KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Fix Your Feed: Top Instagram Mistakes Agents Make & How to Correct Them

Episode Date: April 12, 2026

Summary:This episode provides a tactical audit of the most common and damaging mistakes real estate agents make on Instagram. Host Mike Cuevas goes beyond generic advice to pinpoint specific errors in bios, content strategy, and engagement. Agents will learn why treating Instagram like a resume fails, how to create content pillars that attract ideal clients instead of just other agents, and the right way to use Calls to Action (CTAs) that generate actual conversations and leads, not just passive likes.

Have you ever wanted to get really good at Instagram, but you weren't sure where to start? There's so many ideas out there. There's conflicting information. There's noise. Everyone's telling you, do this or this or this. And have you ever just wished that you could have two? Absolutely ridiculous, awesome experience agents share their insight on this topic. Well, if you feel that in your soul, today's show is for you.

Allie and Shelby here at your service, guys, here's what to expect to learn on today's show. whether or not to create a business account in addition to your personal account on Instagram. Next, how to decide on what to post versus what not to. How to set up your bio, your highlights, and your pin posts. We're going to share some of our own Instagram tips and tricks. And stick around to the end for the biggest mistakes agents are making when it comes to Instagram. And it is costing them money in the bank, out of the bank, actually costing them deals. So guys, you are listening to the Agent Goldmine podcast.

And this is what I used to say about rock stars. But now I'm not doing Rocksters anymore. And Ali, actually, you tell me if you even like this. But Agent Goldmine, the show for agents who've been around the block and are ready to build sustainable, scalable businesses, not ones that you secretly hate or want to escape from. So my name is Shelby Johnson. And I'm here with the one and only Ali Garcad. And together we have closed literally hundreds of transactions as agents, investors. and just leaders within this industry.

We are both icon agents at EXP. We are bigger pocket stars. We're borderline budget crazy if you didn't already know. But you will love us, I promise. And guys, with that, we are going to jump right in to our show on Instagram for agents. But actually, pause. We are going to do a five-minute life update before we do the Instagram stuff. So if you don't want to know about our lives, you could skip ahead five minutes.

But we're doing life stuffers. So, Ali, hi, I love you. It's so good to see you. Welcome to the agent Goldmine, the only podcast in the world, specifically for real estate agents who are stuck at five transactions a year to help them get to 20 plus. Your host, Allie Garcette and Shelby Johnson, two EXP icon agents each do over 40 transactions a year and interview others who are crushing it. In this podcast, you'll receive the knowledge to help you scale your business using systems and processes with our interviews and monologues twice a week. If you want to be a part of our community, reach out. Welcome to the show.

So, Ali, hi, I love you. It's so good to see you. Shelby, it's so good to see you too. I feel like every time we spend maybe more than five days without recording, we're just like, I miss you. Literally, that's how I feel. I was so excited about the show today. I was like, oh my God, I get to see Ali.

Yes. Yeah, I literally. That sounded a little flippant, but I actually do miss you. No, same. And it's not, it's funny because it's not like we don't talk literally all day, every day on WhatsApp, like the whole day. But it's just something different about to see. your face in your living room, you know, looking beautiful. Yeah. And seeing your muscles in your

office. Perfect. Oh my God. Well, okay, so that is the little life update I wanted to give. I'll just go first. Thanks for asking. Please go first. Yeah, yeah. Please. How was your life been, Shelby? Oh my God. Thank you for asking. So I was at the beach a couple weeks ago and I was sitting there, you know, reflecting on life, like a distance away from the business. And I was like, damn, like, where is my energy and time going? Is it going where I want it to go? And that was, in case you didn't know world when I decided to stop hosting the real estate rock stars podcast, which is the other podcast that I've been hosting now for a little over a year. And it was, it's not my show. You know, Allie and I own the show together. So it's our baby. That one is someone

else's baby, which is totally fine. And it's a big platform. It was an amazing opportunity. But I was like, yo, I need to reallocate my time, my energy, all this stuff. And so that's when I cut that out of my life, which sounds so bad. Love you, Rock stars. But the other thing that I decided as I was sitting there as like, you know, you know I'm in Lexington, which is a new city. And I don't know anyone. And I was thinking back to like my days in Fayetteville when I was first starting out and like, where did business come from? And I was like, okay, well, what do I love naturally? What do I need to do naturally? And how do I integrate that into my life in a way that will get me in front of more people, in front of more local people? Because of course, we're doing all

the digital marketing stuff that we've talked about before. Like the seller YouTube stuff is still on the table but I mean if I can get like face to face with people like I can just rub some freaking charm and maybe a little smelly stuff on them and then they like start drinking the Kool-Aid you know what I mean so yeah how do I get on them right and I was like okay I need to work out I haven't done cross-bed in yours but that was like a really good way for me I have to work out anyway I might as well go and so anyway I decided to get back in cross-foot which you guys probably also saw on fucking Instagram clearly just share my live in Instagram but I didn't share this. So I got suckered into doing a competition because I went in. I'm not going to

hurt myself this time. I'm going to be fucking chill, which there's not really a chill bone in my entire body. But the coach, last time. Sorry. You hurt yourself last time? It wasn't like a specific area. It was just like everywhere constantly. Have you done cross? You know what I'm talking about? Age. Yes. It's like a whole body. Yeah. It's a whole body thing. But yeah. So I was like, you know, I'm going to be 34 next month. I want to fucking chill. And then the coach was like, no, you're not. We have this competition. You should do it. And I fought him for half a second. And then I was like, you know, fuck it. And so I emailed him. Because, you know, up into this point, I had been chill girl. I was like sliding under the radar. I was like, I'm not whatever. So I emailed him. I was like,

yo, dude, real talk. I'll do the comp. But you don't know it yet. But I'm actually hyper competitive. The girl does not like to fucking lose over here. So don't put me with some bitch ass weakling. And I said it in very nice Kentucky words because they do not curse here. by the way. They just freaking don't. It's so weird. And it like slips out all the time. And everyone's like very religious and very. And I'm just like, well, fuck that shit. And I'm like, oh, wait, oh shit. You know, it's a whole thing. Wow. Proper Lexington. I wouldn't have known that. Dude. Yeah. Totally. Well, there's some undercover. Doesn't mind. I'm trying to stay relevant to the story. So I emailed him and he's no worries and emailed me back and was like, I got the guy for you.

