Five years ago, developer Ian Bruce Eichner would have spent millions of dollars on print advertising for a high-end new building.
But he’s trying something different with his latest project, the Madison Square Park Tower at 45 E. 22nd St. Prices for its 83 luxe apartments range from $2.45 million to $48 million — and Eichner is showing them off on Instagram.
“We’ve only run two print advertisements in 18 months,” says Eichner of the marketing scheme behind the 65-story Flatiron District tower. Instead, he spent significantly less than his old print budget on a social media strategy centered on the building’s Instagram account, which has attracted a whopping 19,300 followers. This marks the first social media campaign for his Manhattan real estate firm, The Continuum Company. “In a print ad, what do you get to say that’s different than the other bozos?” he asks. “Nothing. With social media, you get to tell 16 different stories.” The tower is now 75 percent sold.
Instagram, which launched seven years ago and was acquired by Facebook in 2012 for a cool $1 billion, has transitioned from a recreational selfie haven into a serious marketing platform for the New York City real estate community. As opposed to print advertising, Instagram allows firms and brokers to share carefully curated images of their various properties for sale — as well as shots not specifically of real estate that depict a coveted, picture-perfect lifestyle — every single day. The platform also fuels New Yorkers’ love of so-called “real estate porn,” creating communities of followers who will continually salivate over the expensive homes filling up their feeds.
“It’s a different way of selling, but I’m convinced it’s the future of real estate,” says Alexandre Corda, who heads the digital team of New York-based Optimist Consulting.
Corda spearheads the Instagram accounts of Madison Square Park Tower (@MadisonSquareParkTower) and the Jean Nouvel-designed Midtown tower 53W53 (@53W53), next door to MoMA, which has 13,300 followers. He believes that the former is “the most followed building in New York.” (Editor’s note: We couldn’t find any residential examples to prove him wrong.)
To build Madison Square Park Tower’s following, The Continuum Company invested in “content creation” — everything from taking helicopter shots of construction with a backdrop of the park (to feature on Instagram, of course) to hosting a meetup of the app’s influencers, who posted photos of the interiors. Attendees included the Beautiful Destinations account (@BeautifulDestinations, 9.5 million followers) and Liz Eswein (@NewYorkCity, 1.3 million followers), executive director of media company Cycle and dubbed by the Digiday as “the most influential person on Instagram.” It doesn’t hurt that one of the project’s brokers, “Million Dollar Listing New York” star Fredrik Eklund of Douglas Elliman (@FredrikEklundNY), boasts 851,000 followers.
TF Cornerstone also started its first dedicated development account, @BondWithBrooklyn, for its new 714-unit rental 33 Bond St. in Downtown Brooklyn — where prices now range from $2,590 to $5,400 per month. The Insta account “gives us more room to play,” says Jillian Jackson, TF Cornerstone’s digital marketing manager. “We can be nimble responding to what’s changing in Brooklyn, and are able to spotlight this building on a daily basis.”
Featuring lighthearted images of animals, local restaurants and neighboring brownstones — alongside photos of 33 Bond’s model apartments — the account, with 148 followers, “is not just a shot in the dark,” says Donika Beselica, the company’s communications and events manager. There are proven results. Leasing agents ask prospective renters how they heard about the building, taking note of Instagram referrals. Beselica says one prospective renter stopped by the leasing office soon after liking a photo from the account.
When designer Alyssa Kapito went hunting for a broker to sell her Upper East Side apartment, Instagram was the last place she expected to find one. But after some underwhelming interviews, she realized someone she already enjoyed following, Chris Kann (below), happened to be a broker with Corcoran.
Kapito runs Alyssa Kapito Interiors (@AlyssaKapitoInteriors, 82,700 followers) and monitors the feeds of fellow design enthusiasts — like Kann.
“I loved his aesthetic,” she says. “I needed a broker who could stage my apartment, but I had to trust their taste.” She emailed him, only later admitting she found him through Instagram. He staged the apartment and closed it over ask in under a week.
For his part, Kann (@NYChrisKann, 7,885 followers) treats his Instagram account judiciously. “I don’t include a lot of real estate intentionally,” he says.
Recent posts include artsy shots of sculpture, bucolic Hamptons views and interior details like a tasseled key in a lock.
Beyond such happenstance Instagram connections, other brokerage firms are developing dedicated strategies specifically for the platform. Dana DeVito, senior vice president of marketing for Douglas Elliman, says the firm began investing in social media marketing around 2010, focusing primarily on Facebook.
These days, the firm has focused on expanding its reach through Instagram by partnering with Design Miami, Frieze art fair, Zillow and the popular Real Houses of Instagram account for posts. The platform now provides the firm’s largest social media engagement. DeVito thinks there’s “no better social platform than Instagram to highlight what we do … everyone loves to peer behind the literal curtain and see what a luxury property beholds.”
Compass, a brokerage known for its digital savviness, says 60 percent of its agents are on Instagram and hopes that number will reach 100 percent by the end of the year.
The firm provides in-house Instagram training, guides and template builders “to help brokers showcase themselves and develop their brand,” says Matt Spangler, head of design and marketing. (Agent photos are grouped under the hashtag #agentsofcompass, which has more than 9,000 posts.)
Compass then tracks data from each of its agent’s social accounts.
The firm found agents who share branded Compass content — and also pay for sponsored content targeted at specific users — grow their audience three times faster than brokers who don’t.
President Leonard Steinberg (@TheLeonardSteinbergTeam), with 41,500 followers, regularly gets contacted via the platform by buyers’ brokers and potential clients, Spangler says. “We’ve had multiple agents sell homes directly from direct messages off Instagram,” he adds.
Instagram works best when the property being marketed is truly spectacular — an idea that brothers Zach and Cody Vichinsky, co-founders of Hamptons-based Bespoke Real Estate, have seized upon.
Bespoke (@Bespoke.RealEstate) specializes in East End properties over $10 million and “aggressively rolled out an Instagram campaign [for properties the firm represents],” says Michael Cantwell, the firm’s chief marketing officer.
Over three separate Insta handles — the firm’s main account, a marketing account and a magazine account — Bespoke features gorgeous listings of mansions and estates for sale and has gained some 630,000 followers. Cantwell calls the content, made up of professionally shot photography and video “a blend of self promotion, relevant market information and entertainment.”
Going “social” is a big change for Hamptons real estate marketing, which long been dominated by print advertising. But Bespoke is spreading the gospel and spearheading a push into the Instagram era. Cantwell recalls a property posted on Bespoke’s Instagram account that a broker called about shortly after its posting — the buyer made an offer that same day. “This is its own category of marketing,” he says. “It’s a very powerful tool.”