As an insurance agent, it is a constant goal to attract and keep your customers. Having reliable products is one factor in being able to provide great services. However, one crucial component to reaching success may not be as obvious as you think. With social media on the rise, it is important to create quality content that not only engages customers, but encourages them to share.

According to Top Rank, a recent study by Exact Target found that 55% of Facebook users have “liked” a company and then later, decided they no longer wanted to see that company’s post. You don’t want this to happen on your social media outlets. Therefore, you must do everything you can to keep customers reading with relevant posts and provide content that can be easily shared. The following are tips on how to do so:

Tip #1 – Know Who You’re Talking To & Provide Relevant Information

A review of your social media accounts can help determine who your current followers are, what they tend to share information about, and the format in which they use to share socially. Once you see what your audience is sharing and “liking”, you can attract their attention by producing relevant content. In addition, by promoting your agency through contests, giving helpful information, and providing tips on safety, this will help increase your visibility.

Tip #2 – Think Outside The Marketing Box

In order to increase social shares, you need to place focus on your insurance social networking strategy. This can be done by updating your Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin around 1-3 times a day, but remembering to keep your content fresh and interesting. In addition, you can search for followers that you believe will be interested in your services. By building up your community, you can watch your agency grow in social success.

Tip #3 – Love Lists

Twitter lists are a great way to segment different types of followers, or recognize them as an expert in a particular field. By making the additional effort to organize your audience, share relevant content, and making information easy for others to share, you can see the benefits of your strategy in the numbers.

Once you develop an engaged audience, this will allow you to become a community leader on your social outlets. Consider social sharing a way to gain additional prospective clients, contributors, or employees that could inspire the growth of your business!

As an insurance agency in a digital world, there has now become an increasing need to understand your customers. However, this applies not only to face to face meetings, but through social media outlets as well. Therefore, in order to relate to your customers, you need to know how to communicate with them on a variety of levels.

According to SocialMediaToday, you should never be too busy to spend time getting to know each of your customers. A couple years ago, socializing with customers was taboo to some. However, now a days, one of the few ways to understand your customers is socializing with them, specifically through social media. A key factor in learning to do this is through having social media literacy.

By interacting with your clients in their own language, this will make them happy and feel like they have a personal relationship to your business. In addition, to continue to strengthen your social networking strategy, the following are 4 steps you can take to boost your social media literacy:

With a new year comes new learning experiences and changes. Therefore, take action with your insurance social networking strategy and build on your social media literacy. Once you grasp this concept, you can leverage that knowledge to build your business to bring it down a successful path!

Normally, when you think of customer service, you visualize a person talking with someone else in a face to face conversation. However, with so much social media and technology being used in the business, it has become increasingly difficult to recreate an in-person meeting between client and agent. Yet, this doesn’t mean all hope is lost.

In order to keep your customers invested in what you have to offer, you need to utilize different methods to add the human factor back into your services. According to the blog ErnestBarbaric, where marketers often go wrong on their social media sites is they create no conversations, no relationships, and no questions are being asked or answered.

One tactic you can use to make sure you are reaching your audience is by logging out of your account, opening a new window, and reading it the same way a new visitor would.  You don’t want it to lack personality or read as a self promotional site.  Instead, it should be inviting and relatable to your audience.

In addition, each network you have needs to have a clear reason as to what purpose it serves. Clarifying the purpose of any specific channel helps define strategic objectives, measurements, and tactics you may use. You should be educating, reaching out to new audiences, spreading your ideas, and providing customer service.

The most important method you should use to connect with your clients is by putting people first and the brand later. Rather than having your audience talk to an automated entity, put a face to your account and have them speak with a real person so they can identify with your services.

This component of insurance social networking is important to understand. It is hard for someone to have a conversation with your agency as a whole when they find you on the internet. However, having someone running and conversing with the clients one on one will benefit your business greatly and make your audience feel more comfortable. Listen, converse, and be human to create personal relationships with the people you care about most.

There are many facets to a company, and everyone plays an important role in helping build the client base.  However, having each team come together for a common cause, especially through social networking, you can greatly help your internet marketing strategy!

