Instagram for Estate Agents

Social media has well and truly made its mark with estate agents across the country and is now a key marketing avenue for many. Popular is Facebook alongside Twitter with a growing number of agents setting up accounts, updating frequently and using paid for promotions. Both platforms are great for building target following and increasing brand awareness and attention on latest listings especially for agencies that correctly use professional photography and videography.

Just slightly behind Facebook and Twitter in popularity is Instagram (though it continues to grow), the social media platform that is globally popular amongst photography loving folk with the added benefit of being also able to have videos uploaded. Instagram is estimated to have around 1 billion active users globally.

With the main attraction of Instagram being the sharing and liking of photos it lends itself tremendously well for estate agencies to market their property on there. We all know that Rightmove and Zoopla here in the UK attract the most target property interested browsers and many folk will not only view property in their price range, but also indulge themselves searching amongst the more expensive listings with the wow factor photography.

Many estate agents will pride themselves on the marketing they offer their clients and a lot of that pride is steered towards their photography so what better way to display them than on Instagram? More estate agents are turning to Instagram to sell property.

Pros and Cons of Instagram for Estate Agents

The good points:

  • It’s free to use and only requires some of your time.
  • Millions of people use the platform already!
  • The platform is dedicated to showing images / videos and even has options to enhance image quality before you make them go live.
  • You can use hashtags to target key words such as locations, architecture etc.
  • Just like Snapchat, you can also add ‘stories’.
  • The Instagram app is downloadable to most modern day mobiles with Android and IOS options.
  • You are able to see how well your images perform as people can like them and comment.

The not so good points:

  • There is a lot of competition so you need to be good to stand out!
  • You can not add links to descriptions of the images you share.
  • Not so adapted for desktop usage.
  • Not usable for Blackberry / Linux users.

So what should you be doing on Instagram?

Estate agents have a wonderful opportunity to succeed by using social media as a majority of their marketing pull relates to photography – Here are some useful tips to get your agency successfully using Instagram:

  • Create a professional profile with a profile that clearly identifies who you are and consistent with your brand. Make sure you include a live link back to your estate agency website (or Rightmove/Zoopla listings) so that when people find you or admire one of your photos they have a chance to visit more of the same and potentially enquire about the property they have just seen on your timeline.
  • Upload your own photography (if photography from an external photo company then request permission to share their copyright first).
  • Post regular updates so others will not think you have disappeared. If you post frequently you are also more likely to entice enquiries and comments.
  • Ideas of photos to share include: Your property listings, your company progress / staff, local events / people / scenery / architecture etc.
  • Use #hashtags and plenty of key words to attract more viewers.
  • Show that you are an estate agency to admire. Not only post property photos, also think about showcasing a little about you and your success – Think about sold signs, people completing sales, key exchanges and more.
  • Network. Not only concentrate on your content, look to engage with other users by liking and commenting on their photos on Instagram also.
  • Make sure you check the activity on your updates such as who has liked them and especially monitor if you receive comments that need replying to.

 

Christopher Walkey

Founder of Estate Agent Networking. Internationally invited speaker on how to build online target audiences using Social Media. Writes about UK property prices, housing, politics and affordable homes.

You May Also Enjoy

Letting Agent Talk

Landlords and tenants advised to work together to get through extreme heatwaves

With some areas set to be hotter than Portugal this week, lettings and estate agents across the UK are issuing advice to protect properties ahead of extreme weather Prolonged periods of hot weather across the UK are placing additional pressure on homes, from overheating and poor ventilation to damage caused by extreme temperatures. Today, lettings…
Read More
Estate Agent Talk

Nearly half of UK home listings fail to sell

A London estate agent has warned that thousands of homeowners across the UK are pricing themselves out of the market by setting asking prices that no longer reflect what buyers are willing to pay. The warning comes after new analysis by Zoopla, covering more than two million property listings between 2023 and 2026, found that…
Read More
Rightmove logo
Breaking News

Lowest number of new build developments coming to market since 2017

New analysis from the UK’s largest property platform Rightmove reveals that the number of new build housing developments coming to market is at its lowest level since January 2017 The figures are despite the government’s target to build 1.5 million homes over the course of this parliament Higher mortgage rates continue to set a challenging…
Read More
Estate Agent Talk

What Every Estate Agent Should Tell Clients Before Moving Day

For most estate agents, the job is done once contracts are exchanged, completion takes place, and the keys are handed over. For your client, however, that’s when one of the biggest challenges begins. Moving day has the power to turn months of excitement into an incredibly stressful experience, or a smooth finish to what has…
Read More
Breaking News

Breaking Property News 9/7/26

Daily bite-sized proptech and property news in partnership with Proptech-X.   PropTech is evolving but WhatsApp is still winning the Property transaction battle A home-moving process that a decade of PropTech failed to fix   Thought leadership by Olivier Jauniaux Founder of NestLink There are a particular series of messages, somewhere in every property chain, that decides whether…
Read More
Breaking News

Heatwaves haven’t diminished love for south-facing gardens

The latest research from Yopa reveals that despite 81% of people saying they have been avoiding their garden during the recent heatwaves, south-facing gardens continue to be the preferred orientation of choice for UK homeowners, attracting house price premiums of over £20,000 on average. However, the insight from Yopa also suggests that should heatwaves become…
Read More