The promise of a steady flow of new customers is the siren song of any business. Social media promises this steady flow of new customers through increased visibility. This desire for more customers is a primary reason for the adoption of social media by businesses.
Social media as an idea is easy to embrace. Unfortunately, few insurance agencies have materially changed their performance by adopting social media.
The Pre-Requisites to a Social Media Strategy
A successful social media strategy requires two commitments:
- Social media is important and gaining followers will be an initiative for the company
- Content must be regularly provided on the social media feeds
First, content has to be easy to create.
Second, increase the conversion rate. The cost of not converting leads into customers is significant. The cost includes both hard costs like increased payroll as well as opportunity costs of not pursuing other potential clients that could become long-term customers.
Gaining Followers
Gaining followers is part of a successful social media strategy. That said, this does not need to be a high priority and a highly time consuming task. The first step is to identify which platforms matter to your business. For example, agencies selling primarily mid-market solutions often tell me Linkedin does not help them. Conversely, high net worth agencies often tell their customers aren’t on Facebook, so they use LinkedIn.
The reality is they are using the platforms in different ways. The high net worth agents are trying to personally connect with people. As a platform for professionals, Linkedin is better for this type of user. We suggest using LinkedIn to make a professional connection and using Facebook for cost-effective advertising targeting your desired demographic. Consider this, when the prospect becomes familiar with you or your business through Facebook, they are more likely to connect on LinkedIn.
Posting Content Regularly
Stale social media feeds do not make a good impression. We recognize it is hard to come up with new content to post to social media weekly. That’s why ValChoice has developed two important elements in the tools for agents:
- Insurance Comparison Tool
- The social media auto poster for the insurance comparison tool
The Insurance Comparison Tool is ground breaking because: a) it is the most thorough and objective analysis of what matters when buying insurance available. b) it’s engaging and gets users to think about their insurance and what matters to them, and c) all leads from the tool go directly to you or your agency.
With the auto-poster you can schedule posts. This means you continually have recent content for your social media feeds. For example, one agency we work with schedules posts as follows:
- Carrier 1 – Auto insurance comparison in the 1st week of even numbered months
- Carrier 1 – Home Insurance posts on the 2nd week of even numbered months
- Insurer 2 – Auto insurance comparison on the 3rd week of even numbered months
- Insurer 2 – Home Insurance posts on the 4th of even numbered months
- Carrier 3 – Auto insurance comparison in the 1st week of odd numbered months
- Carrier 3 – Home Insurance posts on the 2nd week of odd numbered months
- Insurer 4 – Auto insurance comparison on the 3rd week of odd numbered months
- Insurer 4 – Home Insurance posts on the 4th of odd numbered months
An auto poster schedule like the one above highlights four carriers (demonstrating the strong offering of your carriers) and only repeats content every two months. With more carriers, the repetition can be reduced further. Alternatively, the frequency could be lower.
Sharing the Insurance Comparison Tool on Social Media
In the early uses of the Insurance Comparison Tool it is already generating leads for agents. That said, most people are suspicious or skeptical of new capabilities. The fact that this tool immediately started generating leads is proof there is a need an hunger for reliable, easy-to-understand information about insurance. As the tool becomes more familiar, usage will increase. Think of Carfax. If you were the first to use it, you likely would have been skeptical. Now, you wouldn’t buy a used car without a carfax report.
The Insurance Comparison Tool Also Helps SEO
Contact us to find out how the Insurance Comparison Tool can also be used to help with SEO on your site.
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