Episode 1008: How Agents Get Listings on Instagram Without Posting More

0:00Instagram in 2026 isn't one channel, it's three channels stacked on top of each other, and most agents are only running one of them. Then they wonder why it's not working. Yesterday we talked about the difference between visibility and presence. If you didn't catch that episode, go back and listen because it's a foundation for this whole series. There's a total of seven. Today we're taking that frame and applying it to the channel where most agents are spending the most time and getting the least back. I've been on Instagram since around 2014. I've built audiences across multiple brands and I'll tell you what a lot of people won't tell you. Posting more isn't the answer. Yes, I know you're hearing it from Gary Vee and other people. But listen, better lighting isn't the answer either. The algorithm isn't the answer. The algorithm is just

1:03people. The answer is understanding that Instagram isn't a content channel. It's three plays running at the same time. Most agents only run one of them and that's why the results are kind of flat. Now, let me walk you through all three. I'll tell you which one, not a lot of people are talking about and I think is a big play for you. Play one is content broadcasting. This is what most agents think Instagram is and it's also where they make their first mistake. They think they're making real estate content. They're not. You're not making real estate content or at least you shouldn't be like you traditionally think you should be. The agents winning on Instagram in 2026 aren't making this real estate content. They're documenting a place. See the difference? West Lake Village has a feel. Malibu has a feel to it. In fact, I made a TikTok just on that and called it Malibu Moods.

2:03And it performed really well. It was a test. It did really well. Calabasis has a feel. You see, every market has a sensory signature. The light, at certain hours, the canyons, the coast, the difference between one neighborhood and the next. When you stop making real estate content, at least mentally and you start making content that captures the place itself with you in it. That's the key. As the knowledgeable resident, right, the key is interpreting what this all means through your voice, then people start connecting with you, right? Two things really happen. You build organic search visibility for that geography, that location because Instagram's discovery is geo-aware now and it's been for a little bit. And you build the perception that you're the person who knows this corner of the world better than most other people. And that perception is the asset. And that's the part that a lot of agents are missing. Listings eventually flow from it. How do I know? Well,

3:07it's happened to us. It's happened to some of our agents and we watch it happen to other agents. But here's the other play that a lot of other agents are running and that's plane number two. It's the local business ecosystem participation. No, it's a long phrase, but bear with me on this one. This is the one I want you to lean into, okay, because it's where the real mouth gets built. Longer term. Here's the move. Build a deliberate named list of every business inside your geographic footprint. That matters to you. We lightly talked about this yesterday with presents, restaurants, coffee shops, boutiques, gyms, salons, galleries, vineyards. No, don't keep it in your head now. I know a lot of you do. Oh, I have a favorite restaurant and I have a list of five favorite copies of coffee shops and you only can list one. I need you to build an actual list, an actual document, then sort it into three tiers. Tier one is the businesses that your ideal client uses every week.

4:14Coffee shops, Pilates studios, wine shops, dry cleaners. The places where habit lives. Tier two is destination businesses. Write this down please if you're not writing this down. The restaurants people drive to for a date night, the boutiques, people gift shop for holidays. Tier three is up in commerce, the new openings, the pop ups, the businesses that are about to be tier one, but aren't yet. Tier three is gold. Those owners remember every one who supported them early and I know this because I do this. I specifically go out and visit brand new businesses. If you're part of the Chamber of Commerce, guess who visits the Chamber of Commerce at the beginning when they're opening a brand new business, the brand new owners. What an amazing place to connect people with. And once you have this list every weekday morning before you do anything else, you spend 20 minutes inside it. You like reason post. You leave your comments. Not love this or put a little heart and

5:17look, I'm guilty of that sometimes, but think of my whole process that I built for Facebook and Instagram, which is LCM like comment message. You stay here for all three tiers because comments add that that's something that they matter. And when something genuinely warrants it, DM them, like I'm telling you, like comment message. And I try to make things matter. And I never pitch. I just want to make a connection with people. And I want you to do the same thing to be a human who lives in the same town and want to connect and just rooting for the local businesses. And here's where this compounds in a way that nothing else on this platform does. That's a week. You make a piece of content that features one of those businesses and you tag them. In fact, if you don't want to do just one, you could do three, you could do two, you could do five. One of my friends at Lane of Flores at this last week, I think it was three coffee shops in her local area. And that post did