His name's Alex Carter. This could be really fucking weird if you finds this on the internet. I shouldn't have said his name. whatever um he's like you've seen him on the the leaderboard like he's doing really well whatever i look the dude up he's literally the mayor like the mayor is my partner what which is really i would never i thought that when i think of mayor i don't think of crossfit me either i think of a snowman looking man yeah just said waves high to the people just like a nice yeah and so anyway all that to say is that my vision of I'm going to get ingrained to the community. I'm going to make some good connections. Like the universe has spoken and now, you know, me and the mayor are going to be sweating and like doing some weird noises there side by side. It's going to be great. Wow. Okay.

Talk about a freaking connection. If you want to have, if you want to rub elbows with the mayor, join the local cross spit. It's the only way. Yeah, that's cool. And he's in the leaderboard, he's in the leaderboard too. I didn't even know that you had. I didn't even know that you had. like partners in competitions. I thought it was a solo thing. So you can, there's solo competitions. This one's not. It's like a male-female partner.

And I don't know anyone that well there. So that's why I asked him to pair me. And yeah, the leaderboard, oh my God, it's so bad for me because there's an app and you like put on your time and then you get to see where you fall.

So it's become a complete obsession. You know, like refreshing, seeing people's scores. And then you can like in comment. Oh my God. It's so bad, Allie. Wow. Yeah.

I think I would get obsessed with that too. Dang. Okay. This has been way too much of Shelby time already. Allie, it is your turn. Please tell me what has been happening in your life? What is going on? Let's see.

So my sister is getting married in a month and I'm going back to New York for that. So I have been now taking my fitness journey to the next level. For those that don't know me, I used to be pretty ripped. I never had Abso. But that was like, yeah, that I still post to this day as my own inspiration. I had a photo as my wallpaper, like myself. I looked so freaking conceited. I love that.

At one point, somebody was like, oh, who's that? I was like, this is me to remind myself that I need to get my house into the gym and do some arms. So, yeah, I had always kind of in the beginning, I had considered, I had considered joining CrossFit, it, but it's so, so me and jumping intensive that I don't want to be like that loser in the corner that just does, that modifies it, you know. So I have been considering joining a gym, though, that isn't, that's more community because I do have two friends now. Okay, we should start with that. I have two friends in the state. And I, they're so cool. People are so very, very nice here. So, yeah, how did you have friends? What?

actually so they were like throwback friends from Brits upbringing here like soccer when she played soccer here when she was a kid so of course Brit hasn't lived here in 20 years so again she like just has we moved here because of her dad so now we have two friends and it's it's a good group so far and I'm excited and they're healthy you know like they're like good people with careers because in case any if you don't know it is very very hard to find like as a lesbian it's very hard to find like as a lesbian it's very hard to find. other, like, lesbian friends that, like, that have, all this sounds so bad, but like a career, ambition, drive, and the ability to take vacations, you know, and it's, it's so, so hard. So, anyway, that's my, that's my, I'm still looking at, yeah, I'm still looking for a gym. I'm on my fitness journey. I'm going to lose, maybe I want to lose way more than this, but I want to lose 10 pounds by the wedding, which is one month away. So, yeah.

And I mean, I think I can do it. I just need to get comfortable with the fact that. I'm going to be hungry. I need to be comfortable with a little bit of hunger. So it's a lot. But if anyone can do it, it's you, Allie, you know, seriously. Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you. And all that, of course, like still while selling homes in Tucson, fully getting licensed here. I'm in here in Minnesota. My lender partner just got his license for Minnesota as well. And so, yeah, we're taking it's, I'm taking it a little bit slower here. because things picked up in Tucson.

Nice. Yeah. I have no reasoning for why I'm taking it slower. But I'm also, you know, one day at a time over here. You know, I like had, I was like, we're going to close 500 homes. No, wait, 100 homes in 500 days. And I think that's still in my bio. And I'm like, maybe we should adjust that.

Because your girls are like, what? I'm sure you're going to, though. Like even though it's a slow start, you're going to freaking. I hope so. I think so. I'm like so excited about the steps and the fact that like I wiped my entire whiteboard and laid out the entire new marketing strategy and all of the layers and like step by step. So it's really easy for me. Because you know sometimes like when you're working on things, you get so in it that you're like, wait, is this even what's most important? And you're like so far down into the weeds that you're like shit. And then you have to dig yourself out and do that big look again to identify what's most important. Well, like laid it all out. So that way, if If I ever, ever, like, super in the weeds, I could just, like, literally look over to my whiteboard and be like, no, no, no, I'm still on track. And this is why. And this is where I'm headed. So it's helpful. I'm really excited. I'm loving fucking real estate things. I really want to see the whiteboard. Oh, I'll send it to you. I'll send it to you. I'll send it to you. Hit me up if you want my picture of my whiteboard, guys. Yeah. Yeah. Hell yeah. Also, Ali, we lied. Sorry, listeners. We said a five-minute update. and we are at 12 minutes, but, you know, this is what happens when Allie and I don't get to see each other for, you know, three days. So, oh, I forgot to ask. What is your competition?

September 7th. You can fly in and you can paint your stomach and you can have a sign that's glittered. I accept. I do. I accept. That's awesome. Cool. Okay.

That's exciting. Yeah. No, I actually. I am. Congratulations on the win, Shelby. Oh, my God. No, I'm not expecting a win. I'm really, and that's why I was trying to tell the mayor.

sir. I was like, sir, I'm really not in prime condition, but I will try my best, I promise. And I will leave my dead body on the ground. That's how hard I will try. Yeah. Are we good? Yeah. I love that. I'm glad that we were able to catch up. Oh, my God, we do. Okay. So point number one is whether or not to create a business account. And the reason why I threw this in there, because I know we've talked about this before, it's just because it continues to be a frequently asked question by so many people. So, Allie, what is your take on whether or not to create a business account for Instagram? For Instagram specifically, I say no, especially, like I do have different thoughts on Facebook, but today is about Instagram.

