One post was designed to sell a neighborhood; the other, a house. But Kranenburg’s Instagram account, with nearly 30,000 followers, is in service of a singular goal: To give her an edge, in a saturated real estate market, as the one doing the selling.
“You cannot do real estate without marketing yourself,” said Kranenburg, 55. “Your goal is to talk to your audience.”
Kranenburg is one of many real estate agents in Boston and beyond using social media as a new way to reach that audience, in hopes they will become clients. Social media was a top tool for drawing “quality leads” in 2024, according to the National Association of Realtors. That stands in contrast to more traditional alternatives, like online listings, or cold-calling and door knocking.
But Kranenburg, who is affiliated with The Real Brokerage, knows that it takes more than a tasteful clip of a fireplace or a kitchen island to get real eyeballs and, ultimately, close deals. That’s why she, for one, has veered closer to full-blown influencing, vying for the favor of algorithms by posting hyperlocal content that doesn’t necessarily have to do with housing — news about Mike’s Pastry, and Sail Boston, and Back Bay elephant sculptures.
“No one wakes up thinking they’re buying a house from Katherine Kranenburg,” she said. “They want to know what is happening in Boston.”
The idea? Hook users with an aesthetic or an inside scoop, and then reel them in with a walkthrough of a $13 million Cambridge six-bedroom. Gain a view, gain a client, gain a sale.
“It boils down to: Do you want a realtor that is selling a home first, or themselves first?” said Marc Savatsky of the real estate firm Choose Boston Brokerage. He began posting his listings on Instagram about a decade ago, and cohosts a podcast about real estate. The landscape has became so crowded, he said, that having a unique personality is as important as the strength of the listings.
For Kranenburg, this strategy has paid out handsomely. Over the past few years of building her social media presence, with many videos gaining tens of thousands of views, her buyer pool has grown by 80 percent, she said. Buyers regularly flood her direct messages because they, or a friend, saw one of her social media posts. Many of her recent deals, with values in the seven-figures, have been spurred by her posts, she said.
Content creation is not something that came naturally to Kranenburg, who lives in Newton. She has worked in real estate for 20 years, eight of them in Boston, but spent most of that time relying on old-fashioned networking and cold-calling for leads. She only started posting to social media regularly in 2023, ramping up slowly, starting with Instagram, then later uploading to YouTube and TikTok.
To stay ahead of the curve, Kranenburg has courted help. An editor in the Philippines now produces her YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok content. Her Instagram videos last no longer than a minute, with plenty of fast cuts.
“We’ve got it down to a science,” Kranenburg said. “We know what style we’re going for.”
She also said she often turns to AI tools, such as Claude and ChatGPT, to vacuum the internet for real estate news, fact-check her content, and refine ideas. When she has accidentally posted inaccurate content — such as saying a Cambridge development was actively being built despite it being completed weeks earlier — she has corrected or removed the posts once realizing her mistake. But the high-tech help is still worth it, she said.
“If realtors are not incorporating AI into their content, then they’re missing the mark,” Kranenburg said. “It buys back my time.”
Kranenburg isn’t the only one in the real estate industry reaping the benefits of social media. Ali Joyce, who has been a real estate adviser for nine years, said buyers frequently message her about her seven-second videos that show luxury listings across much of Greater Boston, such as in Westwood, Needham, and Dedham. Savatsky, who works mostly in East Boston, said he sold five units in a multifamily property that is currently under construction off of consistent Instagram posts that showed renderings and the build-out.
“Realtors have the opportunity to show people listings that are not normally in their consideration, because they would be filtered out by platforms like Zillow,” said Carey Morewedge, a professor of marketing and chair of the marketing department at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business.
Back in the Newtonville townhouse, Kranenburg’s heels clacked through the empty hallways as she walked through each room, moving a dish towel here, pillows there. The beads on her phone’s lanyard rattled as she began to capture pictures and videos of gold hardware and a luxe electric range.
In the video that ended up on her Instagram, she sits on the kitchen counter as text-box graphics pop up around her, listing off the things she most likes to hear from clients.
“I shared your post,” one reads. “We found you on social.”
Redmond Bernhold can be reached at redmond.bernhold@globe.com.