To attract more business and secure greater exposure, you can empower your staff with the inside scoop on what’s happening with the company’s social media, why it’s important, and how it benefits customers.  According to the blog SpinSucks, this can ultimately be a powerful way to engage your employees and elevate them into brand ambassadors for your company.  Some tips to do so include:

It is important to remember that employees who feel valued and appreciated will want to talk about the wonderful place where they work.  By creating a positive culture, workers will become more engaged in the company and its goals.  So improve your internet marketing strategy by paying it forward to your foundation, your employees, and watch the results show in your customer base!

The way we read text on a computer and the way we hear a sentence calculates differently in our brains.  For example if you read a joke, the meaning may go over your head, but if you hear the same joke out loud, it can be tremendously funny based on the tone of the person’s voice.  In this virtual age of internet marketing, as people rely more on technology rather than human interactions, our words may be getting lost in translation due to one key factor: voice.

According to The Angel Voice blog, the concept of voice has gotten lost in recent years with the internet and smart-phones taking us away from actually communicating with each other.  Most of the time, people would prefer sending a text to another person or posting a comment on their Facebook wall instead of having a one on one talk with a person, whether physically or on the phone.

However, although technology has given us the easy way out, what ends up truly disappearing in a conversation are the nuances that come across through the spoken word as opposed to the typed word.  The typed word is open to interpretation, but the nuances of how someone speaks those same words are well defined.

As far as social networks go, they are designed to help us keep in contact with friends, family, and business colleagues.   We “see” their words everyday and interpret them personally in correspondence to how we want to comprehend them, but we don’t get to “hear” their voice to grasp the real meaning.  But now that has all changed.  Two new services from Voice.com allow you to post voice comments to Facebook and Twitter, called Voice for Facebook and Voice for Twitter.

Registering for these applications allows you to call a phone number, record audio, and have that audio posted to your Facebook wall or Twitter feed.  To start using this tool, you must input your cell phone number and sync this number with your Facebook or Twitter account.  You’ll be given a phone number to call.  When you call the number, the application recognizes your caller ID and posts your audio comment to your social media outlets.

With voice enabling social media, you will now be able to hear how your friends feel about a particular topic versus someone trying to get their point across with multiple exclamation points.  However, no matter what means you use to share your messages with the world, it is important to remember that internet marketing is constantly changing.  As rapid as these alterations may seem, you can make the positive evolution necessary to increase your community following by relating to them with your own unique voice!

I know what you’re thinking – “how can an employee of the month contest help my social media efforts?” Too often we overlook the little things in the larger scheme of our internet marketing strategies. Social media is a key tool in personalizing your agency and business efforts. There are many different ways you can achieve such personalization, and your employees are integral to the process.

Agencies often focus so much on their brand in social media that they forget about the actual social aspect. Clients and potential customers can have a hard time putting real faces to your business name. Holding internal contests, like an Employee of the Month program, can help to meet that goal of showing the consumer your agency is full of real people, just like them. Speaking as the recent winner of the Astonish Results Employee of the Month vote, I can tell you first hand that this actually works. The point of social media is to get social with your audience and your clientele. Check out what happened when Astonish announced the Employee of the Month:

Both our employees and our clients were engaged in the posting. We also shared it on Twitter:

After we sent out this Tweet, my professional twitter account (noted in the Tweet) received a plethora of additional followers from our insurance agency partners.

Sharing this type of information is not only fun for your social media manager (or you) to do, but it also meets the goal of personalizing your business to employees and consumers alike. Culture is everything – your employees need to feel it and your customers need to feel it. Not only are you rewarding your employees with such a contest, but you’re also giving your customers a glimpse inside your company and its office culture. You’d be surprised how seemingly little things such as this boost consumer confidence in your brand and your business.

What are you doing within your agency that could work to personalize your social media? Do you hold similar internal contests? Share your feedback with me on Twitter, @Astonish_Shawna.

On Thursday we held the first of many Astonish sponsored webinars with NetVU, a national member organization committed to providing advocacy and world-class education to independent insurance agencies across the country. The webinar covered social media marketing tactics for the independent agency including Facebook, Twitter, and social media ROI.