So I say no, if you're already on Instagram and you already have following, they like you, they know you, they trust you, they listen to you, otherwise they wouldn't follow you. So start telling everyone you know who will then tell a friend. I think it's it's so much more work, an effort to then create a brand new business only Instagram where people don't care about business only things anymore. First of all, they're on Instagram. They're on social media. They want it to be social.

So if you're going to be posting stuff, yeah, if you're going to be posting just like, just listed or just sold, then that's boring. No matter how cute the Canva is, it's boring and it's overplayed. so you want to be different, you want to stand out, and people want to see personality. There is a reason all these big, huge corporations, like Delta, American Airlines, you know, like all these huge companies are hiring these like 20-year-olds to take over their Instagram and boy, are they getting traction, you know, like using the, not just the most recent threads, but the verbiage that comes with being a 20-year-old, it's working.

So, I don't know, not saying that you have to learn what the verbiage is of like 20-year-olds, but being yourself is what people want to see. Totally, totally agreed. There's one thing that I have a question on. This kind of leads into our next one, but before I do that, so if you are out there and you are really committed to the just sold, just listed,

just closed, whatever type of thing, if you are going to do it, tell a story. So, Ali's totally right. The picture, the template that you have in Canva

that says, just closed with your little head, your folded arms in the front or your hands on the hips, like those classic fucking real estate pictures like dead no done don't do it boring people just flip by and they're like that's whatever but if you can take a closing that you just had and tell a story about oh my gosh okay so alley and you use names or whatever you know had this situation and this is what we overcame and by the end you know she saved four thousand whatever whatever and blah so obviously that was a terrible example but do you get my point my

point is that if you can take people through a journey because this is more and more social media and YouTube and everything is becoming the art of storytelling right people love a fucking story so if you can take a moment just closed and take your audience through a compelling story then fucking do your just sold your just closed bullshit stuff what do you think alley yeah no 100 and i'm thinking of ways that if you had so if you do the just sold just whatever You can upload it, but don't upload it by itself, I would suggest. Instead, do like a green screen video of you telling the story with the Canva boring thing in the back. So you can point to the house.

You can point to the person. You can point to, you know, you can put the buyers with their permission or the sellers with their permission on it. And you can say, hey, this is Mary. Mary reached out to me through Instagram, actually. And yeah, tell the story of how it went down. The ups and the downs and how you help them in the down. And just repeat all that in the caption. always always I may be getting ahead of myself here but always use captions in the actual reel.

Oh my gosh. How do I still see people? The AI. Well, I guess that'll probably be in the mistake section. But literally every single day, I still see people just posting video without captions. And they're just talking and I'm like, oh my God, what is the stat? Allie, it's 70% people don't listen or something. It's like 80.

80 something percent of people listen to reels, videos, or I guess don't listen. with the sound off. They're either at work. They're either in bed. They're either, you know, the kid is sleeping, like a lot of majority of people, like an overwhelming majority of people. And like, why would you not want to? Yeah, people just forget the captions.

If you have any, redo them like that. Put that on your to do list. If you have any good ones, take me, keep, you can keep it up. But redo the same shit, add captions to it and use whatever is in the captions of what you're saying in the description. Yeah. And do those. what to post, do your old ones better. Yeah. So true. Or go to someone you're trying to copy,

go to their reels and see what their best performing reels are and just fucking copy them. I literally was doing some research the other day on some hyperlocal people. We're getting, again, head of ourselves. But that's why I did. I was like, oh, you're successful and you know what you're doing what works for you. Oh, fuck. Copy easy. You know, copy the hook. Yeah. Copy literally the caption. Copy everything. And they got, you know, 300,000 views. I'm like, okay, perfect. Did you go for Lexington specific or or a different? No. And so, and that's the thing. I haven't fucking totally decided whether I'm going to put that on my own page or I just have. It's so funny because you're like, don't create a business page. I have a five pillars team. If you do have a team, I think that's different. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Then you do the business page. But I was just working on content for that this morning and thinking about it. So I'm not sure where I'm going to head. But the people I were was looking at is move me to Tennessee. So guys, you should look her up. Her name's Marie Lee. I also interviewed her on Rocksters if you want. to hear her whole take. And Alyssa Kurnut from Spokane, Washington, those two do really, really well

with the hyperlocal, well, actually, Alyssa's hyperlocal, and Marie is relocation. But they have a very specific niche for their local audience. And so if you are trying to target your local audience, then just go to those pages and see what they do, because it's pretty great. And that's kind of what I wanted to lead into. So we decided, you know, don't create a business page. But so the next piece, Oh, sorry. Yes, ma'am. I do. Yeah, because you brought up a good point of you already have, if your, if your Instagram right now has a specific theme to it already.

So the reason I did not create a business account is because I didn't use a theme. It was all about me and that's it. So people already liked me. I wasn't selling anything. I didn't have a prior job that was related to me posting about it on anything. So, but I do see some people and I, I'm glad that you mentioned this because. is if you have a specific theme already on your Instagram, then at that point, it may be worth starting a new one.

And if you're going to start a new one, make it a business account. And well, I guess business account more so is like for Facebook, right? I'm talking professional account. I do have a professional Instagram. The technicality. Yeah. The tech.

Yeah. So if you have been selling XYZ products or if you were or there's so many different ways that this could go. If you are going to be changing the overall theme and the message drastically, then create a new one. You can still incorporate some old stuff of, I mean, that's you and your personality. Specifically what I'm thinking about now is this guy that recently reached out to both of us. He's a drummer. And so, like, in his case, he wouldn't need to, but he could start a new Instagram or if he already had a super, super big following.

He could create a new one. Incorporating. He's still both drumming and being a real estate agent. But really, I guess if you have any questions, reach out to us. You know, we're happy to like give you, do a social media audit and let you know what you could do better. We're here for that. There are just so many different scenarios that we can go down right now.