6:18really, really well for her. Now, a real inside the new wine shop is you're crazier, right? It means the shop owner is watching you because hopefully you ask for permission at least so that there's a connection. A story from breakfast at the spot that just opened a post about the boutique that's been on Civic Center Drive for 15 years and deserves more love. The owner shares it to their audience, putting you in front of people in your exact geography who already trust that business. You build a body of work over a year that proves you don't just sell here. You live here and you care about this area, right? Run, uh, recurring weekly series for 52 weeks. That's 52 different shops. And if you're going to do two or three at a time, right? That's 52 times three and my math is not that good, but I think it's 156. Call it whatever you want. West Lake local inside the canal for me or like I created Malibu moods. It's the old TikTok channel I had you can go take a

7:22look at what I did there. It doesn't matter. At the end, you'll have 52 minimum 52 local businesses or business owners who know your name, who like you, most will like you, and who have a reason to refer you. Most agents will never have that. In fact, most agents will never do exactly what I just told you to do. Play three is a private DM relationship building process. This is where the actual business gets transacted in 2026. I don't know about you, but when I'm on Instagram and I say to people, drop this comment below and people comment and then I send something automatically. That creates an instant relationship. They wanted something of value. I'm giving it to them because I was talking about it. Most agents don't even realize that the relationship is happening in the DMs. Stop trying to drive people to the link in your bio as much. Instagram doesn't reward that as much anymore. The platform rewards conversations. The agents winning on this channel are running their entire

8:25intake process inside the DMs and only moving to phone or email once trust is built. I know this because when I ask my daughter, she's in college, I said, did you get their phone number? She's like, no, I got their Instagram up DMing them. I'm like, oh, it's that important. Like, this is where people live. Captions invite messages, not clicks, saved replies, and of the conversation you have over and over. The inbox gets treated like the front desk of a private club. Fast, personal, I name because they already know who you are and it has substance. The thing tying all three of these places together, the thing most agents don't put enough value on, I think, is your stories. Posts and reels are the broadcast layers. They bring new people in. Stories are the relationship layer. Let me add one thing to this because I'm watching it happen live. Carousels, meaning those posts where you have to swipe to the next post, swipe to the next post, swipe to the next post. Those have performed a

9:30lot of what you're seeing out there. So between stories, between carousel posts, that's where your existing audience watches you. They watch what you're doing there and think about this. If you've got 52, you're just going to do one a week, which is fine. I'd rather you do just one a week. If you want to scale this slowly and get into a habit of doing this, if you do one a week after like month three or two, let's go month four instead. So you've done like 12 of these, you're about to start month four. You can mix and match and add one, one, two, three to a carousel of month one, or even four to a carousel. And all of a sudden, people can swipe through the different shops that are there because look, you're in month four, these shops are still around and people are still talking about them. Don't stop just because you only posted it one time and you forgot about it. Go back to some of these and tag the owner again. This is where the people that are like, oh, I didn't see that before because you're going to have new followers. Think about this. A lot of people put almost no effort into posting things back, back into stories, back into carousels. So here's your action

10:35today. One thing, open Instagram, open the notes app or Chanty PT or Claude, whatever you use now. I still use the notes app on your phone. Start your tier one list, five businesses, your ideal client uses every week, just five name and handles. That's it. Tomorrow add five more to the to tier two day after day five more for tier three. By Friday, you've got 15 businesses on the list. Think about that. So next Monday, you start the 20 minute morning protocol. That's the whole onboarding. Run it for 90 days. It's three months and you'll look up at three months and realize your geography has changed. It's changed all around you. People are paying attention to you. People know who you are. You didn't get bigger. You got rooted in that. I think is the key we're missing to social media. It really is about that local community feel about your geography. So tomorrow, we're going into the two platforms. Most agents are sleeping on completely. Yeah, I'd say most agents.

11:36Next story in LinkedIn. There's money on the table on both of them. We'll get into them and why. I'm Tristan Elmada. This is your daily real estate podcast to show. Share this with somebody you think may need this. Have an awesome day.