KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Digital Real Estate Domination Mark Salerno’s Blueprint for Conquering Instagram

Episode Date: August 29, 2025

Friday Focus is your weekly mini-series from KGCI Real Estate On Air—a deep dive into one theme, broken into tactical, easy-to-implement episodes. Every Friday and Saturday, we unpack the strategies, scripts, and systems agents use to win more business—without the fluff.Catch every episode in the series to get the full picture, and put these moves into play by Monday.SummaryThis episode provides a powerful, tactical guide for real estate agents who want to master Instagram and use it to generate a consistent flow of leads. Featured guest Mark Salerno, a master of social media lead generation, reveals his exact blueprint for creating content that captivates an audience, builds a strong personal brand, and ultimately drives business. The discussion goes beyond the basics and provides a clear strategy for converting followers into paying clients.Key TakeawaysConsistency is Key: Mark emphasizes that success on Instagram isn't about one viral post; it's about a relentless commitment to a consistent posting schedule. He provides a simple framework for creating and sharing content daily to stay top-of-mind with your audience and the algorithm.The A-to-Z Blueprint: Learn Mark's strategic approach for creating different types of content that builds a complete narrative about your brand. He breaks down the importance of having a mix of educational, entertaining, and personal content that resonates with your ideal client.Mastering the Reels: Discover why Reels are the most powerful tool for growth on Instagram today. The episode provides a step-by-step guide for creating high-engagement Reels, from scripting to editing, to reach a new audience and grow your following quickly.Convert Followers to Clients: Understand how to move a conversation from the DMs to a closing table. Mark shares his simple but effective scripts for engaging with leads who reach out on Instagram, and how to transition the conversation to a more formal consultation.Topics:Mark SalernoInstagram real estateSocial media lead generationReal estate marketingInstagram ReelsCall-to-ActionReady to dominate Instagram? Listen to the full episode on your favorite podcast platform and start building a lead-generating machine today! Ready for more? Subscribe to KGCI Real Estate On Air and grab the Always Free Real Estate On Air Mobile App for iPhone and Android. Inside, you’ll find our complete archive, 24/7 stream, and every Friday Focus mini-series—ready when you are.

Clarity, strategy, and step-by-step moves. Here's what you need to know from this week's Friday focus on KGCI, real estate on air. This is everything they never told you about real estate, helping you scale your business, implement AI, and capitalize on the latest tech and lead gen strategies. And now here's your host, the AI queen of real estate, Carrie Sovey, and the queen of Canadian real estate Jennifer Jones. Welcome back.

I am your host, Carrie. and I am joined with my co-host, Jennifer Jones, the Queen of Real Estate in Canada. And we have a really special guest today. I've actually been trying to get him on here for quite a while and he's put me off and put me off. But that's okay. We forgive him. It's Mark Salerno. And Mark is the owner of Salerno Realty.

And he is, I'm going to call you the goat of real estate influencers in the GTA. because Mark has been so active online digitally and built such an amazing brand for himself. This is why we want to hear. We want to talk about all of that. And thank you so much for making the time, Mark. I appreciate it. I do. I know we spoke about it, you know, a handful of months back.

And it was perfect when you reached out a couple weeks ago because I was watching some of your videos. And, you know, we were talking about the whole AI thing. And then with the podcast, I'm like, let's do it. Let's make it happen. So I'm happy to be here. Thank you for having me on. And very nice to meet both of you. ladies officially now. Yeah, absolutely. So nice to meet you. Thank you. So I want to start off

your content on Instagram. Let's just talk about Instagram. You've got a massive following. I believe you have one of the top Instagram real estate accounts in Canada. Tell me a little bit about when you started and what was your strategy. Give me the whole feel. So look, it was back in 2015 where I decided to, I had one account, you know, and then I said, I think I got to separate it. And it was about a year after my daughter was born. Yeah, just about a year after my daughter was born, where I'm like, I don't want to mix my children in with real estate. So I said, let me start a business account. So I created, it was originally the Toronto real estate guru. The Toronto Ari Guru was my tag. And then I switched it to Salerno real estate. And kind of went from there. And it was a full focus at the

