Summer’s here and your Instagram feed is about to get a major glow-up (the local kind)!

In this episode, Chelsea and Kayla are diving deep into local content that actually converts, shareable posts that get your whole town talking, and why getting obsessed with your local consumer is the secret sauce to growing your business this summer.

They’re breaking down their “Summer I Turned Local” strategy that’s helping their members grow their local following FAST, from the exact hooks that stop people mid-scroll to the simple documentation trick that turns your weekly coffee run into consistent content.

Become Obsessed with Your Local Consumer

Chelsea was listening to a Skinny Confidential episode the other day and heard something that made her literally stop in her tracks.

When the guest, Sara Brooks, was asked about her one tip for growing a business, she said: “becoming absolutely obsessed with the consumer.”

That’s what we want for you this summer, for you to become absolutely obsessed with your local community consumer, your future buyers and sellers who live right in your backyard.

When you make this shift, your content undergoes a dramatic change. Instead of thinking “here’s what I want everyone to know,” you start thinking “here’s what they’re going to want to see from their local realtor.”

There’s this fine line we talk about all the time: share things from your perspective, but don’t make the content about you.

Like, “the first three places on my summer bucket list” or “where I’m taking my kids every weekend this summer.” It’s from your point of view, but it’s also information that your audience is dying to know!

That’s what being obsessed with your consumer really means, always thinking about what’s on the back of their mind. What do they actually want to know? What would make them save your post or send it to a friend?

What’s Your Hook?

You might have the best content idea, the perfect topic, something you’re excited to talk about. But if your hook doesn’t stop the scroll, nobody’s going to see it.

We’re constantly saving hooks that catch our attention to a folder on Instagram, then spinning our own content into similar formats.

Like, we saw “books I immediately wanted to reread after finishing” and turned it into “city spots I immediately want to visit the second it feels like summer.” Same hook, completely different post.

People are busy in the summer. Kids are out of school, there are events and activities every weekend… So if you want to keep driving people to your Instagram, you have to have hooks that actually get them there.

How to Summer-ify Your Resources

We’ve always talked about mini-consults as a way to take the intimidation out of buyer consultations or listing appointments. But this summer, we’re taking it up a notch with a simple rebrand that’s been working like crazy for our members: summer strategy sessions.

Here’s what’s genius about this little shift: it creates instant FOMO. When you’re posting “off to a summer strategy session with a client” or “I only have three summer strategy sessions available this month,” people want in. Because it’s seasonal, they know those opportunities are coming to an end.

You can mention them in your stories, add them as a PS on your posts, whatever. The key is getting repetitive with it. And we mean really repetitive.

Donald Miller talks about sound bites for your business — those repetitive phrases that get branded into people’s brains as “your thing.” Summer strategy sessions? That’s a sound bite.

Here’s our favorite way to work these into your content: add them as a PS on literally any post.

Post about local spots → PS: “Get my summer local guide.”

Post about buyers → PS: “Schedule your summer strategy session.”

Now, about summer-ifying your existing resources: if you have a local guide, don’t overthink this. Just add a page at the end with a “Summer Bucket List in [City Name].” Boom, you’ve made it seasonal.

But here’s where it gets really smart: instead of calling it “[City Name] Summer Guide,” make it about your people. If you primarily work with moms, call it “The Thing That’s Saving City Moms’ Lives This Summer.” If you work with empty nesters, try “The Best Places to Take Your Grandkids This Summer.”

When someone sees a guide like that in their community and they’ve got four kids home for the summer, they’re thinking “I need that guide. I need that help.” And boom! Now they’re on your email list, in your funnel, and you can continue serving them all summer long.

The #1 Business Mistake Every Agent Makes? Being Afraid to Get Specific

Yes, some people are going to see your “Mom’s Summer Survival Kit” and think “well, I’m not a mom.” And that’s okay. It doesn’t mean there’s no value in your content for them, but being specific is what’s going to grow your local following and build trust in your community.

When you are specific, people scroll by and think “that’s for me.” When you’re generic, most people just scroll by without a second thought.

Being specific doesn’t mean you’re not going to work with other people. Think about Nike — their whole brand is geared towards athletes. Did that mean grandmas never bought their shoes? Absolutely not. But what if Nike had been like “well, we don’t want to exclude all the grandmas, so now we need to talk to them too”? Would athletes still be bought in? Would football teams still wear nothing but Nike?

