Every year comes a new wave of renters deciding whether to stay at their current apartment community or search for a new one. Using social media to search businesses has only increased over the years and if you’re not using Instagram to market your apartment community, you should be.
Today, Instagram has over 1 billion active users and 500 million active users daily - meaning the change of your target audience being on Instagram is more than just high.
An estimated 75.3% of businesses were on Instagram in 2020. Now is the time for you to focus on including Instagram in your marketing strategy for your apartment community, and below is how to do that.
Using a Business Instagram Account
Switching to a business Instagram account can provide many useful benefits to help you market your apartment community. One of the main differences is the layout you are given for a business account versus a personal one.
You have the option to customize your profile. You can decide how future prospects can get in touch with you whether that be through phone calls, email or direct message on Instagram. You also have the ability to set quick replies when people contact you through your account. This way you’ll never miss a message even if you are not currently on your social media.
Another major advantage of the business account gives you Instagram insights. Analytics is essential for any digital marketing strategy. These analytics provide insight on your posts which you can view right from the app. These can include, reach and impressions, content interactions, total followers and audience demographics.
One of the biggest benefits of the business account is the option for ads and boosting your posts. This can be a powerful tool to help you target specific audiences and get in front of the people who matter most for your business.
Guides
Instagram rolled out a feature in 2020 that became very popular during the pandemic and real estate professionals were fast to respond.
Guides are a mix of Instagram carousels and blog posts and allows for content to be scrollable. Whether you want to show your best content or reach potential tenants, guides can give inspiration for interest in certain properties.
The best part of guides is you can use content you already have. Each guide has a cover image, title, introduction and descriptions for individual entries. They can be shared through Instagram stories or direct messages.
Some of the different ways to use guides to market your apartment community include: introducing your portfolio, showcase a model unit, have a themed post, develop rankings for most popular listings or highest-rated communities, sort your properties by location and have a coming soon group for properties that are still being constructed.
Variety of Content
Instagram is a very visual social platform which can make marketing your apartment community easy, but you want to make sure you have various types of content.
Showcasing your community from different photos and what it would be like to live there is a great place to start. It will help give prospects a better idea and you still are selling your community without becoming too pushy.
But, you should also consider putting your virtual tours on your Instagram. It’s not always possible for people to go out and have in person tours for multiple apartment communities. Especially in today’s world virtual tours have become even more popular.
So why not make it easy for people to take those tours. You can show your amenities, events and any other features that would make your apartment community excellent for them.
User-Generated Content
Something that can easily get overlooked when building your marketing strategy for your apartment community is user-generated content.
This type of content can incentivize your audience to share their own experiences of living at your apartment community and what it’s really like to be a resident there. But how do you go about finding this content?
There are 3 main ways:
LCP360 is a National Digital Marketing company located in Chicago specializing in photography, virtual tours, 3D renderings, video animations, virtual staging and floor plans. LCP360 offers multifamily, senior living and many other real estate industries a creative and innovative way to showcase space. By combining the best technologies from web marketing and panoramic photography, LCP360 has developed a best-in-class virtual tour web application that lets renters virtually tour a property from any location.