I love this topic. I love personal branding, and I've always found it quite interesting as an industry that we have sales reps who glamorize their positions and their jobs. Sales reps take responsibility for their personal branding by always having nice photos, dressing nicely, having beautiful social media pages. But as property managers, we don't actually have the same thought when it comes to the personal brand, and I've always found it quite interesting that we don’t.
The truth is we can no longer rely on our employers to help us with our personal brand, and we do have to take some responsibility for our own career. So one thing I do chat with my staff about is that I never expect them to be with me forever. But if they want to make sure that they're more employable, they need to show some commitment on their end to show the passion and the commitment they have for the job. And that can also include their personal branding and their online presence. So if I have someone that approaches me for a job, the first thing I will be checking is their social media.
This article is only about the using Instagram for personal branding. I will touch on other platforms later. I love the creative side of Instagram, so I will be honest and say, I don't think I would get a lot of new business from Instagram, but it definitely helps with my personal branding. I definitely do get new tenants from Instagram, and it is a bit of fun.
On a recent poll that I did, I found out that the majority of people, they like separating their personal and their work social media pages. And I find that so interesting, and I probably used to do it some time ago, but to manage both is really, really hard.
And I think that if you have a personal page and a work page, and we're talking about Instagram today, you were more likely to post a really boring work stuff. And that's the truth. Because I have Perth Property Manager on Instagram, I post a lot of personal stuff as well, but I just work it into my content. So the one thing that I think people probably worry about is that if they have a work page, and let's say they do SamSmith_ABCRealty, they worry that then they're going to leave and then they'll lose that tag because they're not working for that company anymore. But when in fact, if you have a generic one, it allows you to move companies without any effect.
A really great example is @theocdpm, and she has that tag as her Instagram, and she has moved offices. And I love that she is still @theocdpm, so her personal brand isn't changing. She continues wherever she is working on her personal brand for whichever company she is. So another idea is that you could maybe do SamSmith_PropertyManagementPerth. It's a very generic Instagram tag, but it allows you to move from one agency to another agency, but get known for your personal brand. So that's what I like to see. The people that own their own businesses are the ones that have a more incline to combine their personal and the business page. That is very interesting.
And unless you were a completely vulgar person in your personal life, to be honest, it's not going to affect your reputation by putting your personal stuff on your generic Instagram page. It's really just going to be exhausting having both, and you are at risk of having a very transactional business page. So I like to combine them. So that's my preference, and I do recommend that people do the same thing there as well.
So we covered, does Instagram bring you business? Probably new rental clients for applicants, yes, but probably not as much with new owners, but it's also a great option for connecting with industry peers and also potential employers as well.
How to set it up ? So one thing that I've learned over the years is to really have two or three themes on an Instagram page. So for SOCO Realty, the theme there is South Perth family and real estate. So anything relevant to those three subjects is what gets posted. There are so many real estate pages out there where all they do is post for sale, for lease, just leased, just sold, and it's really, really boring as bat shit, to be honest. People aren't going to engage with those posts. You really need to change things up. For my personal Instagram, which is @PerthPropertyManager, my theme is funny memes and then personal photos about me.
The reason why you need to have a theme and you need to have both... And I can tell you so many people have approached me, and I'm sure there's a lot of people who are thinking and not approached me to comment on why I do funny memes. And sometimes say quite inappropriate. I find them funny. I find them hilarious, but they're very, very random. And the reason why you've got to have both is because it helps with the AI. So if I was just to post black boring photos of me or just boring work stuff, people aren't going to engage in that. And when people aren't engaging, they're not going to naturally see your posts when you post them.
But if you do something random, which might be the funny memes which I do, you could do wine, you could do dogs, whatever it is, just something non-industry related, what happens is people will engage with those personal posts first. And then once they've engaged with those personal posts, they're more likely to see your boring work ones, because Instagram's picked up that yes, they like your page, yes, you've commented. Let me keep on showing you more. So that's why you need to have some random shit on the Instagram and then some work stuff as well. That is the reason why it's good to have it two or three themes.
You could have a theme of real estate and dogs or real estate and red wine or real estate and the suburb you're working in, real estate and brunch. So really, honestly, anything as long as it's a little bit more random, and that will help with your engagement. If you're going to throw a few personal things, I do it every second, but every second or third post will get the comments and the likes. So that's what I recommend. So you might even sort of do two worky posts and then three in a personal one. So you really do need to keep in mind the AI, which is behind these platforms, to get it working better for you. So that is my tip for having a theme. Another theme idea would be doing real estate and coffee.
