25 post ideas for Facebook & Instagram // Canadian Real Estate Marketing Podcast #003

Episode #003 transcript

Please forgive any typos as this is an automated transcript from this episode.


PAUL: It’s easy to become overwhelmed when you’re trying to think of what you should be putting in your Facebook feed. In this episode, we’re going to give you some specific ideas of post types to get you started.

VAL: And you’ll probably be surprised on what to post. All right. So 25 ideas. Yup. Hey, let’s do this. So number one, post a picture of yourself participating in your favorite hall.

PAUL: No, one’s easy. You’re just going to get your cell phone out and you’re gonna take a selfie of yourself, hiking or coaching your kid’s volleyball team, or walking your dog, just something personal. That’s not real. Estatey just to kind of let people know a little bit about yourself without being too personal.

VAL: Number two, take a short selfie style video of yourself, hanging out at your local hotspot.

PAUL: So that’s similar to the last one, but instead of a photo, you’ll take a short video and it’s going to be you hanging out at the beach or the park that everybody likes to go to in the summertime, or maybe the trendy spot to hang out on a Friday night. And you’re just going to take a little video of yourself and a little message saying I’m having fun or look where I’m at or whatever it would be. And it’s just to let people know that you’re out and about in the community.

VAL: Number three, share one of your listings.

PAUL: This one’s super easy. You’re just going to go to your website and you’re going to get the link and you’re going to post it into your Facebook feed, but don’t just post the link. You’ll also want to give a little bit of context about the property. So if it has a nice view, you’ll say, Hey, check out the view of my latest listing or, Hey, my listing has five. Bedrooms would be great for growing family.

VAL: Number four, find inspiration in a daily theme.

PAUL: You don’t have to look very far online to see that there’s themed days. For instance, there’s M motivation, Monday travel Tuesday, wellness, Wednesday throwback, Thursday, follow Friday catarrh day, which is like Saturday, but it’s pictures of cats,

VAL: Selfie Sunday.

PAUL: Yeah. If you’re looking for something to post on a Tuesday and you’re kind of coming up empty, you can just go through your photos and from your last holiday and post a picture of you on the beach, or, you know, at a tourist hotspot and tag it

VAL: Hashtag travel Tuesday, number five, do a Google image search for inspirational quotes and share one of the images you find

PAUL: When you go to Google and you do an image search for inspiration or quotes, you’re going to be bombarded with pretty pictures and pretty words on top of them. They’re easy to share. They’re concise. And to the point, and if you want to take it up a level, you can always take a picture of your own and add your quote on top of it. You can just go to a site like, and you can make your own graphic right there. And then you have super local content to post to your feet.

VAL: Yeah. Especially like obviously yeah. Taking picture of in your local area. That’s nice. And people can connect and be like, Oh, I know

PAUL: That’s right. Exactly, exactly. Right.

VAL: I like it. Share a link to your favorite podcast and ask followers to recommend their favorite to you.

PAUL: Presumably we’re not the only podcast you’re listened to. And this is a good chance for you to again, share a little bit about yourself by saying, Oh, I’m into this kind of podcast. And then you’re building community by saying, what kind of podcast are you into? And it allows all kinds of conversations like, Oh, I don’t have, I don’t listen to podcasts. This is my favorite podcast. And it just really is a good conversation builder.

VAL: I like it. Share a recent story from your local newspaper.

PAUL: So this one you don’t want to just copy and paste a link into your Facebook feed because they can see that on the newspaper’s Facebook feed. What you’d want to do is find a story that you connect with on some level, whether it’s professionally or personally post that, share that with your audience, but then in one or two sentences, explain why you’re sharing it. If it’s talking about the real estate market and you’d want to say, Oh, look, this is a great update about our local market pay attention to what the author says is supposed to happen to home prices later in the year. Or if it’s something personal about an event you went to on the weekend or something like that, then you would just want to add your 2 cents out. A lot of fun at this event. It was for a good cause.

VAL: I’m seeing that with a lot of these posts, like if you’re sharing a photo or a link, like you’re kind of, preambling it with your own little context.

PAUL: That’s right. Yeah. That’s really important. Otherwise it’s just super generic, right? And if you’re not adding your own little spin on what you saw, then why am I following you instead of the newspaper or the feed of the people that put on the event or whatever it would be, we’re here to know about you. So you need to add a, your context to events or exposed,

VAL: Visit a local restaurant and take a selfie of you enjoying yourself.

PAUL: Super easy, go order a meal, sit down, take a picture of the food, take a picture of yourself, enjoying the food, make sure you tag the restaurant and hopefully they’ll share or give you a little bit of love back. And it’s a good way to expose yourself to other audiences that you may not easily have access.