So, but if you know that people are reaching out to you specifically for a reason that has nothing to do with real estate, then I would consider getting a new one. Same. And that's exactly what I was going to say too. The foremost people don't create a new one. You have a following. You have people who already love and support you. just keep that going. But if you are like, no, I understand content creation, I really want this to

actually be my lead generation, not just my lead nurture, because that's kind of the difference too. Whereas if you're keeping your personal, what you're doing is you're nurturing those people who are already following you, you're not really going to get a ton of new people all the time because people aren't looking for, you know, Ali Garcid if they're in Tucson looking for a house. what they might be looking for are hyper local content or home tours or relocation specialist. And so that kind of depends. So if you're doing, you're keeping your personal and you're posting like what normal real estate agents do slash sharing your story, that is the lead nurture.

You're going to nurture anyone who's viewing you. But if you want to make it your actual lead generator, then that is the time like Ali was saying, start a page from scratch. But then you have to be really, really specific in who your target audiences and what you're going to be posting. And those three that I listed are what I have seen in this across Instagram to be like the three biggest ones that agents are finding success in. And that is the hyper-local content that is home tours and that is relocation specialist. And what you can do with each of those is you can gear every piece of your content to that very specific target audience. And that will

allow you to grow because people are interested in hyper-local content. What I mean by that is best restaurants, this business just opened up, this event, things to do this weekend, kid-friendly restaurants, like people are interested in that. Then also with home tours, like people are literally, they want to see beautiful homes, you know, what $500,000 will get you in downtown San Antonio, you know, that sort of content. And then the relocation is the people who are like moving to an area and that's your information on, you know, all the relocation things. Anyway, so that is the specific page versus the nurture, which is the journaling, your journey type of thing.

Did I just talk in circles, Allie, did all that make sense? No, yeah, that definitely makes sense. Yeah. So think of it in, I guess, four different buckets, like hyperlocal, home tours, relocation, or journaling the journey, your journey, personal brand. Okay, perfect. And then, yeah, whichever one you are, that is who you are talking to within each post. And one of the mistakes, which we're going to talk about in a little bit, but one of the

biggest mistakes that I see agents do all the time is they don't know who they're talking to. And they're posting all over the place, whether they're, someday they're talking to, you know, clients. And then the next day they're talking to their family or they're talking to other agents. And so when people come to their page, they're confused. They don't know what to expect. But yeah. Okay.

That's all I was going to say now on how to decide what to post. Is that enough on how to decide what to post? Understand your target audience and gearing your content towards them. Do you want to do anything else on that specific topic, Ellie? I don't think so. I know that I personally struggle with that. You know, I talk to both agents and clients on my on my Instagram. and I swap.

It's hard. It's fucking hard. Yeah, it is hard. Yeah. Okay. No, we can keep it moving. Okay. And okay, gotcha.

So this is this next part. We're going to talk about how to set up your, basically how to set up your Instagram page. And again, all of this will depend on who your target audience is. So you really have to do the last step before you do this one. But there are some general rules of thumb that Allie and I are going to share. and I'll do profile picture, guys, with your Instagram, you want to make sure that you can see your face. You don't want a far away picture.

You want people to be able to see high quality of your face. If your pores are there, you got a pimple, you got to let the people see it. You got to get up in there, you know what I'm saying? And then also, pro tip, which I just did white on mine. I'm still considering doing a color pop, but is to clean the background up, you know, no background and then have some sort of color pop in the background, like a yellow or like a pink or whatever your brand should, you know, cohesive brand is because the intent is you want to create that color. It's kind of like color categorizing your calendar. You know, when you see something,

instantly you know what it is. That's what you want to create when people see your icon on your stories or on your feed. They want to be like, ah, that's Allie. And you can use Canva to remove the background on your picture. And otherwise with profile picture, what an I like alley does a great job being goofy being crazy being very authentic so that is another thing to think of like you want to just be authentically you in every scenario because if you are like everyone else you don't stand out and the the idea in this whole marketing industry is to stand out is to be different yeah yeah so if you think that you are you know a high d super direct maybe even an asshole then maybe don't put a photo of like you smiling and being like a looking friendly

do like a crisp-ass photo of like you just looking, I don't know, mean, you know, just be you. If you are goofy, do a goofy-ass photo. Just have it be you. And this is not the time to reinvent your personality because I think a lot of people will leave W-2s, realize that they're now an entrepreneur, a business owner, and I need to get in front of as many people as I can. So who do I want? How can I get in front of people?

And then they tend to just be someone that they're not, which is okay in the beginning, as long as you end up finding your voice and like finding who you actually are. So there is like a learning curve to that. But also like just don't don't think that, oh, you know what? I want to be, I want to look like that guy. But you aren't that guy. So you're just going to look like a poser if we're still saying that word. Yeah, dude.

Totally fucking agree. And with, okay, so that's profile picture. Now profile optimization. If you're looking to change brokerages this year so you can increase your business and you want to join us at EXP Realty and would like either myself, Aligar said, or Shelby Johnson to personally sponsor you in. So that way you have access to two icon agents, text the word join to either my number, 911, 318-49-49-18-48-18, or Shelby's number, 859-267-3849.

If I sponsor you and you have access to the both of us and everything that's Five Pillars Nation, we have the checklist, the systems, the process is to help you scale your business, and don't take our word for it. We've had agents switch brokerages to join us that were stuck making $300,000 GCI and they join us so they can scale. So text the word joined to those numbers and we'll take the next steps. Profile optimization. So we have gotten the photo and the first thing that people see, I'm looking at my Instagram right now for just to keep myself on track. The first of people see is a name. That is what's in bold on Instagram. So more than just your name should be on there. Your name and what you do should be that same line.

It should all be in that line. So right now I have, you know, Ali Gar said St. Paul Realtor. Of course, with the registered symbol because I don't want to get sued. Anytime you use the word realtor, use the little registered symbol. So if I would definitely, definitely, definitely include your city

or if you are just a recruiter, then have what you do on there. Because the rest can be your background, which I'll get into in a second. So as far as the process of verifying your profile, do that. Pay the $14 or maybe $19, whatever it is a month to be verified. And like in the beginning, before I got verified, I was like, I'm not going to pay for a blue checkmark.

