Spent last month going deep on real estate agent Instagram profiles.

I wanted to know what was actually working, not just getting likes, but pulling in DMs and comments from potential clients.

Here's what I found.

What worked:

• Short market updates, on camera, under 60 seconds- Agents who looked straight at the camera and said "here's what's happening in [city] right now" got the most comments. People were asking about specific neighborhoods. Some were clearly buyers or sellers ready to talk.
• Answering "is now a good time to buy/sell?" with an actual opinion- The agents who gave a straight answer, not "well, it depends", got way more saves and shares. People are tired of vagueness. They want someone to just say it.
• Before/after property videos with the agent narrating- Not a full walkthrough. Just the agent on camera explaining what changed and why it mattered for the home's value. Simple. Effective.

What flopped:

• Text slides with stock music and no face
• "Happy Monday!" motivational clips
• Property tours where no one says a word

The pattern:

Anything without a face flopped. Anything without a clear point of view flopped.

The videos that got "can we talk?" and "just DM'd you" in the comments had one thing in common: a real person saying something specific about the market. Not tips. Not fluff. An actual take.

That's it.

That's the whole game.

Okay, so I have to share this because a year ago, I would've laughed if someone told me I'd be doing this.

I'm a real estate agent.

And for the longest time, I kept telling myself I'd "start posting videos soon."

The truth is... I was terrified of the camera.

The thing that finally broke the pattern

I stopped trying to make a "good video."

I committed to filming one 30-second clip every day for a month. Nothing else.

By day 12, I think, I stopped noticing the camera as much.

Then came the real problem

I finally felt okay on camera. But now I had a new enemy- my own brain mid-recording.

I'd forget what I wanted to say. I'd ramble. I'd nail the first 20 seconds and then completely blank on the landing.

A friend suggested I try scripting it out and using a teleprompter. I felt like that was "cheating" at first, lol, but I guess it's not.

I started recording with a teleprompter setup, and it changed everything.

I could stay on topic. I stopped doing 11 takes of the same video. My energy got better because I wasn't burning it all on remembering what to say next.

What posting 3-4 videos a week actually looks like now

I batch film on Sunday mornings. Takes about 90 minutes. I cover three topics, usually one market update, one buyer tip, and one local neighborhood thing.

That's it. The rest of the week, I'm just a regular agent doing regular agent stuff.

Last month, two people reached out after watching my videos.

The stuff nobody tells you

Your first 20 videos will be bad. I learned that the goal is not to go viral on video 3. The goal is to still be posting on video 40 when most people have quit.

And stop watching your view counts obsessively at the start.

If you're sitting on the fence about starting, you're not waiting for confidence. Confidence comes after you start. Not before.

Happy to answer questions if anyone's in the early awkward phase of this.