Nine Best Practices for Promoting a Home on Instagram

Every great realtor incorporates social media platforms into their marketing plans, and with its visual nature, Instagram seems to be practically made for the real estate industry. That said, like any other media, you’re going to want to be strategic in how you present yourself and your real estate business. That’s why DMD has put together nine best practices (and one to grow on) for promoting a home on Instagram.

Quality Images are King on the Feed

The heart, the point - heck, the whole reason for Instagram’s existence is imagery. The name “Instagram” came from instant camera + telegram, and the founders’ intention was to boil social media noise down to what was most important to its users: photos, comments, and likes. The relationship between you and your followers really is that simple. You bring the quality images to them, and they will interact. 

Where promoting a home on Instagram is concerned, that means sharing the best images you have from your listing. Unique, high-quality, eye-catching shots that really capture what makes the home special and interesting. Something we know just a little bit about here at DMD.

Apply Your Real Estate Branding Guide to the ‘Gram

Your professional Instagram account is an extension of your real estate brand. While your feed should contain variety, you’ll want to incorporate a few of the same on-brand elements into every post. 

Think color scheme, ambiance, brand voice, and mission statement. These are all things that can remain consistent while you mix up the daily content. Speaking of which...

Mix Up Your Daily Content

Don’t get stuck in a rut by posting every single photo of a property in the same tired way every day. Give your community something to look forward to. 

One way to connect is to share images of yourself with them. Show them what makes your business go, too. And when it does come to listing photos, think outside the box. Highlight to-die-for features. Think about sharing interesting angles. Incorporate before and after shots on remodel projects. Add videos.

Utilize Your Feed as a Gallery Teaser

Showcasing more than one photo is fine, but don’t give everything away. Draw your user in, and interact with them through your various touchpoints. As long as it’s not encumbering, your followers will want to dive in deeper.

The thing to remember is you always want to bring them full-circle and back to your business. In other words, you’re providing beautiful images and interactive content because, ultimately, you’d like to help your followers with real estate.    

Tailor Your Captioning to Drive Business

There are two schools of thought when it comes to captioning your Instagram photos, and really it depends on the goal of your post. When in doubt - shorter is better. But if you really have a story to tell, take your time. 

We typically recommend a combination approach to keep things fresh and interesting. But always keep it tailored with your brand and business in mind.   

Incorporate New Insta Features Into Your Efforts

As Instagram continues to test, evolve, and incorporate features into its platform, understand that your followers are jumping on them, too. You want to be where they are, so when you see a new feature, don’t be afraid to try it out!

Did you know you can convert your most popular posts into ads? Or archive stuff you’ve later decided against? Traffic-tracking features are always evolving as well.

Offer Sneak Peaks and Interesting Generated Content via Stories

There are so many exciting ways you can use your stories to your advantage. Utilize them for walk-throughs. For property opinion polls. For Q&A boxes. 

Share related content from others via stories, too. This is a way to share your broader interests while keeping on-brand with your permanent feed.

Use Highlights for More Permanent Information and Guides

The highlights section is the perfect space for brand philosophy videos or other permanent branding efforts. 

Its location also makes it easy to drive people to your URL link directly above the highlights feed. Some also choose to host detailed contest rules videos there or share their most current news.  

Always Tag Your Location - Especially in Alaska

According to SocialReport.com, “Posts with a tagged location result in 79% higher engagement.” What’s more interesting to us is an application of an idea that doesn’t yet have data backing, but the theory seems sound. (And tagging costs nothing, so why not give it a try?) What is it?

It’s rumored that Instagrammers are now utilizing the service similarly to Yelp. Specifically, they’re searching for local businesses through the app. We imagine if you have a habit of tagging every listing post, you’re bound to garner some interest when Alaska-local followers happen to be in the area. 

(And One to Grow On!) 

One of the easiest ways to keep your own Insta feed fresh is by following the trendsetters themselves. Take a cue from a few key industry influencers and apply their principles with your own twist.

In the meantime, if you’d like a few tailored tips for how to best present your real estate business and listing images through the platform, reach out to DMD Real Estate Photography to learn more!

Introducing Photo and Video Editor, Jennifer Davis

You may be surprised to learn that DMD Real Estate Photography doesn’t just treat its clients, colleagues, and employees like family - we really are a family affair! 