VAL: Well, and if you’re going with a friend or a fellow business owner, it’s an opportunity for each of you guys to tag each other, right?

PAUL: Sure. Yeah, that’s right. The whole meal doesn’t have to be. I’ll take a picture. Now you take a picture. It can be one picture and done and move on with your life. But it’s a good chance to have a fun picture,

VAL: Post a link to your other social media accounts.

PAUL: Presumably you have more than just a Facebook page. You probably at least have a Facebook page and an Instagram page. So what you’ll want to do is on Facebook post to link to your Instagram account and say, Hey, we have lots of fun on Instagram. If you like what we do here, maybe you want to check me out there and vice versa. You can drive traffic back and forth from Twitter to LinkedIn, to a YouTube page, to whatever you have. And it’s just a good way to build audience on other platforms using an existing audience.

VAL: I like that. It’s a little bit of a kind of a reminder every once in a while, like obviously that’s not well with all this variation of post, you’re kind of changing it up and doing these different posts here and there. And this is a good one to throw in there. So number 10, share your latest blog post. Or

PAUL: If you read an irregular blog post on your site about the real estate market, it would sales near neighborhood about industry news. Then be proud of yourself and share that to your Facebook page. Once in awhile, you know, I wouldn’t even share once in a while, every time I post a blog post, I posted to the Facebook page. If you write a column in the newspaper, the same thing you can say, here’s the story that I wrote for this week in the paper. Make sure you check it out on the website or in print. Um, if you’re not writing a blog post or writing a column regularly, you should get on it. There’s no barrier to entry to have a blog. And the truth is especially in a small community. If you approach the newspaper and say, you want to write a regular column, that probably jump all over you.

PAUL: And for some reason, when people read that you’ve written something in print, it just instantly makes you an expert that newspaper, it gives you so much credibility. It can be the exact same thing you wrote on your blog, but when it gets printed in the newspaper, man, you know your stuff, share a listing. We’ve already talked about sharing a listing, but this time you’re going to do it just a little bit differently. Last time you posted a direct link to the full listing this time, you’ll take the photos from that listing and you’ll make a Facebook gallery with five or 10 different photos. And again, you’ll talk about the best parts of that home, that listing and referenced the photos. If you look here, you can see there’s a big backyard. If you look here, you can see there’s a great view. If you look here, you can see that you’re close to the beach, whatever those pictures show. It’s another good way to get out your listings without beating people over the head that you’re a realtor.

VAL: Alright. Number 12, go outside and shoot a short video of you commenting on the world.

PAUL: That’s right. Anytime there’s small talk. If you meet somebody and there’s an awkward space to fill, what do you say?

VAL: Yeah. Great weather out there.

PAUL: Lots of rain lately. So do it on Facebook. Go outside and say, man, just been a sweltering summer, got to go to the beach or I’m sick of the rain. I don’t want to, I can’t start another rainy day. It’s bringing me down. Or if I’ve got to shovel one more scoop of snow. It’s an easy way to get lots of engagement on a Facebook post. People will love to comment about the weather.

VAL: I agree. Share one of the reasons you became a realtor.

PAUL: So this is just giving people a glimpse behind the curtain. You’re going to share a little bit of yourself. What brought you into this industry? What brought you into this career that you like to work with? People that you’ve always been fascinated by real estate, that you bought a house and it was a really good investment and don’t be afraid to share those things with people. It helps you connect with people.

VAL: Yeah. I like all those little opportunities to share a little bit about yourself. People like those Olin sites, Google holidays and observances and see what’s happening in the days to come and post about your favorite.

PAUL: If you go to Google and you Google holidays and observances, you will get a list of websites that list all of the holidays and observances throughout the year, there will be the obvious ones like Christmas and Valentine’s day and that kind of thing. But then you will also get super obscure things like national hotdog day and any other weird event you can think of. If you’re stuck for something to post and you look up the observance on that day, you’re just about guaranteed to find something that will start a conversation.

VAL: I’m not good with this conversation.

PAUL: Okay. That’s all good. I’ll tell you. But when it’s national conversation day.

VAL: Yeah, exactly. Right? The role he is, okay. We’re at 15 here. Post a picture of your pet or your kids.

PAUL: Again, this one’s a layup. People connect with pets and kids. If you don’t have pets and kids post a picture of your significant other, your parents, um, something that will die, if you don’t look after it. And when you post the photo, just don’t post a random photo of a dog or kids. You have to add some context for that and say, Oh, I had a fun time at the park with my dog today. Oh. I went and visited my parents today and had a, you know, a nice chat. You need to provide that context to say something nice about the percent of the picture too.