They want to be drawn into something that’s clearly for them.

We do the same thing with our membership — we don’t cater towards male agents. Does that mean male agents can’t join? Of course they can, and we have a few. But we decided our content would be better if we really geared it towards female agents who market their business differently.

Recently, we got this message from one of our modern agents: “I signed up yesterday and I already love it so much I want to cry of happiness. When I opened the templates, it was like you knew me and exactly what I wanted my brand to look and feel like.”

Would she have said that if our templates were generic black and white? Absolutely not. She saw our stuff and thought “this is what I’ve been trying to do.”

So don’t be afraid to attract and repel. You’re putting coins in the trust bank because all of those things are telling your community “I understand what it’s like to live here, I understand your life, and I’m here to help you.”

The One Local Spot Strategy That Requires Zero Overthinking

This one is soooo easy: Pick a local spot to get obsessed with this summer. Just one. And don’t overthink whatever it is.

We know you’re all over there like “oh my God, what should I pick?” Just pick one, and make it a point to go at least once a week — grab takeout, have a picnic there, go on a walk. It doesn’t have to cost money either. The library works perfectly.

And when you go to this place, document it every week. When we say document, you’re going to take a picture when you’re there. Maybe while your camera’s open, you also take a 10-second video clip. Then you put that in your Instagram stories. And if you’re feeling really motivated, you turn it into content with a good hook.

You repeat it and it just becomes familiar. It becomes comforting.

When we’re specific and we make our content familiar, people want to stick around. Chelsea’s reading this book right now about a chef who comes to a small-town diner and tries to change the classic pancake recipe to something fancy. Everyone keeps sending them back saying “where are the regular pancakes?” Since people have been coming to this diner since they were kids, they want the original pancakes, not poppy seeds and ricotta cheese.

The point is, it’s comforting to talk about the same thing over and over. It’s comforting to share that local spot that other people also recognize.

Shareable Local Content That Gets Your Whole Town Talking

We’ve become totally obsessed with shareable local content lately. It has completely blown up our account and we’re seeing our members get awesome results too.

As a local real estate agent, one of the easiest ways to do this is to find a few things from your town. For the next week, open up your notes app and start writing down anything you can think of. Things your town is known for. What everyone calls that gas station even though it’s not technically called that. What everyone orders at the local diner. What everybody does for the 4th of July.

Make it things where the goal is that people from the outside looking in don’t really understand what you’re talking about. But when you pair these little inside jokes with viral one-liners and add local photos — your actual water tower, library, coffee shop — magic happens.

People love seeing themselves in your content. “I’m a [City Name] Mom. Of course I stop by [local coffee shop] every time I drive by to get myself a little treat.” What mom isn’t going to reshare that thinking “yep, that’s me”?

This type of content is almost like an inside joke with your local community. If you’re not from here, you won’t get this. There’s a girl who does Wisconsin content and every single time we see it, we think “she nailed it” because we’re from here. But if you’re not from Wisconsin, you’d probably be like “what?”

And that’s the whole point.

Bonus tip: When you do a carousel post like this, add something about yourself as the realtor on one of the last slides. Something like “if you like this post, you’ll probably love being on my email list.”

We did one with the “tastes like” trend — “tastes like playing cards on the patio at [City Name],” “tastes like girls night at [local winery],” and then the last slide: “tastes like looking for a new home with my favorite realtor after a summer strategy session.”

When we post these types of carousels, we pay attention to which slides people actually share. For our audience, whenever we share something about motherhood or loving our local community or TV shows like White Lotus, those get shared. But the “fancier” content — “after a long week of real estate, this is how I spend my time” with hotel robes and luxurious date nights — those don’t get shared as much.

You can learn so much about your audience this way. Notice the patterns, not just individual pieces of content. When something works, get specific about what’s working and repurpose that everywhere else.

As people share that content, more people see it and probably look at your account.

Something to keep in mind: When all these new people click on your profile, what are they going to see? Because if your account has random pictures of soccer games and vacations and billboards, they’ll think “that was a funny post, but see ya.” Make sure you’re designing Content Cocktail style posts, so when they decide whether to “walk into your store,” they’ll want to click follow.

Sometimes we try to look for the viral solution when we’re overlooking the people literally right across the street from us who could relate to our content and refer us. Think more locally than viral.

In a world of virality, be the agent who is obsessed with local.

This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz.