Looking for an app that allows you to be social and useful at the same time? One that’s easy and fun to use? That doesn’t require a ton of strategy or technical prowess to get right?
Check out Instagram – the latest iPhone addiction for folks who like to take photos and share.
As real estate agents, you’re selling neighborhoods just as much as you’re selling homes (if not more, in many cases). My first thought with Instagram was that it offers a fun way to show off the quirky things about a neighborhood that you really can’t stage.
Imagine this: you’re out touring houses in a neighborhood where you have a lot of listings. You didn’t intend to have a photo shoot today, but you do of course have your iPhone with you. You notice some fun things happening: a guy on the corner playing the trumpet; a bakery that’s gone wild with a new mural on the side of its building; two squirrels who seem to be posing in front of a home for-sale sign.
Using Instagram, you simply launch the app, snap a picture, add a cool filter for effect, add a title so people know where it was taken, and upload it to all your social media networks – Facebook, Twitter and Flickr, for instance. Do this often and your followers will start to see the world you live in – the neighborhoods you sell.
A picture is worth a thousand words, so do the math and you might find yourself subconsciously selling great places to live to folks who are looking for just that.
To test out Instagram yourself, you’ll need to download it from the iTunes app store. It is currently a free app and only available to iPhone users.
Snap it. Share it. See what happens!


So, you’re using social media tools on The Web. That’s great! You’re on Twitter. Facebook. FriendFeed. You read blogs (and write them, too, hopefully). You upload pictures to Flickr. You have information up the proverbial wazoo. How do you keep track of it all? How can you keep from drowning in a sea of information?