A social media presence is vital to growing any company, and Instagram is pretty much tailor-made for home stagers. People love to look at photos of beautiful houses on Instagram. That is what you create every day!
So you already have the content, but Instagram is not just about posting pretty pictures. You need to use your Instagram profile strategically. However, we often see home stagers make these 5 mistakes when using Instagram. Avoid these mistakes to successfully market your home staging business on social media.
1. Posting Unflattering Photos of Your Work
Just a few easy staging photography tips will turn your iPhone photos into the perfect content for Instagram. When taking pictures of your staging work, turn on the grid lines on your camera to guide your composition. Then, once you’re done, the easiest way to make any staging picture look good is to crop and lighten it.
2. Leaving Out Your Location
We see home stagers make this mistake all the time. Make sure that the area where you offer home staging services is listed in your Instagram bio. Otherwise, potential clients have no way of knowing if you are available to stage their listings, or on the other side of the country.
3. Using Generic Hashtags
You may be tempted to use a hashtag like #beautifulhomes or #homestaging. There are sooooo many posts with those hashtags that yours will never be seen. Instead, use hashtags that are specific to the location and interests of your target demographic – local real estate agents.
4. Posting the Before Photos First
The golden rule for home staging Instagram posts: Never post a ‘Before’ picture before the ‘After.’ You want to make sure your followers see the photo of your professional home staging first. Otherwise, they may think the ‘Before’ picture is a representation of your finished staging work.
5. Ignoring Comments and Messages
The Instagram algorithm decides how many people to show your post to, and how high it will rank on their feeds. One key factor of the algorithm is engagement. Don’t forget to engage with your followers by promptly responding to their comments and messages.
It is important that home stagers avoid these five mistakes when using Instagram, but there are many other elements to a successful social media marketing strategy. Learn more by attending my Professional Development Webinar with RESA on March 17: The Blueprint to Gaining Clients, Not Just Followers, Through Social Media.
Andress Eichstadt leads the creative and marketing team at Staging Studio, a RESA accredited training school for home stagers. Andress was honored by RESA as one of the top most influential people in the staging industry in 2020 and 2021. She holds a masters degree from Southern Methodist University, is an Airbnb Superhost, and is a frequent guest speaker for RESA chapter meetings. Andress lives in San Antonio, TX with her husband and two daughters.
Our passion is the education, inspiration and growth of others who choose to get on the fun, crazy train of Staging!
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