Whenever you go out for coffee, you can tag that place in there and you can post a photo. So you just get known for real estate and something else. So that is that tip. Now, who should I follow? I follow other local businesses, plus a lot of other property managers. And I love to do that because I love to connect with industry colleagues. I also love to see what everyone's up to as well and how they're managing their social media.
So my favourite accounts, which are the ones that I suggest you follow, are @theocdpm. Kenslee is great. She does a really great mix of personal and professional. And like I said before, she has moved companies.
I really love how she continues her own personal brand wherever she works. I love her humour. I connect with her humour, and I remember her Instagram all the time. So she is a really fun person who does Instagram really, really well. Then from a sales point of view, there's a girl called Angelica McKenzie, and she's a sales rep, and she's got really fun content as well. And you'll see what I mean when you have a look at these girls. They're very consistent. It's very fun. It's not just real estate, but you know exactly what they do in their life, and you know what job they have, and they just combined their personal stuff with their work. They really do such a good job.
And another person is @StephanieReid.WA. So Steph's also really awesome with her stuff. They're the three people that I really just remember constantly for their posts. They all have a really good mix. I love how I can get to know them as a person and as a real estate professional, and I'm very attracted to them as a person and their profiles because of that. Someone over East to follow you is @MartyFox01. He's over east. He owns a pretty uber cool real estate called WHITEFOX. He's just a cool dude, and he has changed his Instagram over the last 12 months. So now he does quite a lot of family stuff on there, as well as he's known for his really quirky signboards.
So it's really awesome to follow people that are over east as well, because you can sort of see what they do and somehow replicate that as well. He's a cool guy. Connecting with people. So a way to connect with people is SOCO Realty. I look for South Perth people because that's one of my themes and that's who I'm wanting to target. So I just easily do a hashtag search for South Perth, and I connect with those people. I like their posts. I interact. I can also find local South Perth businesses. So for example, F45 in South Perth or local physios or chiropractors, their followers are more likely to be people that live locally. So you can actually go onto those business pages.
For example, F45 in South Perth, I could get onto their page and have a look at who's following them and then connect with those people. So that's one option that you've got on Instagram. There's more of a good chance that those people are living local. So if you want to connect with local people, that is a good idea. If you want to connect with other property managers, you can search the hashtag for property managers, property management life, things like that. And you can also connect with like real estate trainers.
For example, if you've got a real estate trainer, make sure that you constantly comment and like their stuff and be seen on their posts, and then you are more likely to reach the people that follow those businesses as well. What is good to do is you keep up with the AI, keep on liking and commenting and connecting with those people. And then what will happen is they will naturally then see you comment, for example, on a real estate trainer's Instagram page. They might click on you and say, "Have a look at this person." And if you've got a good feed happening on your Instagram, they're more likely to connect.
But if you've got a boring as bat shit feed that is all…for lease, for sale, they're just going to dismiss you.
How to create the best profile intro? This is pretty hard because you are limited by characters on Instagram. So keep it really simple. I guess the tip that I will give you there is where you can put your website, I like to put there links for things. So for example, I might put on the SOCO Realty Instagram page where it's a website. Instead of just having socorealty.com.au as my website, I would be more likely to change that on a regular basis to future listings, so maybe the link to a future rental or a future sale.
On my personal one, I put a link to a podcast that I've done, or I might do a link to a YouTube video that I've done. So just different things instead of just the boring website. So that's my little tip for your intro. How to connect and grow the followers. We've sort of discussed that with making sure that you like, you comment, even if you comment just with an emoji. So sometimes I comment just with that little... It's like a little fern leaf or a little green love heart or something like that. That's sort of sometimes all you need to do. So that's a nice easy option.
Hashtags ? So I use an app called Hashtag Inspector to help me with which hashtags to use. You need to set up a hashtag for each theme you're offering. So we talked before how for SOCO Realty I have real estate, family, and South Perth. So I have a hashtag for whenever I post about family, a hashtag for whenever I post about South Perth, and a hashtag for whenever I talk about or post something about real estate. And you can save those hashtags under keyboard shortcuts in your phone, which is my favourite thing to do, or some people like just to save them under notes and then just copy and paste. So that's your other option as well.
But yeah, settings up three lots of hashtags for each of your themes is the easiest way to manage that, and you're not sitting there hash tagging constantly when you do new posts. So I'll go into a few little tips now. I think it's common sense, but a lot of people might not know, but using Canva for posts is really the best option. So if you don't use Canva, highly recommended it for graphic design, and it's free. That's a really good option for your posts. So do that. I don't know whether you guys have noticed, but when you have your Instagram post and then sometimes...