VAL: Especially if it’s your significant other better. Be nice.

PAUL: Yeah. I don’t want to say here’s my significant other. Does anybody know a good divorce lawyer? Maybe you do want to say that. I don’t know. That would not be my recommendation.

VAL: All right. Moving on, moving on a post about last night’s episode of your favorite TV show or the score from last night’s game,

PAUL: You’ve got a favorite TV show. Comments say, man, that one was a good one last night. I can’t believe the plot twist or I laughed so hard at that part. When this happened, if you’re a sports fan, do the same thing with the score from the game. Did you see overtime? Did you see the penalty kill? What was your favorite part of the game? Who’s your favorite player on the team? Great way to get people chatting on your face.

VAL: Lots of options. There go to one of your listings and host a virtual open house using Facebook or Instagram live.

PAUL: This means physically going to one of your listings. Maybe you’re already having an open house and this is your opportunity to do an online live portion of it. So you would just fire up your Facebook app or your Instagram app and choose the live option. And that whole hour, hour, and a half that you’re at the home, you would just be live. And every once in a while, you’d walk around and you show off the house just like you would, if somebody was there in person. And if people have questions on Instagram live or Facebook live, they can answer husk and you can answer them in real time. Good way to extend the reach of that open house.

VAL: Shoot a cell phone video of you giving a market report.

PAUL: This doesn’t mean just read the market report from your local real estate board. Anybody can grab it and read it. It’s probably reprinted in the paper and there’ll be a dozen other agents that just post a link to it on the website. This is your chance to read it. Take some important nuggets of information from it and distill it for your audience, your real estate expert. So that report, let people know what the important parts were and condense it to three or four sentences. What are the most important parts for your audience to know,

VAL: Take selfies of yourself, running your daily errands, post them to Instagram stories.

PAUL: That sounds like it might be super boring, but the truth of it is, is that it’s, it’s interesting to people. They’ll, there’ll be interested to know that you wouldn’t put gas in your car and you bought groceries and that the lineup of the bank was longer than you thought it would be. Even if you think it is boring and then nobody’s going to watch it. And when you’re throwing it on stories, it only lasts for 24 hours.

VAL: It’s all a part of us that we’re all like gossipy and curious about what other people are doing. So yeah, if we’re flipping through Instagram and we see that, then we’re just, we’re seeing you,

PAUL: Sorry. It just creates top of mind awareness for that person looking at your Instagram feed. And if you think it’s lame or it’s silly, don’t worry about it. It’s going to be gone tomorrow. Instagram deletes the stories after 24 hours,

VAL: Great post a selfie of yourself. Post-workout

PAUL: That’s right. No matter where you are in your fitness journey, if you’re just getting started or you’re running marathons, post a picture of you finishing up your latest workout, it’ll attract people that are in that same position. If you’re just getting started on getting into the shape you want to be in, then people that are in that same position can relate to it. Or maybe they remember being in that position not too long ago. And there’s a little bit of a connection and vice versa. If you’re somebody that is a super fit and you’re ready to run a marathon or a triathlon, you’ll connect with other people that have that same mentality and mindset.

VAL: If nothing else, you just connect with people that are just, uh, don’t take themselves seriously, or just allowing themselves to be a little bit vulnerable like that and show themselves maybe not necessarily in their best light. So yeah, it’s all good. Yeah.

PAUL: Makes you a real person instead of a talking heads, selling a house.

VAL: Exactly. A real person. Where are we at now? Oh, number 21. Okay. We got 25 tips in Casey. I didn’t tell you guys this, and we’re almost done post an update about a property you just sold.

PAUL: This is just social proof. This shows people that not only are you a realtor, you’re a realtor that works. You get results for clients. This could be as simple as a photo of the listing and it’s titled just sold. Maybe it’s pictures of you and a client that you’re handing over keys. Maybe you’re at the property putting up a, just sold sign on top of your regular sign, but whatever it is, you’re gonna let people in your feed know that you’re a successful realtor that does deals.

VAL: I think that kind of posts is rewarding for the realtor and also for the audience. Cause it’s like, yeah, it just shows that yeah, you’re successful and moving along and selling stuff.

PAUL: And it’s exciting for the person in the picture too, when we’re around real estate all day long that we’re doing, you know, dozens of transactions in a year, it’s easy to lose sight. That that person that just bought a house, that’s a pretty big deal for them. And it’s an exciting thing that, that they have every reason in the world to want to share. And if you’re there with your camera to take a picture, they’ll probably happily participate

VAL: Post photos from your regular realtor caravan.

