If you’re marketing your real estate business on social media then you know how important hashtags are, especially when marketing to millennials. By adding hashtags to your post you’re automatically filing it under certain categories so that when users search a specific hashtag your content will appear.
The problem with hashtags? They change a lot.
Some hashtags can get popular overnight, with many people talking about a certain topic, before going cold.
There’s no way to predict with 100 percent certainty what hashtags you’ll need for real estate but there are some formulas that generally work. Take a look at some of these go-to hashtags and then search for other posts with similar hashtags to learn what the tag of the moment is on any given day.
Basic hashtags to get you started
Here are a few hashtags for real estate marketing you could consider including on your posts as a general rule.
#[your location]
Hashtagging your posts with your location is especially important if you post photos of your listings on social media. Start big and go small — hashtag your state, county, city and neighborhood. People searching for a new home in your area will be looking under all of these headings.
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#[your location + school district]
Parents looking for a new home will be thinking in terms of school districts, so make sure you create a special hashtag for that. You can do some research to see if there are already hashtags with the specific school districts in your area on social media. If there are, use those — particularly ones with higher usage numbers. If you lived in L.A, for example, you might want to go with #LAUSD. If there are not hashtags, you could create your own. For example, #WindermereCitySchoolDistrict or #WinderemereSchools.
#[local attractions]
If there are local attractions that are relevant to your listing, add a hashtag for them into your post. Just don’t get too spammy and add hashtags for attractions that don’t relate to your listing at all. For example, if you’re in New York City and your listing is near the #EmpireStateBuilding you could add that hashtag in. But if you’re in Denver and you hashtag #Rockies even though your listing is in the city center, you could be penalized for spammy hashtagging by Instagram.
#[area+style]
This is a more specific hashtag and really only works well if others in the area are tagging the same thing — so do some research first (or start your own hashtag if you know you’ll have many of the same style homes). If you sell a lot of farmhouses in Maine, for example, you might say #MaineFarmhouse. If you’re selling a beach house in Malibu you could say #MalibuBeachHouse. If a buyer is specifically looking for a beach house in Malibu, they’ll be able to find you easily. If all of your competition is tagging something similar on their posts you’ll want to use the same hashtag as them so you appear in the search results.
#[your brokerage]
Creating your own hashtag that you use on all posts can help searchers find everything related to your brokerage in one place. It can also be a tool that you get others to use when posting about your work. In general, it’s a good branding practice.
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#[generic, relevant words]
Sometimes, to increase your reach, you’ll want to hashtag words that relate to your post and have many posts attached to them. Be careful with this, as you don’t want to get too spammy in your approach. There is, however, a way to use this method tastefully. For example, if you’re selling a midcentury modern home, you could hashtag #MidcenturyArchitecture, assuming that hashtag or a similar one had many other posts. You could choose to hashtag something like #DreamHome or #HouseGoals, or other trendy hashtags that could increase the reach of your post.
How to research hashtags for real estate marketing
Knowing which hashtags for real estate marketing to use requires some work. Using a tool like Hashtagify can simplify your process by suggesting similar hashtags to one you already know is relevant to your post. Simply input your hashtag into their search bar and they’ll come up with several additional options — plus they’ll show you how many people are also using those options. You’ll most likely want to choose a hashtag that has a sizeable reach, but not one that’s so big you’ll get lost in the noise.
After you’ve found a few relevant hashtags, create a list in your phone so you can copy and paste them into future posts. You’ll want to keep updating this list regularly, but having some of the basic hashtags written out ahead of time can save you a lot of work in the moment.
Social media is always changing
Because social media never stays the same, you’ll have to do some hashtag research with every post to make sure you’re on top of the game and choosing relevant hashtags that get your posts seen and help searchers find what they’re looking for.