beginning, I'll be honest, it wasn't really, there wasn't really any focus on me. I didn't even have a picture of myself as my profile picture on the account. And it was 100% houses. And it was probably 2016 where things started to kind of take off a bit for me about a year into it with the introduction of drones. And the drones was something, and I tell this story all the time where I remember I went out to dinner. He's frozen for sex. So while he's frozen, Kerry, how many followers does he have? Sorry, Mark, you froze up on us for a second. You're back, though. We're good. Okay. So going back to it, so I'm at 178 right now because I heard you ask the question, but it was, I had a listing. I just bought a new drone, got my drone light, my, because I wanted

my drone license, because like I, I'm very hands on with my listings. Okay. So I wanted to be in a position where if I needed to shoot something, I wanted to be available, do it right away. And this was kind at the beginning of when drones started. And it was a semi-detach. It was a nice house, but definitely wasn't one of my best listings ever. I took this aerial pitcher, had an above-ground pool.

And I remember I went out to dinner, and I got back and I looked at my phone, like, oh my gosh, this thing got like 900 likes. And I had like 3,200 followers. I'm like, this is not normal. People like drone. So then I started doing more drone stuff

to the point where these pictures were not only getting the likes, but they were gaining me followers. You know, 100 here. 100 here. So I kind of tapped into that, okay, drone pitcher, cert elevation. If the app likes it, I'm going to put it out there. So that was the initial start of the whole, you know, let's say building the brand and building the audience online with Instagram. But then after I started doing a couple partnerships, I started looking at some bigger accounts, started doing some cross promos with them. Hey, can I get my really nice listing? Can I get this up onto your account? Obviously,

I had to pay for it because these were accounts that were larger accounts. that would do promos for me. So, you know, one of the big, big ones at the beginning, and again, inspired me home decor. I don't even know what she's got right now, how many followers, but at the time, she had probably had a couple million, put a package together of like five really great listings of mine, and it's exposure, right? So then people start saying, oh, wow, saw my listings here, started coming over to my account.

And I started rolling with that, right? Look, the more eyes you get on your product, if people like it, the more viral it goes. we have a picture of a listing that I had back probably was 2016, 2017. It's probably the most shared real estate photo legitimately I've ever seen. I still get tagged on it six years later on Twitter or on this maybe. It was a picture of a Porsche in front of this custom built house in Midtown, Toronto. It was a beautiful photo and it just got shared so many times,

you know, to the point where the photographer actually was getting mad because he was losing credit on it because people would just take it and put it up. But yeah, that was important with me, doing a lot of collaborative things with different accounts. And then I started incorporating in, you know, right after that, the video tours. You know, I like to think I was maybe one of the first people who actually was started the walk-through tours and like,

introductions and stuff like that. This is when nobody was doing video, okay? The video was a very obsolete thing at the time. People were scared. It wasn't something that people were putting into their packages. And to sum it up very quickly, another thing was when Reels came out. When Reels first came out,

I would be upset if my Reels didn't get six figure views. Because, again, nobody was doing these. Nobody was doing the Reels in the real estate game. So we'd put stuff up and they were nicer houses, obviously, and they'd go for 100, 200, 300, 400,000 views. And when you have consistency with videos at that kind of level, you know, when you're getting 100,000 views at the time, you're picking up, you know, 2,000 followers, 3,000 followers.

So it gained a lot of traction. Now it's a different game. You know, look, I'll tell you, I've been stagnant. I've probably been losing followers for the last, probably, I'd say a year because everybody's doing video. Everybody's doing, you know, is involved in this mix now. And it's a more saturated market, if you want to call it, where we tapped into it kind of at the beginning.

But for me, look, I love social media. It's been a big part of my growth, not only online, because look, it's great to have a following online. but if you have a following online and it doesn't mean that you're doing deals. Yeah. I rather do all the deals in the world and have no followers than have all the followers and do no deals. So that's to me what's really important. It's great to have it.