As more businesses are adapting to social media, and recognizing it as a new marketplace, it is important for independent insurance agencies to follow suit and take the social leap as well. With direct writers and customers already using social media on a daily basis, it is critical for the independent agency to place itself in the forefront of the consumers mind on a consistent basis.

In the webinar Social Media Networking 101 for the Independent Insurance Agency we went through not only why social media is important in marketing to your potential customers, but how utilizing social platforms can also help you connect with current customers, inevitably leading to new policies, better customer service, and even referrals.

We covered Facebook marketing for the independent agent. Discussing ways to drive more traffic to your Facebook fan page, along with effectively interacting with your community on the platform. Making sure to not just build a community and post, but also taking the next step and engage with them on a consistent basis, will bring the best results from Facebook usage. Along with Facebook we also discussed how Twitter can be used to network through individual personnel and why building relationships with those who will promote you to others, could eventually turn into a lead. Remember, insurance is not always on the modern consumer’s mind, but everyone does need it! So positioning yourself successfully in the forefront of the consumers mind, in your target areas, is where you need to be.

Many agents know they need to be using social media but aren’t really sure where to start. Getting started with social media as an independent agent does not need to cost a ton of money or take away massive amounts of your time. As an agency principal or producer you need to be running your business and selling insurance. That is why hiring a social media engineer or intern can help you allocate the social media marketing duties to someone who can spend the time to do it the right way.

At the conclusion of the webinar we had a few questions come in based on the presentation. Here is the recap:

1.            What is LinkedIn? Is this another social network? – Ann

Great question Ann. LinkedIn is another commonly used social media platform. LinkedIn is a business orientated social networking site that allows you to create a personal profile highlighting your job experiences and industry expertise. LinkedIn is a great resource to connect with other business owners in your own industry and other industries that you might have a niche product in. I highly recommend creating a LinkedIn profile along with a company page on LinkedIn to showcase your expertise as an insurance agent or agency owner, along with use the groups and the questions feature to build reputation and network with current and potential clients.

2.            How often should I be posting on Facebook? What about Twitter? – Kelly

On Facebook posting every few hours is usually what I would recommend. You do not want to be posting five times in a row and flooding users’ newsfeeds but you want to have posts throughout the day to reach the maximum amount of people in your community as possible. Also people use Facebook at different times of the day and their newsfeed updates in real-time. So by posting at different times throughout the day you are most likely to have your message be seen. If you do not post weekly, users in your community may not see the relevance in liking your page because you are not providing timely updates. For Twitter you can post more often as the Twitter stream updates at a faster paste due to the amount of updates and the shortened message. Again with Twitter, not posting for a while might turn off some of your followers, so keeping a consistent presence and staying SOCIAL will allow your following and community to grow on both sites. Thanks Kelly!

3.            If we have a company Facebook, and have individuals in the office responding/posting, how can we make it clear that a specific individual is answering rather than the company as a whole? – Melanie

Great question Melanie, I hear this a lot. To make it clear which individual is posting on your Facebook page you can do one of three things. You could have the person write the post then do a “ – Name Here” at the end to show who each post was written by, therefore having you fans learn the names of the agents who are posting. Another option is to not have someone be an admin of the page, but to create a personal Facebook that is just for business use. They could become the ‘face’ of social media for the agency and post on the wall as so, so people see the name and face of the agent who is updating the statuses. The third option I think is the best. Facebook now allows you to post as the page or as yourself. To make sure when you switch to yourself it still does not post to the page because you are an admin, go to edit page, settings, and uncheck the first box that is next to “posting options”. This will allow you to post on the page as either yourself or as the agency.

If you attended the webinar and still have questions feel free to email socialmedia@astonishresults.com to contact our team! If you are interested in Astonish Results and want to see a free virtual presentation on how you can bring your agency into the digital age call  1.888.899.1936 or visit AstonishResults.com and fill out the online form.

When you think of search engine optimization (SEO), most likely the first thing that comes to mind is your website. You analyze your content, title tags and whether or not you chose the best keywords in general—but how often do you take into consideration your social media accounts?

