Must-Know Tips for Better Real Estate Instagram Captions

Hands up if this sounds familiar:

You’ve got a great idea for a real estate Instagram post. Perhaps a sneak peek at a new listing, or tips for first-time buyers. You’ve picked an eye-catching photo, and maybe you’ve got your hashtags ready, too.

But then it’s time to write your caption … and you’ve got nothing. 

Instagram caption writer’s block is real — especially for business owners (and yes, that includes real estate agents).

Writing Instagram captions for business comes with a lot of pressure. To be successful, your caption needs to be engaging. Attention-grabbing. Convincing.

Struggling with writing great real estate Instagram captions? Start fresh with these tips.

Write in Your Own Voice

Real estate is a personal business. A people business. Clients interact with you, not some faceless company. 

That’s why everything you write should sound like you.

It can be tempting to adopt some snappy, catchy voice on Instagram. But the best way to get followers to engage with your content is to be authentic in your captions. That includes writing in your own voice.

Writing in your own voice means not veering too far from how you’d speak in real life. Don’t swap your words for bigger, fancier ones. Don’t try to make cheesy jokes if that’s not what you’d do normally. Use the expressions and tones you normally would.

Of course, there is a line. Your real estate Instagram account is a professional setting. No off-colour humour or four-letter words. And your caption should be free of spelling and grammar mistakes (always proofread!)

Grab Attention in the First Line

There are a lot of accounts vying for your followers’ attention on Instagram. 

Unless they’re going directly to your account page to look at your content, they’ll be finding your Instagram posts as they scroll their feed.

You have mere seconds to grab their attention. A great photo is half the battle. The first two lines of your real estate Instagram caption is the second half.

The lesson: don’t waste any time getting to your point. Forget about the lead-up and preamble. Cut right to the chase. Make it juicy.

Let’s say you’re posting about tips for sellers on how to get top dollar. 

You could start with:

Selling your house is a huge decision. It can be emotional. Overwhelming. Confusing. And of course, you want to make sure you’re getting the best possible price.

Nice. But you’re not going to grab anyone’s attention in the feed with that. To get them right off the bat, try this:

The story of how my client got an extra $100K for their home is a little weird.

See the difference?

Make It Valuable (and Explain Why It’s Valuable)

So you’ve got their attention. They’re going to read your Instagram real estate post for at least the first couple of lines.

But how do you convince them to keep going? 

Well, your post has to be valuable to your audience. And that value needs to be clear to them. They should have a reason to care about what they’re reading.

Valuable = of benefit. Something useful. A detail or fact or nugget of wisdom that your audience can acquire from reading your Instagram caption.

Using our previous example, maybe that benefit is a really great insider tip that can help a potential seller out when they’re ready to list.

Drive it home by literally explaining to your audience why it’s a benefit.

The story of how my client got an extra $100K for their home is a little weird. But I’m sharing it with you so that you can maximize the value of your own home if and when you’re ready to sell. 

Know When to Go Long or Keep It Short

There’s no perfect character count for an Instagram post. 

Your Instagram caption could be as long as 2,200 characters (that’s the maximum). But that doesn’t mean it should be.

There have been experiments to test whether the Instagram algorithm prefers posts with long captions or short captions.

Some say the algorithm rewards longer captions, and that those Instagram posts get more engagement. Others say it all depends on the subject matter, how good the image is, or how many followers you have to begin with.

At the end of the day, your caption should only be as long as it needs to be.

Helpful, right?

Well, let’s say you’re posting photos of three different front porches decorated for the holidays and asking your followers to vote on their favourite. That calls for a short-and-sweet caption.

How about a post to promote your new report on 2022 market predictions? Now that deserves some extra characters to sell the sizzle.

If you’re unsure of the best approach for a particular post, write a long and a short version of the caption. Evaluate both to see what’s striking the right balance between being enjoyable to read and delivering all the right details.

Don’t Forget a Call-to-Action

Real estate Instagram captions are not the same as personal Instagram captions.

You have a goal here: convince your audience to take a step that will help you grow your business. Maybe even find real estate clients on Instagram.

Your audience is probably not going to take that step on their own. You’ll need to ask them. 

Enter: the call-to-action.

A good call-to-action is clear, specific and simple. Don’t ask your audience to do five things, don’t be ambiguous about the thing you want them to do, and don’t make it too onerous.

Let’s use our example caption about tips for sellers. Here’s what a good call-to-action might look like at the end of that post:

• Check out the link in my bio for a list of ALL my tips

• Tag a friend who could use these tips

• Comment below if you’ve got a tip of your own to share
• DM me if you want to know how this tip could work for you

 

What else do you want to know about marketing your real estate business on Instagram?