How to use Twitter Chats in the Insurance Industry

You’ve seen the recent post on how to use Facebook Places for your agency, and we’ve shown you how to create a better blogging community, now we

aregoing to discuss the most underutilized social media tool by insurance agencies. Yes, I am speaking of Twitter.

Having and MAINTAINING a twitter account is not only beneficial for networking, it can provide a wealth of information about anything under the sun with it’s never ending stream of tweets.

However, even with the non-stop action, one activity you may not know about, is Twitter chats. What is a twitter chat you ask? It is an online discussion about a certain topic, using #hashtags (a word or acronym preceded by the pound sign) so everyone interested can follow along and see what others are saying about the topic.

Every week there are a ton of chats anyone can participate in or just monitor. The best way to follow these chats is to use tweetchat.com or tweetgrid.com. These two websites allow you to enter the #hashtag one time so it follows every post you make, along with providing a continuous stream of people involved in the conversation.

Most Twitter chats have a moderator that poses questions. The moderator usually has a Twitter handle that is the same as the chat or will be the person initiating the discussion. You can answer the questions by tweeting Q1: then your answer. Tweet Q1 before your answer if you are responding to the first question so everyone can follow, then Q2, Q3, etc.

So how can insurance industry professionals benefit from joining a twitter chat?

Twitter chats connect you with people in a similar interest, usually everyone has good advice in the subject matter.
I have been in chats with almost 60 people before. Re-tweeting (RT) the ideas you think are good, and offering your insights helps you GAIN followers, only spreading your influence further. My last chat I gained around 10 followers that were interested in what I had to say.
You could possibly generate leads! There are chats that have to do with real estate, healthcare marketing, even cars. All of these people need insurance. Do not tweet about it in the chat, but make connections with people, it could pay off.

Now that we’ve defined what a Twitter chat is, tomorrow we’ll list some of the most prominent and useful Twitter chats that insurance agencies can follow.

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