And I'm very thankful for the people who do follow me. But I feel like we kind of lost our way a little bit over the last couple of years, just as a whole as a whole community of realtors when it comes to social media. But that's a totally different conversation. Yeah. That is a real conversation, Mark, because like how I got into AI was through, social media coaching because I understand, I always have understood the difference between for a real estate agent using social media as a secondary website or a portfolio as opposed

to generating business. And there's a lot of content creators out there now. And they may be getting a lot of views, but they're not getting the business. And that's a problem. And then we talk about AI is making video content creation more accessible. Those who embrace AI to help them with their social media now are going to benefit because it will get oversaturated. We're already seeing oversaturation in other industries, content creators coming in out of the blue, because AI is enabling people to produce better content at a higher value, quicker, more frequently, and more consistently, right? So I think that those who embrace AI for social media specifically are really going to benefit,

which takes us into what is your opinion of AI? Like, where are you at in your journey? Like, let's talk. So look, I haven't dug into it as far as I should have. Or at least, you know, look, there's still time. I know where everything's at the beginning of it. But we are using it, you know, look, you know, when I do some editing on my videos, like I have professionals to do my videos.

But sometimes I'll be like, guys, don't even put the captions in for me because sometimes I like to chop my videos down to make it a little bit more friendly for, you know, whatever app I'm putting on. Capcut, for example, automatic, you know, the captions. Like, this is all AI, right? And these are things that I think every person should know. This should be a standard just to, you know, elevate your videos, make it look a little bit more professional.

For someone who doesn't really know how to even use that stuff, I can kind of walk. my way through that. But, and this is why I was saying to you the other day, we need to talk more because I want to see how far this can actually go and, you know, and I understand there are benefits to it. You know, I'm not, I'm not schooled on the AI for, you know, for example, house values and stuff like that, because that can only give you so much. And I always tell people, you know, the AI system can't detect certain things about the home. It's going to take averages of square footages, lot sizes, but it's not going to factor finishes if somebody spent 200K in a theater room, for example, right?

It's going to take the basic stuff and put it together. So, like, I'm not sold on that part of it. I don't think it's in a position where it's replacing realtors where we have no value because, hey, I can go on House Sigma to figure out what this house is worth. Absolutely not. But I think as a tool in general, not only for real estate, but for many businesses, AI, like you said, will save people. it will save the money and give them a better opportunity to stand out in my opinion.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, for sure. I was going to say it's about the efficiency of it, though, right, and the leverage. And even to Kerry's point with the, like, AI with social media, we actually do see a lot of realtors, even on our team doing deals from social media. I've done them myself, right? So even within your following, and Carrie's following, you've done deals from social media. However, the AI leverages that to a higher level of conversion.

And I think probably Mark, that might be the one piece that Carrie can help you with. And she's certainly helped us with that. I definitely agree. Like that's a thing. Don't get me wrong. I hope I didn't come off in a way. No. No.

Not at all. When I say a massive tool for me for business, like today, you know, I was actually we're moving our offices. I was outside and then one of the gentlemen was delivering over, I guess he was a rep for a vodka and a gin company and he was delivering to the restaurant. He said, as soon as I got out of the car.

And guys, I was in my gym clothes. He was popping his trunk and I got out of the car. He's like, hey, I follow you online, right? So like it happens all the time in Costco here, there and that.

And the thing is, a lot of deals come from social media. Yes. He used to make fun of me. I'm not even lying to back in 20, probably 16. I remember I used to go into listing presentations. and the homeowner would say, you know, the agent was saying, you know, that why would they hire you?

What? Because you go on social media and try and sell houses. And I go, well, everybody's holding their phone in their hand. So I'd be foolish not to use this free tool, you know, to try and showcase your property. And now, you know, fast forward seven, eight, nine years later, you have every age group, every demographic, everybody on social. Realizing if you're not on there, it's very difficult to get safe. sales. It just really is because the days of, you know, back of the day with old social was, how big is my bank account in my pocket? How thick is my pocket to be able to advertise on billboards and this and that nowadays is. Currency is through this. This is what we need it through because if you're able to get in front of people, it doesn't cost you effectively anything

to start an Instagram account or a TikTok or whatever you want to do it with. And I think it's very important for people to really adapt to that, especially now. It's late in the game for that, right? Yeah, absolutely. They were great. Yeah, go ahead, Kerry. I remember like eight years ago, I had a huge social media following, especially for Hamilton, the area I'm in in Niagara. And I would go to listing appointments against some of the top teams.

