Influencer or agent? In today’s market, Realtors have to be both to score clients.

Before Caroline Podraza and her husband, Evan Roth, could find the right house, they had to find the right agent. There were, of course, agents attached to the listings they had saved, plus referrals from friends and suggestions from colleagues. But the choices quickly became overwhelming.

With more than 11,000 real estate agents in the Philadelphia area, they didn’t know where to begin.

Then her husband shared an Instagram reel by Nicholas Millevoi, a Philadelphia-area real estate agent who posts video tours of funky houses for sale on his account, @nickyhousetours. The videos gave Caroline something the other options had not: a sense of who he was. His content, she said, “had a very personal feel to it.”

Millevoi is one of a growing number of agents in Philadelphia and beyond who are using social media to build their real estate businesses. According to the National Association of Realtors, social media is now the industry’s predominant method for lead generation, replacing tried-and-true tactics like cold-calling and mining personal contacts.

But agents like Millevoi aren’t just using TikTok and Instagram to sell houses.

They’re using them to sell themselves as approachable guides through an overwhelming process. Some build audiences around design. Some around neighborhood knowledge. Some around housing policy. In each case, the goal is the same: to become someone a buyer can imagine trusting with their search.

Millevoi, an agent with Ovation Realty, planned to use social media to market himself from the moment he got his real estate license in 2025. He already followed dozens of real estate and design accounts on Instagram, so he had a vision for how he wanted to put himself out there. Still, he said, it took him a minute to find his voice and style.

Ultimately, he decided his content would focus on his personal taste.

“Often the houses that I feature are things that get me excited from a design standpoint,” he said. “Whether that is a cool aesthetic from the middle of the century or a modern home with weird embellishments.”

They are not necessarily the same kinds of houses he sells. Most of those, Millevoi said, are “more normal homes.”

But the quirkier listings he features, including a four-bedroom, two-bathroom house with a geodesic dome in New Jersey, give potential clients a sense of his taste and, perhaps more important, his personality.

He sees his videos as “mini commercials” for what it might be like to work with him and, as such, does not script or edit them. “I just hit record and let it rip,” he said. “It is authentically me.”

Millevoi said he drew inspiration from Sue Liedke, the woman behind popular Instagram account @s.philly.time.capsules.

Liedke, a full-time music teacher, wasn’t even in the real estate business when she started the account in 2019. The idea for the account came to her while she was house hunting and noticed how many South Philly homes still had the “crazy ’60s and ’70s layouts and vibes” she loved. She began posting them for fun.

But as the account grew, so did the number of followers asking how they could buy houses like the ones she featured. That interest eventually pushed Liedke to get licensed herself.

Today, she works part-time as an agent with Compass Real Estate and has more people who want to work with her than she can take on. Almost all of them follow @s.philly.time.capsules, which has grown to nearly 48,000 followers. “There are a couple of exceptions, but at least 90%,” Liedke said.

She believes the account’s power comes from its specificity. Her feed focuses on a very particular kind of South Philly house and the vintage details she loves. “It’s pretty niche,” she said.

As a result, so is her business. Liedke only works in South Philly, where she has lived for 20 years.

“Every house I’ve helped somebody buy is within walking distance of my house,” Liedke said.

If somebody reaches out to her who is interested in a different neighborhood, she refers them to another agent.

Like Liedke, Ross Abel, a new agent with eXp Realty, also trades in the hyper-specific, except that instead of South Philly design, he focuses on Montgomery County housing policy — a strategy he settled on after realizing that residents often weren’t aware of local decisions and issues shaping the area’s housing market.

Now he posts on @bikedadbuyshomes about zoning, development, and the kinds of neighborhood changes most buyers would never hear about from a listing alone. The goal, he said, is to become a useful local voice people trust before they ever need an agent.

“It’s a long-term approach,” Abel said.

While his content hasn’t led to any direct sales yet, it has spurred a lot of civic engagement among his target audience, who, he says, appreciate the community-based content he posts. In the meantime, that engagement is helping him build the local credibility he hopes people will remember when they are ready to buy.

The only downside to Abel’s social-first strategy is the balancing act that comes with being visible online.

“I definitely have to draw a line because I have a family,” he said.

Sometimes people get heated in the comments over local debates, like whether Jenkintown needs two Starbucks on the same block, and Abel has to take a step back.

“But most people,” he said, “have just been excited to get information about what’s going on.”

The downside to choosing a real estate agent based on social media is that there is only so much a post or video can reveal about how an agent actually works.

That’s what concerns June Kang, a veteran agent with Compass Real Estate. She worries that buyers might mistake polish for experience. “Just because you like them on social media doesn’t mean that you may love having them handle the biggest financial decision of your life,” she said.

Kang’s advice is to treat social media as a starting point for additional vetting.

“Do your research,” she said. “You should understand how they handle their business, what their commitment is to you, and what their services would be.”

Podraza and Roth didn’t necessarily have all that information when Millevoi sent them an exclusive buyer agreement to sign, and they were hesitant to proceed. Seeing the paperwork made the decision feel more real. It was one thing to exchange messages with Millevoi on Instagram. It was another to hire him.

It occurred to them that none of their friends had found their agents on social media.

Suddenly, signing with someone they hadn’t met in person felt unnerving, like “dating on the internet,” Podraza said.

“But I met my husband on Tinder,” she added, “so I felt like the chances were pretty good he’d be a good guy.”

They signed the contract anyway and say they are glad they did.

“We’ve loved working with Nick,” Podraza said. She and Roth are now under contract for a three-bedroom, 2½-bath house in Cherry Hill that Millevoi showed them.