Common IGTV Mistakes for Real Estate: What They Are and How to Avoid Them

The most common mistakes real estate agents make on IGTV that harms their business more than it helps them

Academy Content Team June 9, 2022Last Updated: June 9, 2022

6 minutes read

IGTV Mistakes for Real Estate — Image by raphaelsilva from Pixabay

IGTV is getting more and more popular in the world of business. Agents now use IGTV for real estate as a useful avenue to get their messages across and generate leads. This popularity has caused many real estate agents to try and get the hang of it by trial and error. Along the way, they may make mistakes that can result in more harm than good for their business. In this article, we are going to review some IGTV mistakes for real estate that are too common to ignore.

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Common IGTV Mistakes for Real Estate

Perhaps the main problem with using IGTV lies within a stage before actually using the service, and that is not knowing your audience. There is a lot of talk in the world of marketing about knowing your audience well. Unfortunately, it is still often treated as an extravagance or something too trivial to attend to. No matter how theoretical you consider audience study in your business, its effect become pretty tangible and practical once the message is conveyed. Talking in a serious and formal way to an audience consisting mainly of millennials does not sound very promising. Does it?

First and foremost, real estate agents need to sit down and think about their target audience and niche. Who are they on Instagram? What do they like? Where are they from? How old are they? Does the content you share on IGTV appeals to them? Or have you even sat down to identify your target audience? If not, randomly posting IGTV videos to promote your business is like shooting in the dark. You have no idea what you are doing.

Overlooking the Basic Setup

In order to make your videos look good and be easily discoverable good on IGTV, there are things you need to do. They include:

Title

The title of your IGTV video will be one of the first things viewers will see. It should be defined carefully to be both informative of the video’s content and also interesting enough to attract the audience. However, you need to make sure your title does not exceed 20-25 characters to make sure it will show properly.

Cover Image

The cover image is probably the most important element of IGTV videos in terms of how they show up on your audience’s feed. The image will determine whether people choose to watch your video. Unfortunately, many people do not even know what cover images are and often leave it alone. In these cases, the platform chooses the first frame of the video, which may be a terrible image. Make sure you choose a frame that demonstrates the purpose of the video properly.

Hashtags

Hashtags on social media are used to label posts and make them easier to find. When clicked on, a certain hashtag will show all the posts labeled with that hashtag. How the posts are shown are set within the algorithms of Instagram. The popular videos are picked to be shown first. One of the mistakes real estate agents make is forgetting about using hashtags. That’s like deciding to deprive yourself of more views. However, make sure you don’t overdo hashtags as that risks flagging your post as spam.

Forgetting About A Schedule

Another one of the IGTV Mistakes for Real Estate that are too common (in general, not just IGTV), is posting when you feel like it. Some days you are busy and do not get around to posting content. Other days you have nothing on your plate, so you overwhelm the audience with content. Your audience will judge the quality and the quantity of the content they are exposed to. Annoying them with too much content on their newsfeed or disappearing for a while are not signs of a great channel. Either way, they will lose interest or will stop following you.

You need to have a plan for the content you are going to post in which you have defined the exact days, type of content, time, etc. And then you need to commit to that plan. It is an integral part of your marketing plan. It will not work until you give it the attention you give to other aspects of your business. If you go silent for a while you will be quickly forgotten and replaced by those who keep a consistent presence.

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Not Having A Plan

As another one of IGTV mistakes for real estate, not having a plan for your topics can be trouble. When you look at your previous videos and see you have talked about various fields that means you have lost focus. Your business is real estate, and you should keep your content that way. You don’t want to go awry. Mixing everything into the pot and then wondering why things didn’t work. Your audience cares about real estate not other fields of business. Your ultimate goal with IGTV is to help your audience with their problems and questions regarding real estate. It should be the priority of your content.

However, in marketing literature on the web, you might come across articles that suggest real estate agents allow their audience a peek into their life. That they show their audience what they do when they are not working. This doesn’t contradict what we have said. That’s a part of a marketing technique that aims at gaining your audience’s trust. It is an aspect of content and should be done in moderation.

Bad Formatting

Another IGTV for real estate mistake or error we can mention for the IGTV mistakes for real estate is not following the video and audio standards for IGTV. IGTV is meant to be watched vertically or horizontally. The choice you make depends on the nature of the video you make. If the video, you are sharing is recorded by your phone or if you are sharing a previous live video you can go with the vertical format. If you are sharing a professionally produced video on a computer, your video will be in horizontal format.

Regardless of the video orientation the quality of the video and the sound is very important. IGTV supports videos with high quality but we have seen agents sharing low-quality videos. This isn’t a good look. You can’t simply use the same video for all the platforms. Different platforms have different technical requirements and using one video for them all will make them look bad. Click on this link for the latest requirements for IGTV.

Sharing Videos That Are Too Long

When IGTV was first introduced people were very excited about the fact that they could post longer videos compared to the one-minute limit for posts and 15-second stories. IGTV videos can be anything between 1 and 60 minutes. However, that does not mean you have to take all that time. Instagram is most viewed on mobile devices and nobody wants to sit through an hour-long video. People use YouTube for watching longer videos when they are sitting comfortably behind their computer.

The videos you share on IGTV should be short and exciting to keep the viewer watching. Many agents go overboard and create very long videos that are not watched to the end. Remove the extra parts from the video or cut it into shorter videos. The idea is not to make the viewer think they are being held for too long. To make the long story short, valuable, and exciting. To deliver the message quickly.

Common IGTV Mistakes for Real Estate: Final Thoughts

IGTV can be an invaluable tool to promote your real estate business provided that you know how to use it and avoid these most common mistakes. These mistakes happen quite often and in most cases, agents are not aware of them. By learning about these mistakes agents can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their effort on Instagram.