With its growing popularity as a marketing portal – and its unique ability to effectively connect customers with brands – it makes sense that small business owners would be taking Facebook a bit more seriously.

With Facebook’s nearly endless opportunities for consumer engagement, it’s crucial that you take the necessary steps to ensure you are harvesting the social platform’s full potential—including your SEO efforts on the site. It’s the little things and strategic customization that can turn your Facebook page into a serious traffic-generator:

Give your page a clear, keyword-rich name—actually use the name of your business. May seem like common sense, right? You’d be surprised how many small business owners don’t realize how critical name recognition is—this isn’t the area of your account where you want to be creative. Use whatever your official company name is—this will most likely be the keyword your customers or potential Facebook fans will most often use when trying to search for you. Keep in mind that Facebook is a personal social networking platform, so don’t get carried away trying to appear for terms that you aren’t particularly relevant for. The more spammy and salesy you appear, the more Facebook users will want to avoid you—the goal is to reach your fans, not turn them off to your business completely.

Try a vanity URL. Recently, Facebook has allowed the opportunity for its users to “claim” a vanity URL for their specific page. For example, Astonish Results’ vanity URL is facebook.com/AstonishResultsRavingFans – it includes the company name and the Raving Fans reference, a key component of the company’s culture. A vanity URL can also be something as simple as your agency’s name – facebook.com/ABCInsuranceAgency – remember to keep it clean and simple; the point of a vanity URL is to make it easier for fans and customers to find your business page.

Use the About Box & Information Tab. Why wouldn’t you take full advantage of every opportunity to write descriptive, keyword-conscious content about your business? The About Box happens to be one of the few significant places on your business page that is accessible and utilized by the search engines. What may seem like just a little box in the left hand corner of your page actually provides you with a couple hundred characters to boast about your business, what you’re all about, what your employees are up to or even just share a bit of your agency’s culture. Every little bit helps, so make sure that whatever information you share is extremely valuable and relevant.

The Information Tab is another great source for keyword-rich content. Completing the Information Tab is critical to the success of your business page, because the more inclusive and thorough your page is, the more likely you are to show up in relevant searches. Facebook also allows you to provide links to other related pages or profiles, so make sure that you are using the Information Tab to draw traffic to other areas, such as your agency website, as well.

Build Links to your Facebook business page. The easiest way to build links – as well as increase your word of mouth marketing efforts – is to organically increase your number of fans. You want quality, authentic consumers to like your page, interact with you and inevitably share your business profile with others. To keep your fan base growing, you need to actually be social—keep the conversation going, pose questions, share your expert insight and dedicate sizeable time to your social networking initiatives.

Another powerful way to gain some traction and drive traffic to your social media account is to build links off site. This can easily be done by including links to your Facebook business page on your official website, on other social media or social networking sites in which you have a profile, as well as within any blog posts that you write. The more links you can build to your Facebook page the more credibility and authority you will give it.

All in all, it’s important that when thinking in terms of SEO that you don’t limit yourself to the obvious. Yes, social media is meant to be social – it’s all about building relationships and engaging your community – but you want your fans to be able to find you, right?

There’s no harm in boosting your social SEO – just remember to keep it simple, relevant and genuine.

A huge part of having a successful online marketing strategy is to remain a local business while still appearing big enough to have an online brand. There can be a struggle between staying local and opening your brand to the online market. Staying local keeps you in your comfort zone, but it can limit your opportunities for leads. While with your online presence, you open your business up to the whole state and beyond, bringing in new opportunities.

Before you had an online presence, you may have built your book of business through word of mouth, referrals, and the locals in your area. While it is good to keep that momentum going, turning your company onto the internet requires you to think outside of your local bubble. There’s a fine line between appearing to be small-town and appearing to be big business. Although you don’t want to lose your local appeal, you do want to build your brand to reach outside of your town. Keep in mind that you are licensed to serve your entire state, not just your town.