So you write your little blurb, whatever you're writing, and then you want to do hashtags, but sometimes you want to do a couple of spaces, a couple of enters because you don't want to have your hashtags right up in your posting little comment. So some people, a lot of people just do the dots. You just do a dot and enter, dot enter, dot enter, and then you put your hashtags. But another thing you can actually do so you don't have to do the dots is to use an app called, what I do on Safari, called IG caption. The website is actually apps4lifehost.com/instagram/captions. And that's pretty cool if you want to get rid of the little dots. You can just copy a caption in there and then you paste it into Instagram. So you'll see what I mean when you actually go to that site.
For inspiration of what to do, what to post, I use Pinterest for a lot of mine. So I have folders in Pinterest for my personal Instagram and for work Instagram. For me, it's memes, so any funny memes I find them there. Sometimes it's just photos of interior design or just inspiration. I mean, you can even look up Instagram Calendar and find something there as well. Pinterest is great, so definitely make that your friend.
For planning, I use Planoly, and Planoly is good if you want to be... I probably use Planoly more when I go on holiday. If I'm going away on holidays, I'll plan all my social media for the next two or three weeks, so I don't have to worry about it. So that is good for that. Or if you're someone that really finds Instagram exhausting, you might just want to plan it once a month and be done with it. For me, I like doing it every day. So I only use Planoly as required. Should you have the same content for Instagram and Facebook? Well, let's face it, it's a lot simpler to just do the same. So I just have it synced, so whatever I put on Instagram goes straight through to Facebook. Some people would tell you to do a post separate. You can do that too, but I think it's one of those things where you pick your battles.
And for me, I like to keep it just consistent. I like to keep it the same. I like to keep it simple. So I just have the automatic sync from Instagram to Facebook.
IGTV. If you have longer videos you want to do, that is always good. I don't use IGTV a lot, but I definitely do use it. And I post my videos there as well, but I'm managing my videos on YouTube. Instagram do like videos and carousel photos. So where possible, you really need to try and do a video every six posts at least. So really aim for that. And you've got your stories. So stories with Instagram, same thing, you really need to do about four stories in a row. If they can't all be some sort of video, you need to at least have three still photos and a video all in a row. And you want to do at your actual peak viewing time as well, which is under your insights on Instagram. So that will help with your story. So you are basically doing four story posts about half an hour apart at your peak time is what is recommended.
One thing that I was told not long ago was make sure that you hold your Instagram names even if you're not using them. So for me, I've put a couple of things on the go. So I have obviously SOCO Realty, I've got Perth Property Manager, so they're both active Instagram handles. But I have also secured Investor Concierge and PM Collective.
Now, I don't actively use those two Instagram handles, but I don't want the handle name to be taken. So it's really important that you secure them, even if you're not going to use them. So let's just say that you're thinking, "You know what? I really do need to do a bit of personal branding, but I am not quite ready for it yet." My recommendation is that you secure and just open up an Instagram page with your generic Instagram tag. I don't know, let's have a think. I mean, let's use Kenslee's as an example, @theocdpm. You set that up and you've got @theocdpm. And let's say that you just really don't have the time to actually start your personal branding, really being active with it.
What you could actually do is you could do your work posts and you can just tag that one into it, and tag @theocdpm into your other post that you do just to get it moving. That is probably the biggest tip that I would have, because once a name is being taken on Instagram or handle is being taken, you can't get it again. So I would suggest that even if you're not ready, you pick your Instagram handle. Same with Facebook. Same with LinkedIn. Secure them so they're yours, so that they're in your control. And then when you're ready to do your personal branding, start doing a few posts under that name. So that is my tip.
So really simple with Instagram. My main tips, just to summarize, are have two or three themes for your personal branding. You're going to have your personal life, so maybe that's children, maybe that's your pet, maybe that's your own face doing selfies. It doesn't matter what it is. You're going to have property management or real estate, because that's your other thing that you love. And if you can, pick one more. I recommend it. Whether that's red wine, coffee lover, interior design lover, whatever it is, pick another one if you can create. So you've got your two or three things. You've got your two or three sets of hashtags that you use. And anything to do with those three themes, you post.
And it's as simple as that. I really do get passionate about creating that personal brand. It's going to help with your career. It's going to help with your position in the property management community. And I think that everyone needs to just take a little bit of control when it comes to their own personal career. And that is one way that you can take responsibility for your career and your own personal brand. And wherever you may go, whether you are staying where you are in your job for the next five years and then thinking of moving, it doesn't matter. It is yours. It's your brand. It's your Instagram, and it's there, and people will see it.
Find me on Instagram at @perthpropertymanager and @southperthlocal
Ashleigh Goodchild 0416 352 679
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