Trendjacking proves you don’t need to come up with something original to go viral on Instagram.
At least, when it’s done well.
Enter Florida Realtor Nicole Stanbra, who recently posted a six-slide carousel titled “Pranking my clients with ridiculous reasons to cancel their property tours.”
Each slide shows a screenshot of a texting exchange where she’s canceling a showing for a reason that’s guaranteed to provoke a response from her clients.
Those responses are part of the reason her post has racked up more than 100 comments, along with over 850 likes so far.
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Here’s why this format works for real estate, too, and what agents can take from it.
Where This Format Comes From and How It Escalates
People have used this exact structure to prank friends and family for years. Each message escalates a little further, and the caption asks the viewer to guess which ones actually happened.
The caption line, “*Based on true events,” with the leading asterisk, tells the reader somewhere in these six slides sits a real client interaction, so every excuse deserves a second look.
The six excuses run in a specific order:
- The wife got a boob job and won’t allow access (awkward, personal)
- A venomous snake escaped its tank and can’t be found (physical risk)
- The FBI raided the property overnight (legal and authority twist)
- The house burned down last night (catastrophic loss)
- The list price jumped by $100,000 overnight (financial confusion)
- The house already sold and closed, though it’s still showing Active (a contract and MLS twist)
A price jump or an MLS status mismatch is mundane enough that a client could genuinely believe it, and that’s exactly what makes a reader stop and second-guess the whole carousel instead of laughing (or imagining the client’s horror) straight through it.
Why the Caption Works and What Agents Do With It
The images set up the joke. The caption is what turns a viewer into a participant.
“Which of these do you think are true” asks for an answer, giving commenters something to do other than react to the pranks and the client responses.
Plus, a reader who guesses in the comments as to which “reasons” were true has made a public bet, and other readers show up to agree with that guess or push back on it.
Each text message image on slides two through seven shows each back-and-forth exchange, giving Stanbra’s audience an opportunity to guess, “Is this real? Or is it a prank?”
The client’s reply to the $100,000 price-increase text is relatable, because who jacks up their price by $100K right before a showing?
“Huh?? Did you mean $100k decrease?”
The follow-up response of “Wtf” could be from anyone on the receiving end of these texts, which begs the question: what’s more shocking, the price jump or the prank?
The format for Stanbra’s post works because readers keep clicking to see the next outrageous text and response to see just how many levels of crazy she’s willing to try with her clients.
How to Replicate This in a Real Estate Post
To get the same engagement, you don’t need to recreate this carousel with the same prank idea. In fact, if you don’t know your audience (or your clients), this could backfire in a big way.
The thing to keep is the process behind Stanbra’s carousel. Start by looking at formats already working outside real estate accounts:
- a prank format
- a ranking format
- a POV format
- a “rate my” format
Some of these have already found their way into real estate content. Case in point, @husbandofarealtor’s posts from his POV.
Once you’ve picked the format, find a real situation from your own business that could fill in the blanks.
Here are some examples to play with:
- Ranking format: rank the weirdest showing requests you’ve gotten this year, from mildly annoying to say that again
- POV format: POV, you’re touring a house with a buyer who’s already decided they hate the kitchen before you’ve unlocked the door
- Rate my format: rate my closing day outfit, or rate this listing’s before and after professional photos
- “Tell me you’re a ___ without telling me” format: tell me you’re a first-time buyer without telling me, then list the giveaway questions you get on every first call
- Storytime format: storytime, the offer that got rejected for the strangest reason you’ve ever heard
Or go find your next post idea somewhere nobody else in real estate is looking yet.
