October 8, 2019
5 Minute Read
In this article:
You can use real estate hashtags to make your property listings, market reports, videos and content shares more discoverable on social media sites like Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest. According to the Zillow Group Consumer Housing Trends Report 2019, 69% of sellers value an agent who promotes listings on social networking sites. Since many people browse social media daily, it's an effective place to gain visibility for your business — and ultimately gain followers and clients.
A hashtag is the little number (#) symbol that is added before a word or phrase to make your social media shares discoverable on popular sites like Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest. Other users — even people who don't already follow you — can find your content and read, watch and share it by searching words and phrases that match your hashtags. To ensure your hashtags work properly, avoid using spaces and punctuation.
The number of real estate hashtags you use per message will vary based on which social media platform you're using. Minimizing the number of hashtags within a shared post, tweet or pin can keep your message looking clean and well thought out. Here are the limits for each platform:
Instagram allows you to use up to 30 hashtags per message, although consider limiting yourself to 5-10.
Twitter doesn't have a hashtag limit, but instead enforces a 280-character limit per message, including hashtags. One or two relevant hashtags per message will help people discover your brand.
Pinterest also uses a character limit — 500 for messages — including hashtags. Try to keep the number of hashtags similar to Instagram, with less than 10 being a good blend of discoverability and visual appeal.
While you can use hashtags on Facebook, they aren’t as common and do not help improve discoverability. If you're looking to increase discoverability on Facebook, it's a good idea to look into real estate Facebook ads and other marketing strategies.
For the most part, using hashtags doesn't vary between platforms. However, there are a few differences that you should understand before including hashtags in your tweets, pins and posts.
Instagram allows users to follow hashtags, which will make content tagged with those hashtags appear in their feed. You can also consider advertising your own branded hashtag in your bio and encouraging users to use it to submit content.
Twitter doesn’t let you follow hashtags, although third-party apps like TweetDeck do have the capability to follow hashtags on Twitter.
Pinterest works more like a visual search engine that you can curate. It's easy to find popular real estate hashtags by searching for them in the search bar.
The sheer volume of usable hashtags can be overwhelming, since any word or phrase can be turned into a hashtag. You can narrow the choices by familiarizing yourself with relevant real estate hashtags and identifying the ones your leads and clients are most interested in. Use popular real estate hashtags in your posts, tweets and pins to connect with your audience. Here are some of the best real estate hashtags:
Used correctly, the right hashtags can grab your audience's attention and get them to follow you. Here are some real estate hashtag strategies to consider:
Before you use a hashtag in a message, do a quick search to ensure the content associated with that hashtag is relevant and appropriate. The search may even provide you with information, like how many times the hashtag has been used, along with other related hashtags.
Consider starting a document or spreadsheet to keep track of the hashtags you use. This will help when posting similar content in the future and allow you to track which hashtags are the most effective at gaining followers.
Keep track of what other agents are doing, especially ones with a large number of followers. It's also a good idea to find influential real estate accounts and see what hashtags they use.
Be specific and find hashtags your target audience is using and engaging with. The search bar is your friend, and a few minutes of research could make all the difference when trying to place yourself in front of people who are looking to buy or sell a home. Some hashtags to consider are:
By using different hashtags, you're able to reach different audiences and increase the likelihood of gaining new followers (and leads!). This will allow you to have a rotation of hashtags that's greater than the number you use in each message. If you have a niche such as high-end real estate, consider using luxury real estate hashtags such as #luxuryhomes or #luxuryhomes. The same can be done for properties with acreage or any other specific feature.
The most popular real estate hashtags are not always the best ones for finding leads. Try narrowing your audience while increasing the likelihood of gaining local followers by targeting people who live in your farming area. How you market your local hashtags is up to you, but a general search on your neighborhood or area will turn up what popular real estate hashtags others are using.
Don't use irrelevant hashtags just because they're popular. It's unlikely to net you any relevant followers who will help your business. You want to use the best hashtags for real estate and your area.
It's a good practice to avoid spam hashtags like #followforfollow, which can make your personal brand look questionable. You’ll gain followers, but not relevant ones — and the unprofessional appearance may deter future clients.
Another way to use hashtags for real estate is showing off the cool features of a listing. Try using hashtags like #fireplace or #countrylife to get in front of followers who may be interested in a specific type of home or lifestyle.
For more digital marketing ideas, visit the Zillow Premier Agent Resource Center.
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