For example, if someone calls you for auto insurance on the other side of the state from you, your first “local instinct” may be to send that lead to an agency closer to them. Stop right there! Just because technically that lead isn’t local to your physical office location doesn’t mean you cannot serve that customer. You don’t need to see the customer in order to get them the coverage they need, so why discard such a valuable lead? Instead, take that potential customer’s information and see what you can find them for auto insurance rates in their area.  You can use this as an opportunity to show the potential customer that although you are an online brand and can help those throughout the state, you’re also a local business and you understand the needs of local people. Customers will appreciate you being able to stay local while serving “non-locals.”

Think of those throughout the state you’re licensed in as your locals. You are not restricted to selling insurance within a 10 mile radius of your town, so you should be welcoming in leads from all over your state. Obviously there can be restrictions for certain products and/or areas, but don’t simply take a local only stance. That is a quick way to lose business and deter from the development of your online brand.

Remember, you now have two locations – your Virtual Insurance Office and your brick and mortar location. Finding the balance between staying local and building your online brand is all about your attitude and the attitude of your entire staff – do you have the right strategy? Tweet me @astonish_shawna and tell me how you’re doing with balancing local and online strategies.

If there is one thing we’ve all come to terms with, it’s that social media is just that – social. It may not seem like an in depth process – you type up a tweet, post a Facebook status and you’re done, right?

Not quite.

To truly be successful with social media, and Internet marketing as a whole, it takes stepping out of your comfort zone. If you sincerely want to grow your business—well be prepared to roll up your sleeves and do a bit of work.

Social media goes far beyond simply connecting with the public on Facebook and replying to client questions and concerns on Twitter—social media requires strategy, passion and a time commitment.

Through all this hype, many businesses are in fact seeing success on social media; thus motivating others to take the plunge. However, is everyone equally successful in social media? What are the superstars doing right? And better yet, what can we learn from them?

1. Plan Your Social Media Strategy

You can’t just jump into the arena and expect that things would just fall into place. Would you dive head first into the deep end, never having swam before? You need practice, time to prepare and a plan of action. Before you even create a social media account as yourself: “why am I doing this” and “why do I need to do this?” You need to determine what the purpose of your social site will be – is it a friendly Facebook page where you can have a more casual conversation with your community, or a professional blog where you want to brand yourself as an insurance expert? Plan your social approach with your goals in mind – and always remain consistent. Be prepared to invest time and resources.

2. Structure Your Online Presence

Do you have random social accounts on ever social networking site you’ve come across? Does your company profile look different from one site to another? Simple things like using the same logo, fonts, colors, etc. on – each social account – helps tie your web presences together, keeping everything uniform.

3. Conversation is Critical

“Networking” means socializing, conversing and inevitably forming mutually beneficial relationships—making it absolutely essential that your agency is on social media, participating and listening to your target audience(s). You should be cultivating a 2-way form of communication, equipped with a feedback loop and all. You want your clients’ opinions and insights to be heard – they help you to strengthen your social brand and the overall success of your business venture. Share interesting information on your social sites, ask for feedback, respond to comments, and keep the cycle of open communication flowing.

4. Share Valuable Information

It’s key to make your presence on social media not only valuable to yourself, but also to your readers, fans and followers. Share information that is helpful to your community – rather than constantly sending out spammy, self-promotional sales pitches.  Try highlighting your insurance expertise in a high-quality blog post or share a link about a recent news story that may affect your target audience; enhancing it with a comment which includes your professional opinion. It’s important to also share novelty content, such as upcoming events in your local community, stats from a favorite local sports team or pictures from the office party you had for a CSR’s birthday. It’s a delicate blend, but once you master the art of integrating newsworthy with entertaining, you will be paving your way to a successful social media strategy.
5. Be Committed, Be Consistent

This is where the time and dedication fact comes into play. In order to truly be successful in social media you must be consistent in the conversations you are having, helping to maintain and strengthen your brand image across the Internet. Being consistent, means you have to be committed, designating s set time in which you can focus solely on your social media accounts. Engagement is the keyword here; a half-hearted effort is easily detected, so always be genuine in your endeavors.

These are just a few simple things you can do to get the most out of your social media efforts. Have some additional suggestions? Post a comment below or feel free to reach out on Twitter! @Astonish_Kelly