And these listing appointments were elderly couples. And they hired me and told me they hired me because of my social media reach. Because even though they didn't understand, because they didn't understand social. media eight years ago, but they wanted their agent to be utilizing it. The same thing's going to happen with AI. Like, don't kid yourselves. Like, our clients do not need to understand AI to understand that they want their realtors using it at a high level on their behalf, right? So yeah, you're 100% right. Let's talk about, okay, so one thing is, I follow you, obviously. I love your content. and I noticed lately you've been posting a lot of cold plunges.

Tell me about this. I tried to do it and I think I lasted until I got a cold like two weeks later. And that was the end of that. Like you've got to have some focus. It's a life changing thing for me. It's become a lifestyle. Okay. I don't have a good day.

I got introduced to it by one of my actual sales. reps last January, not this January, the January prior, said, Mark, got to come cold plunging. Okay, I saw it online. I was like, let me try it. I went. And for the, from the second I was done, it was invigorating, okay? The first time I went in the plunge was a minute. And then it was like, by the time I built up to two minutes and I went three times that day.

It's, it's a hot, cold therapy. You go sauna, pole crunch, sauna, cold punch, cold, repeat for, you know, the time that you have the space and the way you go. But for four days after, I felt high. Like literally. I was like, why do I feel so invigorated? Why do I feel so good about myself right now? And I'll tell you, when I did it, I was probably at one of the worst lows mentally in my life.

You know, I listen, I've struggled with my weight and it's not a secret. People know that. I've made that thing for my whole life. I was always very self-conscious about it growing up. Even when I wasn't overweight, it was something from when I was a child that I always felt was an issue because I was always the big, tallest kid and the biggest kid and all that. this stuff. And, you know, over the last, let's call it 15, 20 years, this is me. I'm a roller coaster up and down, 50 pounds, 70 pounds up and down. And I got to the point where last January, I looked

in myself on New Year's Eve when I got home. And that was that video I started with when I did that video a couple weeks ago with kind of the weight loss journey. And I said, this is fucking over. Like now this is a lifestyle. We got to do something about this. I hit the cold plunge 25 days later. and that just like triggered something in me. And I'm like, well, I feel great. I have to do it again. I did it now a week later. I went home, told my wife, I said, I have to buy a cold lunch.

He's like, oh, come on, Mark, it's another fad, you know, like the Peloton and all that. I'm like, no, no. Like, so I went and bought a $100 plastic tub on Amazon that I could barely fit in. It was dead of the winter in February. Put that thing outside. I said, I'm going to plunge for 30 days straight. And if I do it, I'm going to buy a real plunge. plunge for 30 days straight, bought a real plunge after that, and it's just been part of my life

ever since. When I don't plunge for a couple of days, it throws me off. I'll be honest, it does. It's interesting, too. I was watching, is that Rolf, he's like the cold plunged guy, and he's talking about the fact that it actually raises your dopamine. So it's almost like an antidepressant, right? Yeah.

And, yeah, I think it's just so incredible that you have that discipline to do it. And that's the word. And that's the most important thing because it's like I try to do it first thing in the morning when I wake up within the first like 15, 20 minutes because I feel like if I can get that done right away when you're feeling your most tired, it's cold outside. The water is 39 degrees. And you can actually go and accomplish that. Everything after for the rest of the day, it's a breeze. Like I just did something that like I didn't want to do and I got that out of the way. And it's like now I feel like really jacked up and really good.

about it and it's just it's like I feel like why wouldn't you want to feel good and for me it makes me feel really good mentally physically it's got a lot of benefits to it and uh like I said it's it's been a you know I have it in my profile cold plunge addict because it's really done something for me really honestly it's it's it's incredible I have a question it's like it's what about say you're you conquer yourself he's conquering himself right now literally starting his day by conquering himself. And when you start that way, right, that is a game changing. And aside note, I have some of my best conversations with myself while I'm sitting in that

water for three minutes because you get into the zone. I actually did a video last week. I wear the womb band. And I realized, because I saw some other guy to do it, there's a way to like do a live video, a recording of what your metrics are. Wow. So I did it. I went in the cold punch.

