posts. Don’t start talking about your services right away in a comment. Also, don’t advertise your real estate services in every post. People will not engage with you if you appear or sound like a salesperson.

How Often Should Realtors Post on Instagram?

Most people want to know how frequently they should do this, especially since Instagram posts can take time to create. Most Realtors want to post frequently enough to keep people’s attention, but not so frequently that they waste time or overwhelm their followers.

In most cases, I recommend three levels of participation: beginners once a month to get used to it, intermediate users once a week, and experts daily. It’s worthwhile to post more frequently as your Instagram experience and following grow. You’ll also notice that each post takes less time to create.

Conclusion

In conclusion, using Instagram for real estate takes time and effort, but the process of creating posts and engaging with others online can be fun and rewarding. So much of your exposure and engagement comes from creating content that stands out.

Investing a little extra effort goes a long way with Instagram. Ultimately, the key to success is to use the power of the platform: engage directly and consistently with the network’s large audience, build a strategy that utilizes the sophisticated targeting tools at your disposal, and make the most of the many compelling content formats available. Good luck.