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Building a social media program from scratch, with no experience can be a daunting task. With all the networks, people and platforms, insurance agencies often struggle with where to start and how to proceed. Fortunately, one of the best ways to get up to speed quickly is to follow other prominent social media users from your industry, learn from them, and incorporate lessons into your own social web presence.
Below is an assemblage of 27 of my favorite insurance industry social media resources and people. If you’ve never read a blog, followed a twitter feed or created a Youtube video, here are 27 good places to start.
In no specific order of importance, here’s why social media is cool in the insurance industry:
- InsuranceCampus.org – a social network built specifically for insurance professionals
- State Farm’s Rube Goldberg inspired OK Go Music Video
- The NakedInsurance.net homepage
- Atlanta Agent and entrepreneur Chris Jordan’s Valentine’s bubble bath promoting auto insurance discounts for newlyweds
- Laura Toops’ incisively witty blog posts on Agent for Change.
- The Insurance Goddess exploits of @Carrie_AGins
- The eMarketing Minute series on Insurance Journal TV
- Purves Insurance “Flip Flop Fridays”
- Linda from @ReyInsurance Tweeting faster than most people can talk
- Insurance Networking News Blogger Joe McKendrick tackling the tech side of social media with sexy headlines
- The “Ernest Agent” comic series
- The “Insurance in Plain English” blog, even though it’s written by a Giants fan
- Provider Insurance’s Wellesley High school funny video contest
- The original “Insurance is Fun” Newsletter
- National Underwriter’s “Serving the Modern Consumer” video series
- Trying to keep up with Steve Anderson’s (@SteveTN) travels on FourSquare
- Rick Morgan and Peter Aartjik “On Point” podcast interviews
- Monday Funday Showdowns on the Astonish Results Facebook Page
- Sam Friedman’s “A View from the Press Box” blog
- Ara Tremblays technical and thought-provoking insurance technology articles that often delve into social media
- Melissa from MAIA showing how regional insurance associations can lead by example with social media
- Ryan Hanley’s “Insurance Defined” educational video series
- The personal and genuine tweets of MA agent @alyssondelpaggio
- Insurance Marketing HQ’s “Changing Faces of the Industry” (Shameless plug)
- Risk Management Monitor’s multimedia rich blog
- The MAInsuranceJuice by the girls of Berry Insurance
- The Insurance Blog Directory
Lastly, to take the marketing lesson a bit further, this post falls into a category which can be classified as Linkbait. Linkbait is not a bad thing, unless it is done disingenuously or coercively, but it’s useful for growing the presence of your blog.
For a definition of linkbait, we turn to web1marketing.com:
Link bait (or linkbait) refers to anything on a website that encourages links from other websites. It can include content, online tools, downloads, or anything else that another site owner might find compelling enough to link to. Link bait is important because most search engines use backlinks as a major factor in determining ranking.
Many thanks to everyone who’s helped grow the insurance industry’s social web presence. Obviously this list is not complete, so if you know another person or site that is helping to make social media cool in the insurance industry, please leave it in the comments section. Self-promotional plugs are not just OK, they are STRONGLY encouraged.
August 2, 2010 at 1:10 pm
Some wonderful resources here. Honored to have “On Point” included.
August 2, 2010 at 1:29 pm
Glad you enjoyed. Podcasts like “On Point” are cool because you can absorb knowledge audibly while doing other things so you’re not costrained to 2-4 minutes of people’s attention as with video.
August 2, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Nick,
Thanks for the mention and for compiling the list. One minor correction- my Twitter name is carrie_AGIns. I bet you got excited thinking about “The Insurance Goddess”, hence the mistake
August 2, 2010 at 3:18 pm
Carrie – All fixed, please forgive me. Concentration is futile when thoughts of the Goddess are present.
August 3, 2010 at 10:55 am
Hey, just cause I’m a Giants fan doesn’t mean I’m not social media savvy.
August 3, 2010 at 1:05 pm
Great post and nice list of places to check out! You hit one of my favorite places and people too over at Insurance In Plain English! Nice work Melissa for being cool enough to make the list
August 4, 2010 at 9:30 am
Independent Insurance Agents of Indiana and Indiana Young Agents are now on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, too. We like to follow the Insurance Journal on Twitter, and one of our Indiana agents is Andy Dillow, aka “InsuranceDude” on Twitter. Also on Twitter, you can find the Big I associations in Florida (FAIA_Florida), Nebraska (BigIofNebraska), Oklahoma (IIAO), Michigan (michagents), New York (IIABNY), Georgia (TEDIIAG), Kansas (BigIofKansas), Oregon (IIABO), Rhode Island (ri_agents), and Wisconsin (IIAWStaff). More are joining all the time. Mark Male, the Big I exec in Rhode Island, and Brian Bixby (director of E&O and product sales) of NY post info on LinkedIn frequently as well.
August 4, 2010 at 9:47 am
Suzie – Thank you for sharing all of these excellent resources and helping us expand the community. Nice to see the IIABA representing on a national, state and individual level.
August 20, 2010 at 9:13 am
Great list – thanks! I’ve been looking for sources of witty insurance-related banter. As one of the last bastions of human face-to-face contact in business, I firmly believe that insurance agents have a bright future. The importance of social media to help facilitate that bright future cannot be overstated. I look forward to reading more.
October 29, 2010 at 6:13 pm
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December 17, 2010 at 11:39 am
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December 18, 2010 at 2:24 pm
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March 21, 2011 at 11:45 am
Great read. I will be looking forward to other post you make.
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