I'm going to look like an idiot. Who am I to pay for, you know, to try to. Because in the beginning of Instagram, it used to just be like celebrities that had the verification. but now it is a little bit of a pay to play. And if you are a business, pay and show that you care about your business. So that was a mental hurdle that I had to get over. And I still see some people thinking about it.

Like, yeah, but other people that are actually celebrities are verified, I'm just a local realtor. Care about your business because if you care, the more you care, other people will care too. Otherwise, if you don't even respect your own business, no one else is going to. So, okay, so that's a verification. And that's your name in bold. We have gone over in previous episodes as to how to change your name. But Shelby, do you remember what the processes of that actually?

I think it's edit profile. Yeah, edit profile, but you have to go through the meta account center these days. You can't just do it on. Well, I mean, and I'm not have it pulled up. So maybe that's your handle. No, I think it is your name. Your name. And then it takes, like they have to do like a picture and then they verify it.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So when you're looking at your profile, like visiting your profile, on the left-hand side, you're going to see Edit Profile, click on your name. Or sorry, at the very, very top, it's going to say Edit Profile is going to take you to the meta-verified page.

At that point, it's going to give you the option to change either your name, your username, your profile picture, or your avatar. So that's where you do it. And for some reason, it took me, remember, like, when we recorded this last time, it took me like seven days to get a turnaround. And it took, shall be seven minutes. So, yeah, so just play around. and continue to change it until it's changed.

You will have to upload your driver's license or passport or some sort of ID showing that you are saying who you are instead of all of a sudden now I am Sam Smith. So going down the list here from Edit Profile, so we have the name, your username is next. Make sure that your username is something that can also be, it can also be searchable. You know, like I go by Allie the agent on everything.

Whether you want to go by Ramon the realtor, or you want to do, you know, Tucson real estate agent or anything like that, make sure that your username isn't just a mumble, jumble, jumble collection of random letters and spaces. Make sure that it like makes sense. And it's another way for people to realize, okay, Allie Garcett, St. Paul Realtor. And then the username is Allie the agent. It makes sense.

You know, she's a realtor. And I have the word realtor and agent on there. So do that. Any questions about that before I go to the bio, Shelby? I'm good. Okay, cool. Actually, right above the bio, you have a, where people can click, if you are, if you have a professional account on Instagram, you can choose what kind of profession you're in. So choose real estate agent. And then is where you can input your own words, your own like free for all. I suggest you do three liners. The first line, I suggest you do, you, you have, you have, you have the. sentence starting with I help you know who do you help that literally tells people if that if your page is right for them or not I have I help real estate agents go from five closings a year to 20 plus

so in the beginning of each of those lines I just have a random like icon for as like a bullet point just to make it less wordy and a little bit more you know friendly and Instagram me so that's your line If you help families, you know, downsize or if you help seniors get into their forever home or retirement home, whatever it is, make sure that that line is all about your niche. If a stranger jumps on your page and they see that you help XYZ, will they follow you or will they go away? So some people are very scared in general, not just Instagram, not just this one line. they're very scared of narrowing down.

But the more you narrow down, the more people will realize that you are for them. So make that liner right now. And if you need to change it, then change it. You know, change it over time. But just start with niching down the beginning. The second line that I have is a call to action. So I have DM the word partner to get started. And so yours could be.

DM home buying guide, or that's kind of a long word guide, you know, St. Louis to get the local spots to whatever, you know, whatever your giveaway is, have some sort of have a giveaway or have some sort of call to action for people to reach out to you. That's great. They're going to follow you. Awesome. You are a licensed in Kentucky real estate agent. Great. This is perfect for me because she helps people go from their starter home to their forever home. This is just for me. Now what do I do? and you are telling them. Overall in social media, people will not do anything

until you tell them what to do. So tell them. DM me, the word XYZ to XYZ. That is a second liner. The third liner, I suggest you have a bio and like a short bio of what you have done.

Sell yourself in this one. So I, in my experience here, I mean, I have 100 closings in three years. I'll help you do it too. and so simple, it's short, it's to the point, and it still maintains that like each one is no longer than one line.

So play around with the words, ask chat GBT to make it more concise. That's what I did. And so that's, those are the three lines for the bio. Anything before I go to the next section? All I would say is that if you were one of those people who wants the home tours, the relocation, or the hyperlocal guide, then look up. Marie Lee, moved me to Tennessee, Alyssa Kurnett, Spokane, and Isaac, Lightbourne, and he's El Paso, Texas. He does home tours. So the reason why I'm bringing this up is because if you want

specific examples for what's working for those specific strategies, that they follow very much in line with what Ali just said about your niche, your specialty, you know, at front, the type of content to expect, you know, call to action, a lead magnet in as concise as possible. If people, don't want to read a bunch of fucking things. They want it to be super clear, super concise, and then have that lead magnet or a way, you know, call to action, exactly like Ali was saying. That's all. Perfect. Okay, sweet. And then after that line, that's where you can have your link. So I suggest doing, I don't even know if you can add more than one link. Do one link. One link, again, simple, clean, because the more confusion that you add, the more different choices that you have,

the fewer people will even make a choice. So give people one call to action, one link, and have, so have that link go to whatever you want it to be. You know, your IDX website, so people can start their home search. Or maybe it's a, if you're targeting sellers, maybe it's a site that goes to your page where they can follow,

where they can do an intake form saying, yes, I want to know what my house is worth, whatever it is. So use that wisely if you're even going to use it. You don't, I don't think it's like, you don't need it. But it really depends on who you're marketing, what you're doing, and what kind of call to action. If it goes directly in line with your call to action, then hell yeah.

Right underneath that is where you can have something called channels, a broadcast channel. So I suggest because Instagram has it available, do it. whether you're this is a perfect opportunity for you to talk directly to people that are that kind of you know just follow you you can see people have to opt into it so I have I have three channels but I really just focus on on one of them which is for the value that I bring to other real estate agents especially now is like we're changing with the NAR stuff so I have members that have joined that I also have Tucson home buyer and a Tucson home seller as of right now. But I don't really do too, too much on that.