My beats per minute before I got in the plunge was like at one. about 50 seconds into the plunge, it started dropping into the 80s. Within about 30 second period, I dropped down to like 54 beats per minute because you just become so calm. It's very weird. And that's why when I have some of the best thoughts with myself, I'll literally be sitting in the plunge and just like be reflecting and just so grateful. And it's a weird feeling that you get.

But it's powerful. It is so powerful. Yeah. Do you have any idea of what the advantages to the. cold plunge are over the cold shower. Do you know anything about that? So look, it's the cold exposure in general and I actually truthfully think the cold shower is worse. Like it's harder to do. Because the cold shower, yesterday I kind of walked through the shower before it got warmed up and it hit me. I'm like, oh my God. Right. And it's like, because I feel it's harder because it's continuously

hitting you. Once you get into the water, I go right up to like right up to my chin basically because I just want to be fully submerged in it. And again, it's more difficult, I felt, when you keep parts of your body that are out of the water, because now all the cold is here. Let's say, for example, you see some people with their hands out of the water. I think it makes it worse, in my opinion. I don't know what the benefits are between the shower and the actual plunge.

I would have to assume the difference would be the plunge, a little bit more beneficial because you're getting a full submersion of it, is what I would think, as opposed to just getting parts, bits and pieces. And in the shower, what I figured what's tough about is, especially if you're letting the water hit your head, the top of your head is getting cold. Well, you know, the rest of your body is still like, you know, it's not in that full mode, in my opinion. I think it's much harder the shower. And that's why it may be deterred people from doing the actual coal plunge. Like, I can't even do in the shower.

Why would I try in the actual water at that point? But it's easier. Yeah. I feel like, Mark, you're in a position. You are, you've been in real estate for what I think I read seven. 17 years, right? Yeah, 2006. Yeah, you're a major influencer in our industry.

You've sold over a billion dollars in real estate. And you seem like you have your head on straight and you have the whole psychological aspect figured out. So you're the person that I want to ask. Agents, what is the biggest hack? for agents to get into the right mindset. And basically, if they want to be Mark Salerno, what do they need to do?

So look, at the end of the day, I wouldn't want anybody to be Mark Salerno. I want people to create the best versions of themselves, okay? But what I think we've lost a lot of is, guys, I'm old school, okay? And when I say I'm old school, I'm like, you know, a 39-year-old that's got a mentality of a 75-year-old in this business.

Because, again, I grew up around my dad. My dad was 41 years older than me. He was in the business. So I always saw, like, I'm the kind of guy you can work with a handshake on, you know, before any signature or anything like that is more important because my reputation is more important to me than anything in life. Okay. But saying that where I think agents nowadays are going off path is before I felt there was a lot

more real grind. You know, people can post videos about, you know, motivational talking in the background, of the grind into this and the that. But I think as great for what I believe I've contributed to the real estate industry and bringing the awareness to social media and making real estate, you know, cool from that standpoint, you know, you know, it's different now than when it was 10 years ago. All the stuff that we had, the Instagrams, all that stuff wasn't there. I just think that people are focusing too much on what kind of attention.

will this bring to me as an account and the professionalism gets lost. And that's the thing that pains me more than anything. And, you know, because I look at it and it's like video is a great tool, but it can also be a very big negative for people in the way you want to portray yourself. Because I think ultimately at the day, hey, guys, I'm all about having fun. I'm all about, you know, all that stuff. But I believe there's a line that you can get to that you don't want to. that you don't want to cross because, you know, some of them would say, hey, but my video got shared

300 times, but it may have got shared 296 times because people were utilizing that to say, look it, is this really what this person is doing? Again, I'm trying to be nice about it. I'm trying to be nice about it. But, and then what does it do ultimately? Realtors in general, look, guys, it's not a secret. People don't like realtors as a whole. Like the general public.