As many of our clients and colleagues know, DMD was a one-man show in the beginning. Soon enough, though, the work was coming in faster than one photographer could reasonably handle, and founder Dave Davis began building his team. 

Naturally, he turned to those he felt he could trust most with important elements of his budding business. The person he looked to for photo editing? His sister, Jennifer Davis.

Jennifer’s background is in construction, giving her a unique perspective on how to best highlight key features of a home through its gallery photos. She holds a degree in construction management and is currently on-call remotely with DMD while working towards a BA in Business Administration at CWU. 

When we spoke with Jennifer about her favorite part of editing for DMD, she told us she enjoys editing video content most. Those amazing clips you find across ours and our clients’ sites and social platforms? The production process takes more creativity than you might think - and that’s by design!

Typically, Jennifer splices footage from various sources together, overlays music, and works through transitions. Her goal is to draw viewers into what we’ve captured on-screen so that they never even think about the process. 

We also love that she understands how subjective something like real estate photography can be, taking time to learn each client’s unique preferences for showcasing their homes, and making a note of it so that those wishes are incorporated into the next job. 

It is our goal at DMD to ensure every job is completed in a way that our clients feel the end product is as if they have designed and created every image themselves. And that’s exactly why we have Jennifer on our team.

If you are an Alaska real estate agent looking for a dedicated photography team that learns your preferences and can consistently provide high-quality listing photos to you, consider working with Jennifer and the rest of the DMD team. 

For those of you who already have a photographer you trust and love - we can still help. DMD even offers photo-editing options only. So agents who only need assistance with photo editing can upload listing photos directly to us, too. Reach out to learn more.

Four Reasons Lighting Is Crucial for Real Estate Photography

Depending on a photographer’s particular niche, they may prefer utilizing natural light, and in some cases, it’s the only way to truly capture the perfect image - even in real estate. 

While often there are components of natural light that make sense for real estate photography, by-and-large strategic artificial lighting is crucial to the successful sale of a home. Here are four reasons why.

Reason #1: Homebuying Is a Visual (and Emotional) Endeavor

A well-lit home appeals to both our visual and emotional buying processes. In fact, science has proven that good lighting, in general, can heighten a person’s mood. Poor lighting has even been linked to depression!

When you think about the investment of time, money, thought, and commitment that goes into buying a home, it’s easy to understand why a buyer would pass over a poorly-lit property for one that is light, airy, and bright. 

Reason #2: You Must Present Your Alaska Home in Its Best Light

Often, you (and your clients) pour time and money into improving a home in an effort to ready the property for listing. But that won’t matter if potential buyers can’t clearly see what’s in the photos. The right photographer understands the importance of presenting a property in, quite literally, the best light. 

Not properly investing in this marketing component would be a misstep in every sense of the word. This is especially true for the Alaska real estate landscape, where many times your listing gallery is the only way a buyer sees the home before making an offer.  

Reason #3: The Right Lighting Guides Homebuyers’ Eyes

Strategic illumination can help guide the eye of a potential buyer through every aspect of every image you include in your gallery. Here are two prime examples: 

• Track lighting can be directed toward specific built-in elements or to highlight certain wall features in a home. 

• The combination of recessed lighting and the reflective glow of a well-positioned whiteboard can lend to a dreamy, golden look in a cozy Alaska home. 

Reason #4: Great Lighting Helps Your Clients Dream Bigger

You may have noticed that real estate photographers love a well-staged home to photograph. It is our job to develop the story your potential buyers are dreaming of with your listing, and, as you might imagine, it is far easier to tell a good story in a staged room than in an empty one.  

Fantastic lighting helps us weave in the subtle details of a home by shedding light into its darkest corners, making a small, dark room seem bigger and more wide open, and showcasing its best features. We use lighting to help your clients dream bigger.

DMD Real Estate Photography Knows Property Lighting

Ultimately, the right lighting in your photographs is crucial to selling a home. To see more creative ways DMD Real Estate Photography has used lighting to tackle some of the complex challenges we face when photographing real estate, check out this previous post. 

If you’d like to talk about a specific Alaska property of your own, and how we suggest lighting your listing images, give us a call!