A lot of people super, super utilize this in order to get those that are, they're pretty much raising their hand. Anybody that joins a broadcast channel, they have to opt in. You see who opts in. You see who is watching. You see who is reacting with emojis. And you can put whatever you want. You can do a text.

You can do a video. You can do a voice message. You can share whatever you have a lot. already posted on your Instagram as a reel into your broadcast channel. It's another way to get more views. It's a way for it's, it's almost like in addition to a story on Instagram where it's another way for you to put your content in front of the people that have already raised their hands. Speaking of which, I think you raised yours. I have no experience with broadcast channel. So I'm like over here, do I need to do another fucking thing? So my question for this is, so that goes to DMs,

right? Because I've seen like other people have invited to your broadcast. and I'm like, fuck that. I'm not listening to any of you. So that's, it's going to go through their DMs. Like when you broadcast something, it's straight to DMs. Is it in like a channel or does it go specifically to their inbox and then they reply? Like, how does it work? So when I post something to my broadcast channel, which by the way, don't use an abuse.

If you're going to only post the stuff that you're already posting on Instagram, people are going to leave because you're not giving them any insight value. The whole purpose of this is to give them insights. It's like an inner circle. of Instagram on page. You know, it's for free. So when I post something on everyone else, does it shows up as a message,

but it doesn't show up as a message from Allie Garcad. It shows up as a message from the title of the broadcast channel. So I think it'll be my icon on the left hand side. So they'll know it's from me, but it'll say real estate agents. That's the name of my broadcast channel. If you don't have an audience already, probably not,

well, unless I guess you're broadcasting personal things. But like for your example, Allie, you have the buyers, the sellers, and the agents. That's very specific. Those are a type of people who are interested in a very specific type of content. So if you right now are just getting into real estate and you are going to just post, you know, journal the journey type of thing, probably, what are your, actually, what are your thoughts, Ali? Because my instinct is probably not the time. Maybe you get your fucking feet wet a little bit, but maybe not. I mean, Al, you are about full sentence. So let's hear it. I, So overall, if you're thinking about whether you should start it, if there is anything that you only want to give to people that have raised their hands, you don't want to give it to the general public.

If you want to keep something a little bit more confidential, but that's a value to others, then I would say do a broadcast channel. So if you have a, you know, some sort of giveaway, but you don't want to give it to just everyone. You want it to give it to those that are actually interested in moving to your city, then you can put that in your broadcast. channel. Everything that you put in the broadcast channel, people as they join can see everything that was previously posted. You can also change the settings to where it's only you contributing or you can also open it up to others. What I see a lot of people do at this time is just the owner of the broadcast channel is the one contributing. What other people can do is they can react to it with an emoji. Again, that's people raising their hands twice. You know, if people have opted into,

your broadcast channel and after the voice message that you put in about what the latest is with the NAR or how to get how to sell your house for for the most and they're saying and they're reacting with a fire emoji a heart emoji reach out to them that that's them pretty much begging you like hey i'm interested thank you so much for the valuable information thank you and they thank you with a heart so message them immediately pronto okay do you want to so is that and i clearly have so little experience with us. This is after your link before highlights. Yes. Yeah. That's still like in the blurb of that like whole bio section. Gotcha. Okay. Cool. So that so now next would be the highlights, which you know what's interesting. It's because I have I have notes on God, things change so fast all the time.

Because now I just went to some of my favorite people and a couple of them have just removed highlights all together. So I'm like, oh my God, is that the next trend is just removing highlights all together? I mean, fuck, I don't know. So I'm going to keep my little eyes out for that. But in the meantime, if you do want to do highlights, we have some notes on it for that. But ultimately, like, we haven't even talked about a cohesive, you know, thought through looking brand.

And again, this is more important if you are doing those more focused lead generation type of pages, having a consistent look. Whereas if you're journaling the journey and you're just fucking slinging it, it's less important to look like a business because you are a person who is sharing about your life and your business. So, but if you are going the route of the regeneration pillar type of thing, then make sure that you have a cohesive look, that you have certain colors, the color scheme,

the type of the way that you do things is cohesive and looks like it's thought through. People are more like, I mean, you've seen it. Those like beautifully aesthetic food pages or travel pages that you just can't stop looking at it because everything is cohesive and gorgeous. It's at least keep that on your, on your Pinterest fucking mood board when you're deciding in what you're going to post. But back to highlights, though,

this is where you can have a series of literally highlights, where you can showcase your maybe lead magnets, maybe it's testimonials, client wins, maybe it's service areas, maybe it's frequently asked questions. I really love a frequently asked questions one. Like that one's really, really fun. but this is where you can put your things that you want people to see.

So just within them, make sure they look pretty. Think about the information that you want to share. Don't put too much. Less is more. Just like Ali said, information overload is the way of our culture right now. So think about it, no more than three to five highlights,

cohesive image. And according to Will Draper, 10 stories per highlight. What else on highlights, Ali? Oh, if you don't follow Will Draper, follow him too. he's a fucking, he's great. If you're an agent looking to focus on just both buyers and sellers, I would do three. I would do one for sellers called seller wins, one for buyers called buyer wins,

and one for start here, which is another way for people to click through and know exactly what the next steps are to start working with you. Again, make it so obvious. And so starting with a start here, I would do. maybe just one highlight or one post within that highlight saying, contact me. You're like, if you are a buyer, contact me with the D with the word X, Y, Z, or here's my phone number.

And then just make it super, super simple, but another call to action. This time, instead of it being in the bio, it's a visual. So the other visuals that you'll have are the other two highlights, which is a buyer wins, buyer wins and seller wins. For those, update as many testimonials as you can. If it's a video testimonial from your clients, perfect. If it's a testimonial of you telling the story, you know, of what you did for your recent

buyer and how much you got them under contract for, like below appraisal, below asking price. This is your time, again, to sell yourself because this is what people are going to be seeing. Instead of scrolling, they have it right there available. Oh, what are the wins that, how can she help me win as a buyer? How can she help me win as a seller? So testimonials all throughout. the more, the better in those two. Have that part be so overwhelming with value of how much you have helped other people

that it's a no-brainer to work with you. And if you were like, how do I get testimonials? Go back and listen to Allie's buyer part one of them. We did fucking six, I think. It's in there. I'd say five. I think it's number five. Where she goes through.