I'm not going to sit here and pretend that. Guys, I get a lot of love, but I get a lot of hate too. And I'm sure that just as an industry as old, because, you know, especially when the market was running hot and people were selling things like hotcakes, everybody's out there flashing there, you know, made a few bucks and is making it be like it's the end of the world. And it's just really pushing it into people. I think people still need to be humble in what they do, whether you make money or you

don't be humble about how you're doing things. And we've lost the professional edge. not everybody but as a whole especially the younger realtors come in and their whole thing is I'm going to come in and I want to make the most money God bless you I want you to make five million dollars a year but people don't want to work they don't want it they don't want to grind like when I was when I was a young pop in this industry you know at 22 years old and you know I remember I got into the business you know my girlfriend had a cottage up north and on the weekends what were we doing 22 years old everybody wanted to go up for all the

friends were going up there. I was staying back sitting at a site at Bristol and McLaughlin that one of the agents who had sold 80% of the building at the time, it was for, not for old age home, but it was more of a, it wasn't senior living, but it was, you know, a 55 plus more community style. Is anybody interested in the office in running open houses at this building that's got 12 units left in it? I reply to me, I'll take it. Well, Mark, the thing is, if you do this, your weekends are gone for the summer. You have to be here, Saturday and Sunday all day, I took the job. And most 22-year-olds today wouldn't do that. And I'll tell you something. I went to that site. I sold that site out in the matter of two months, the

remaining inventory condos, that they went and offered me a site in Ajax of my own for 106 houses that I actually turned down because I said, I don't want to give up my realist, my resale game, because I like resale. And, you know, look, I was a young guy and I was still doing okay at the time. It's just a grind. The real true, true, true grind and understanding of value without the money. Learn from, when people message me all the time, Mark, what do I do? Well, how do I build my business? I say, find some producers in your office and just try and be around them. Do whatever you have to do. Do pick up the open houses. You know, go get some coffee just to be able to sit in on a conversation, to be able to hear the phone calls that they're making. How are they speaking to clients? How are they

speaking to, you know, potential buyers. That is invaluable, but the thing is everyone wants to be paid for, for, for, for, for, for, for the, for, for the, I'm talking to mentor. I'm talking the, the, the, the, the, the person who's trying to learn these things. Oh, if I can't get an open house and make $200 to do the open house, why would I do it? Okay. No, better to do nothing, right? You know, it's just, oh, I wish I could teach you that guys, I never got into it.

You guys know, I'm a small brokerage. I got four agents who work for me. If it was a situation where I really wanted to wear that mentor had and pull myself out of the game, of selling, I can have 500 people at the brokerage. It's not what I want to do. Maybe later in my life, I'll try and get into that. But I try and give advice to people when I can. That I can tell you when people come to me and ask me that question,

when they reach, you know, hit me up in the DM and stuff like that. I try to give whatever value I could get to somebody. Yeah. Well, that's, those are great insights, Mark. Like, so valuable because there's a lot of agents that are lost right now. So before we end, I'm going to put you on the spot. Obviously, I'm going to put some AI into your brokerage. Well, I told you.

We already got to have a meeting about that. Yeah. And second of all, because I'm going to do that, how do you feel about coming to speak at my AI conference in September? Where's the conference? It's in Niagara Falls Convention Center. It's going to be two days. And there's some absolute rock stars coming already confirmed.

So if I know what I'm talking about, I would love to. You will. I swear. I will prepare it. If I prepared, I would. So I'll tell you, like, I'm actually going on the panel. I've never done it before. Let's get you guys see, I'm not a, you don't see me at these get-togethers of all these. I know, that's what I want you.

You know, look, it's not that I don't, I don't want to come. I was asked by Rob, uh, golfie to, uh, join the panel for the one in May. So I, I'm going to, as a first, I know what, I'm going to come. I'll come. So I'll be at that. It's going to be kind of the first one I'm going to. I'm just going to be a panelist up there. Yeah.

I'm a main speaker or anything like that. But maybe it breaks the ice and we'll see where it kind of goes from there. So good. Okay. So I'm not saying no. I'm not saying no. Okay. Say save the date, 26th and 12th of September.

Okay. Awesome. Thank you so much, Mark, for coming on. I know you're on a time limit. Thank you, ladies again today. Great conversation. hopefully we'll do it soon. Yeah. Thanks, Mark.

Thanks so much. Thanks for listening to everything they never told you about real estate. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. To connect with Carrie or for more information about her coaching program, check out Carriesovey.ca or at Carrie Sovey and Associates on Instagram and TikTok. Thanks again for tuning in and we'll see you next time.