PAUL: I think most real estate markets have some version of this where a brokerage will go on a certain day of the week and get all their realtors together. And they all go see the new listings at that brokerage had come online that week. And it’s just a private open houses basically for the realtor so that they know what’s on the markets so that they can share that with their clients. Uh, here on the sunshine coast, we have a handful of realtors that are excellent at this, that they go to every tour, they take multiple pictures of every property. And it’s just as a really easy way to show off that you’re connected to the market. And it’s a spot for some of your personality come through as well when you’re captioning photos.

VAL: Yeah. Very good for Instagram stories. Just a quick little things. Circling, putting hearts around little loss, fix that. You like little comments on those posts.

PAUL: The, I do think it’s better suited for Instagram stories than your Instagram feed or your Facebook feed. Typically when you go on these caravans, it’s not one property, there’s a number of properties and you’re probably going to want to take a number of photos at the property. So if all of a sudden you’re spamming a feed with 20 or 30 photos, it can be a lot, but Instagram stories, that’s expected to have a lot of images come one after another. And for Instagram stories, as opposed to the feed,

VAL: Perfect upload the video tour of your latest listing.

PAUL: You use video rate for all your listings. So show it off. You’ve either shot it on your own. And it took you a lot of work and effort, data video looking good, or you paid somebody a not inconsiderable or something amount of money to shoot a video for you. Either way, be proud, share that video, show the world that you’re a modern marketer that works hard to get results for his or her client.

VAL: Take a selfie of yourself, doing a chore and ask if anyone has a tip to make the task warranty.

PAUL: That’s right. If you don’t like putting gas in the car, take a picture of yourself, pumping it and saying, how can I get somebody else to do this for me? Does anybody have a tip to make me have to put gas in my car less frequently? And you’re going to get replies. Like I get my husband to do it. You’re going to get replies. Like I bought a Tesla that I don’t have to put gas into whatever that response is. It’s a conversation starter.

VAL: Yeah. I agree. Because sometimes we each have chores that we don’t mind and other chores that we really don’t like. So you’re kind of connecting with that one person, right.

PAUL: That’s right. That’s why they’re called chores, I guess. Cause you don’t want to do them, but they’ve got to get done.

VAL: All right. Number 25, post a picture and give a shout out to a local business.

PAUL: This is a lot like the restaurant one, except it has a broader scope. I think a lot of times people will go to the oven experience with a business and it’s maybe not a great experience. Right. And that’s when they think that they want to go and post on the internet. Oh, I went to Bill’s bookstore and he was really a jerk and I don’t like him and that’s what businesses deal with. But to have the opposite happen, I think it really makes an impression on the business owner that when you say I went and the store was so clean and the service was so good and they always smile when I come in, it means a lot to other businesses, your community. And it’s something that can easily be shared.

VAL: Yeah. It’s a very good reflection on yourself, actually that you’re saying positive things about other businesses. And if you have a negative thing to say, don’t be posting that, like you said earlier instead, like send that business a comment privately. But to definitely highlight that

PAUL: Yes, for an audience highlight the positive things. Don’t put a business on blast publicly. It’s not good for the business and it’s not good for you. Sure.

VAL: All right. So that was the 25 tips and most of all, just be interesting. Be yourself, be authentic and uh, don’t take yourself seriously, have fun with it.

PAUL: And don’t worry so much about having to be on the topic of real estate all the time. Right? If you go to a party and you meet somebody that says that they are an accountant and all they want to talk about with you or, and things that is somebody that’s not a great person to hang out with at a party. And social media is a bit like a party in that we’re meeting each other and having interactions and somebody that just drones on all the time about real estate in the market and my latest listing. And do you know anybody that wants to buy, do you know anybody that wants to sell? They just get tuned out. So be a real person that also happens to be a realtor.

VAL: I do want to say one more thing and don’t be intimidated by all of these platforms because it’s just play with them. Cause the more you play with them, the more you learn them and you get used to them and, and it gets easier. And if you’re not sure about how to do something and you’re seeing other people post a certain way, then just Google that

PAUL: That’s right, Facebook and Instagram and all of these different companies. When they put out an app, they want it to be intuitive. That if you don’t understand what you’re doing, when you fire it up relatively quickly, you can at least figure out the bare bones of it so you can participate in it. So the best way to learn it, this like Val said is to start using it. And the internet is full of it. Every answer to any question you could ever ask. So go to YouTube type in, how do I do this on that platform and get a hundred, get a thousand answers. That’ll answer your question for you.

VAL: There you go. Happy posting. If you enjoyed this episode, consider sharing it with someone else that might feel the same way. And if you haven’t already please like subscribe and review the podcast. We’re Val Labrecque and Paul Poulsen. And this has been the Canadian Real Estate Marketing Podcast.