It's six. Part six. Is it six? Okay. Yep. Then that's where you can find exactly how she's, She does an amazing job capturing testimonials from people. I think it might be the episode right before this too,

a called, like, how to get a five-star review every single time. So look up that one. If you are looking to change brokerages this year so you can increase your business and you want to join us at EXP Realty and would like either myself, Aligar said, or Shelby Johnson to personally sponsor you in. So that way you have access to two icon agents, text the word join to either my number, 911 318-48-49-18

or Shelby's number 859-267-3849. If I sponsor you and you have access to the both of us and everything that's Five Pillars Nation, we have the checklist, the systems, the process is to help you scale your business and don't take our word for it. We've had agents switch brokerages to join us

that were stuck making $300,000 GCI and they join us so they can scale. So text the word joined to those numbers and we'll take the next steps. after those highlights, that's where the reels come in, the photos come in. So overall content strategy, right? What do I even post? I have my bio set up.

What do I start posting now? If you're going, the most recent update, by the way, I pay for Adleys like inner circle type thing, which is $200 a month for social media. And I share that with those that join our community. But I want to share with you something that I have been sharing with. with others as well, which is, as of August 15th, 2024, Instagram is, there's a, there's a key metric in Instagram that's now focused on views specifically. This is new, by the way. I thought this was like always a thing, but this is, this is new. So people are now looking as, they're,

they're quantifying a view as when a real starts playing and when an image shows up on someone's screen. So back to when Instagram was first starting out, it was just photos, then it turned into like just reels. Now it's even Steven. So if you want to post photos, do that. And that's going to have the same weight as someone watching a reel. So you know long, if you never really liked videos, then maybe now is your time to post even more photos and have that photo be engaging, of course, but a view is a view. And if they get a view just because your photo popped in front of them, perfect. This may be an opportunity to maybe even start paying for like boosting some ads on Instagram.

That's just a photo. So think about that. And also just know, side note, if you're going to be paying for boosting anything on Instagram or on any platform, if you're doing it from your phone, you are paying an upcharge because likely you're paying the Apple store majority or like a good 30%.

So if you're going to be boosting anything, do it from your computer where you don't have to then pay. If you're going to be putting like 50 bucks into an ad, add out of that 50 bucks. If you're doing it on your phone, not all 50 bucks goes to the actual pushing your content. It's going to be a large chunk of is going to the Apple store. But unlike if you're doing it on a computer, any questions on what a view is, Shelby? I did not know that for the, sorry, for the boosting. I did read diligently the post that you did in our social media chat the other day.

You did it. Gold stuff. Yeah. Awesome, awesome, awesome. Yeah, reals engagement are. More on Instagram for the updates. Reels engagement is, is continuing to grow. Recommendations are up to 50%.

So what that means is Instagram is pushing smaller content. So if you're a smaller content creator, this is your time. Post and post and post. Don't wait for what's perfect. Just fucking post it. What is the recommended, do they have a posting frequency recommendation for that or what? Yeah. They do about two to three times a week.

And what the group, the social media group that I'm a part of, it focuses more so on getting revenue from videos that you post. And it's not so much ads. You're not selling anything. It's really just satching the eye, appealing to the masses, like prank stuff because you can make a fuck ton of money from that. Obviously, I'm trying to incorporate what they're teaching into real estate. So what they're doing is actually three minute long videos.

That's where you make the most amount of money, especially like on Facebook. So they do about two to three like quality videos a week. Okay, perfect. And then did they talk about story frequency? No. No, they don't. In our social media challenge, we are doing three posts a week plus three stories a day. What are your thoughts on that?

Do you think three stories a day is good from the Alley assessment? I think it's good. It's always, as long as you always have a story gets my blessing. because you're you know a story puts you literally at the top of someone's feed so the more it's just another way for you to stay top of mind but also be mindful don't just put dumb stuff you know don't do a story just to make a story that you don't even think would help anybody if you find it funny post it if you think it's helpful post it because it's you but if you're posting something that's i don't think that anybody's going to care nobody's going to care very true and a story's

another way, Ali talked about this on the broadcast channel, but like stories is another way to see who's opting in because you can go and see who views all of your stories. And especially if you have multiple, see who is watching it, all of them in a row who's there on that last one. Those people are bought in. They want to know what you're doing. You know, if they're always liking your shit, those are the people you need to be reaching out to, which we're going to get to in just a little bit about prospecting. Just a little bit. Just a little bit. Just a tiny little bit. But yeah. Okay. And my last thing about stories is what I do, I actually got this from a different content creator in a different niche, is I now on Sundays am deleting all of my stories and I'm only posting one.

So I delete, I delete all of them. And then just immediately after I post my one story that I'm going to have up for the full 24 hours. That makes sure that people don't just like swipe through accidentally if that one story, which is important. And I'll tell you why. So I don't want that one story to be mashed in the middle where people think people saw random stuff and they're like, I don't really care about Allie's stories today.

I want this photo to be the only thing that they see. So in that one story that I do on Sundays, up for 24 hours by itself is a call to action. A call to action mixed with a testimonial. So I'll have, you know, Tyler Good, a realtor out of Fayetteville, North Carolina that joined us, came out the gate setting up appointments, like the first week that he was,

that he joined us because of our resources. So I, my next post this Sunday, is going to be about Tyler and about maybe like some others as well saying, dude, like this, they're getting appointments month one, like multiple appointments month one of joining us. So testimonials and then with a call to action, again, making it super, super simple. Look at this person. Look at this person. Look at this one.

