Top Realtors Are Selling From Instagram: How Lauren Delamater Turned Social Media into a How Lauren turned social media in a $25M pipeline
Welcome back to our Top Realtors Sell from Instagram series, where we spotlight agents who've cracked the code on building real business through social media, not just followers.
Lauren Delamater grew up watching her grandfather work. He was a realtor for nearly 30 years in the Chicago suburbs, and to Lauren, it always seemed glamorous. She always knew she wanted to do what he did, but it took a few years to get in a position where she could launch a real estate career.
She had her kids young, owned a cafe with her mom, ran a wedding planning company, and by the time her family made the move to Charleston, South Carolina, she was ready. She launched her real estate career and at the beginning of 2025, she made the choice to take Instagram seriously.
A decision that produced over $10M in closed sales directly from the platform, with another $25M pending.
We sat down with Lauren to understand how she built a pipeline that size by simply showing people the city she loves.
The Years Before It All Clicked
Lauren's first taste of real estate marketing was old school, which meant print marketing, fed leads, and a sphere she built from the ground up within that structure. She got lucky right out of the gate with a few big luxury deals her first year, and for a while, that momentum carried her.
But three and a half years ago, she left that team for an independent brokerage and almost immediately felt the ground shift. There were no more leads coming in from somewhere else, everything was hers to figure out, and she started noticing agents in Charleston who weren't particularly experienced generating real business from Instagram.
"I realized very quickly, oh, I need to replace those leads I was getting from the team," she told us. "I was seeing people in Charleston have success with Instagram, so I knew I wanted to figure it out."
She made herself a promise in December 2024. January 2025, she was going all in, posting consistently, following the playbook, and giving it a genuine shot. If it hadn't worked after six months, she'd figure something else out.
But, spoiler alert, it worked.
What Lauren Figured Out About Showing Up
What made Lauren's strategy work is that it focused on what people actually want to see on Instagram. For anyone dreaming about a move to Charleston, that isn't a market report or a mortgage breakdown. It's the feeling of a place. The content that changed everything for her was made up of small, specific slices of the city, the corners of neighborhoods you can only really know if you've spent time in them, the local spots worth seeking out, the kind of everyday detail that makes someone pause mid-scroll and think, I could picture my life there.
"The reels showcasing Charleston always do really well," Lauren told us. "They often don't take off right away but build and build over several weeks."
That slow build is really the heart of what she does. While a lot of agents are writing off a post almost immediately if it doesn’t perform well right away, Lauren's content is still picking up views and new followers sometimes long after she hit publish.
That steady visibility is what turns someone who was just scrolling into someone who already feels like they know her by the time they're ready to make a move.
The Strategy Most Agents Are Sleeping On
Lifestyle content is what builds Lauren's audience and guides are what turns that audience into actual leads. Her approach is simple: give people something useful that makes raising their hand feel easy, and let the conversation follow naturally from there.
"The guide downloads are definitely great conversation starters," she told us, and the numbers back that up.
A single Holiday Guide promotion generated 279k views, 550 leads, and 1.5k shares from people who were already warm because they'd spent time watching her content and feeling connected to Charleston through it.
The Part Nobody Talks About
The leads are great, but what Lauren has figured out goes a little deeper, and it's honestly the piece of her story that doesn't get talked about enough.
"It's free, and you get to teach people how you want to be perceived," she told us. "I've definitely increased my price point just by posting more high-end listings. I don't talk about interest rates anymore because my ideal buyer, they don't care about interest rates. They typically have cash."
Every listing she's had this year has been over a million dollars, and she currently has one listed at six million. The clients who find her through Instagram show up already sold on her, because they've spent weeks watching her content and deciding they like her before they ever reach out.
"By the time clients have found you on Instagram, they've already decided they like you. They like your personality, they like what you're putting out there. So I attract people that are like me on Instagram."
When you're intentional about what you post, Instagram doesn't just bring you more leads, it brings you the right ones at the price point you actually want to be working in.
The Mindset That Makes It Stick
Lauren's take on whether Instagram actually works for real estate agents is pretty simple.
"The proof is in the pudding."
She's seen it firsthand, because this year every single closing she's had has come from Instagram. And for anyone who's tried it and walked away frustrated, she'd probably ask how long they actually gave it. "Testing it for a few weeks isn't a fair shot. It takes time and consistency to build."
Just Start
"Just start. It's going to feel uncomfortable and scary, so just lean in and give it twelve months. If you can look back after a year and say you showed up consistently, several posts a week, and still don't have any conversations happening, then maybe it isn't for you. But I promise if you just show up, it will eventually work. Consistency really is key."
And if you're worried about what other agents in your market are going to think?
"They don't pay your bills. Instagram can."
Key Takeaways from Lauren's Strategy
- Let your city do the work: People come to Instagram to feel what life looks like somewhere new, and the agents who give them that experience consistently are the ones who earn trust long before a transaction is ever on the table.
- The slow burn is the strategy: Reels that build over several weeks create far more lasting momentum than anything designed for a quick spike, so resist the urge to judge a post too early.
- Guides turn browsers into leads: A good lead magnet gives your audience a comfortable first step and gives you a warm conversation worth having.
- Post with your ideal client in mind: Sharing the listings and lifestyle you want to be known for will gradually shift your price point and bring in the clients you actually want to work with, and it won't cost you anything.
- Consistency is the whole game: Lauren's results didn't come from one great post. They came from a full year of showing up, even when traction felt slow.
The local lifestyle content Lauren's describing, the neighborhood reels, the city guides, the posts that make someone feel a place before they ever book a showing, that's one part of the content strategy every Coffee & Contracts member gets access to every single month.
Done-for-you captions, carousels, and reels hooks built around the kind of content that's actually generating leads for agents right now.
Dig into the full strategy with 10 free templates.
