Real Estate Marketing & Beyond
Social media marketing is an integral component of brand building for any business today. This includes those working in the real estate sector. Real estate agents and other professionals need to maintain a strong and engaging social media presence and using platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram is essential for accomplishing just that. Now, with Instagram’s new “channels” feature, industry professionals have yet another tool in their arsenal for accomplishing just that. Let’s look at this new option and see how it can be used.
Instagram Channels are new broadcast features built into the social sharing platform. Joining a specific channel then provides users with a content feed exclusive to that channel, which can include text, images, polls, and similar content. Channels are one-way - users won’t be able to post new content to the Channels they’re a part of, but they can engage with the content that’s been posted by reacting to it after reading it.
This new pilot is being rolled out through Instagram, but Meta plans to also add Channels functionality to both Messenger and Facebook in the near future. The reasoning behind this new feature is, according to research uncovered by the Wall Street Journal, that creation and engagement on Instagram and Facebook are declining, even as time spent overall on these platforms is on the rise. Meta hopes to re-engage its users through Channels by helping creators more natively and organically build audience engagement.
The new Instagram Channels feature represents major opportunities for any real estate professional looking to up their game when it comes to brand-building. Channels are built with the express purpose of encouraging user engagement with content creators, and leveraging Channels for that purpose can help real estate agents and other professionals build their brands in new and exciting ways on social media platforms that are currently the most relevant.
With both Instagram and Facebook demonstrating continued and consistent user growth, real estate professionals ignore this sector of social media engagement to their peril. With the market growing increasingly competitive, especially as the housing markets themselves go through high levels of volatility due to rising mortgage rates and declining property prices, real estate agents need every last advantage they can get to stand out against their competitors. A new avenue for brand promotion, one that is designed specifically to encourage audience engagement, could very well spell the difference between a good social media marketing campaign and a great one.
Meta’s new Instagram Channels tool is being rolled out, slowly but surely, and it will soon be available universally across the platform. Soon, related platforms like Messenger and Facebook itself will also see these new features integrated, and the end result could quite easily change the social media marketing landscape for those who remain aware of these soon-to-be-available features. If you feel your social media marketing campaigns are foundering, or even if you simply want to improve on your already successful social media marketing strategies, keep a close eye on Instagram Channels to see when the feature becomes more widely accessible.