DM me if you also want to close 20 homes a year plus. And so I'll keep that up for 24 hours. And then the next day I will post even more testimonials, but it'll be back to my normal three a day. Okay, and my last thing on polls, I mean, shit stories, look at me, 40 and slip. I don't know if that's the right term for that, but it's polls. I love polls for just engagement in general. And I have an entire sheet sheet on how to post polls that pull out opportunity for you to talk about real estate. So if you do want that, hit up Allie or I, very happy to share that so you can just copy and paste all of those specific polls.

because again, polls are away for you to, they're raising their hands. And if you do it in a specific way to target real estate focus, then all the better. Yeah. Oh, that's super, super good. Yeah. Polls are so important. Even if it's like that bare minimum, even if it's, hey, are you living in your dream house, dream house right now?

Yes or no. That's it. You know, at a bare minimum. And obviously the ones that say no, reach out to them. They already answered, reach out to them. Yeah. Okay. What else?

we're going to talk about, okay, so the biggest mistakes that we see agent making across the board are, I'm going to do a few, Ali's going to do a few. So not keeping that target audience in mind, changing audiences all the time, is really hard for you to grow or people to get engaged with your audience because they just don't care. They don't know what to expect if you're all over the place. So you've got to think about that in the beginning. Another one I see all the fucking time outside of the captions, which we've already talked about, but it kind of goes along with video,

is bad audio. Like, if you're going to upgrade anything, really, audio is, like, the most important. So, and that, I mean, that is way more important in long form than short form, but still in general audio. And the last thing that I'm going to say before I hand it over is not posting videos. And I fall victim to this. And I'm so glad that the fucking algorithm is accepting pictures again.

So I can use my pictures from two, three years ago. that Alex took of me. It's fine. I'm shameless. But in general, the opportunity of when you don't post video, you are missing out on people being able to fall in love with you without you ever meeting them. Because there's this rule. It's the 7-4-11 rule where people need seven hours of your face plus four different channels and 11 touch points, whatever. That's not important. I'm harping on the seven right now. You have to give them the opportunity to spend seven hours with you or else you're going to have to actually spend those seven hours with them. But you can cut the chase so much more by sharing video of your face speaking, talking. Okay. Allie, you're up. The biggest mistake that I

see people make is starting videos and wasting so much time to get to the point. This is not YouTube. In YouTube, you can waste as much time and people are there like munch it on their popcorn for all day. in social media on Instagram, you have one fucking second to get their attention. So nobody gives a crap what your name is or if they do, they already know what your name is. So don't say it. Don't say the reason of why you wanted to get on. What you were just doing before you'd had this thought and whatever. Say the main point up front.

The bottom line needs to be what you start out with and that bottom line has to be strong. So if you're saying sellers right now are dumb, start with that. You know, don't leave that to the very end. You know, or like the smart sellers are still going to be paying buyers compensation. Or, you know, there's a way to make that way stronger. But whatever your bottom line is, make sure that you start out with that and start it strong and start it clear. Have that first liner be so obvious of should the buyer click away or not. Because if you started out with saying what everyone else,

does, which is, hey guys, I just wanted to pop on here. I'm a real estate agent in Tucson, Arizona. I just want to pop on here because I was just thinking about this and this and that nobody freaking cares. Like it irks me. And I tell this to everyone yet they still do it. And it's hard. It's hard to start a sentence out the gate saying, fuck you, you know, but you need to. So just start it strong. That's the biggest thing, but I have a lot of other mistakes too. Another mistake is not going live. If you never, ever, ever, ever go live, it's almost as if, I mean, your stories, your stories do so much. They get you to the top. But when you're on Instagram, the, what you will always see at the very beginning before you even see someone's stories are those that are live at that

moment. So the more you go live, the more people you're getting in front of all the time. And when you do go live, always have some sort of topic that you're talking about. So that way you're not just sitting in silence. Until you are a content creator that has like tens of thousands of followers that will just initiate their own questions, then you can just start alive. But otherwise, I highly suggest doing lives. If you are nervous, all the more reason to do lives, because the more lives you do, the more comfortable you're going to be on a camera for a normal real. And you don't have to share the burden by, you can share the burden, I guess. So if you want to have a lender partner go live with you or another real estate agent or or client would be

perfect you know have your client get on Instagram live with you tell them how the process is going or a past client do a live testimonial which you could always save download send your editor and put into an actual good testimonial that you then put on your highlights but I suggest going live and the third mistake that I see is after even if your message is strong. There's a lot of dead space in videos. You want to send your, you want to post videos that that are just like back to back to back sentences, barely giving people a time to even register what you're saying as you're saying that sentence. If that makes sense, as you've already started the next sentence, they're registering what you just said to keep it fast pace because that's what

social media is. So delete all the ums, delete all the transitions, make it go, whether you're using cap cut or captions, they both allow you to do this. So delete all that fluff. And as you're actually recording, make sure that your head is in the top third. We have gone over this previously in other episodes as well. Your audio is clean that you have the background you could use to your advantage. Being that, a lot of people view that, view Instagram reels without any sound, show an action. The action doesn't even have to do about,

doesn't have to be real estate related at all. Action speak louder than words. So if your content is boring, then add something to your video that gives it a random twist. Like, why is Ali holding a ginormous sweet potato when she's talking about listings? Hence one of my videos that I just did. So it was huge and we still have the sweet potato. It's been like two weeks.

Like, we're still eating it. It's probably way bad by now. And as you're editing the video, this is my last mistake. People don't do transitions enough. so they don't do a slow zoom in or a zoom out or a change of scene as you're recording videos, even if you are just like looking over to the right, make it seem as if you have multiple cameras just to keep people like on their toes. Because if it's a talking head video, which a lot of real estate agents will do because it's

education and we have a lot to say in a short amount of time, you know, in 30 seconds, change up the scene, be inside, be outside, be holding something weird and and just keep, It's entertainment that you need to combine with education and it's hard, but you need to get used to it. So those are the mistakes that I see is people just rambling on and on without any change, without any edits, and the bottom line takes forever to get to. Those were fantastic. Thank you, Allie. And guys, that is all we have for today, unless, Allie, is there anything that you wanted to add when it comes to this topic?

No, reach out to us for the giveaways that we have. Ali the agent, the Shelby show, and I can let you close out the show. It's been a while since he closed it out, I think. Be a bro and share this show. Bye.