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Social media has a handful of pioneers, one being the indefatigable Chris Brogan, whose contributions include the best selling “Trust Agents” and a multitude of social media and marketing blog gold dating back to 2004.
Without meaning to, I randomly stumbled upon a September 19, 2007 (my birthday, no lie!) Brogan blog post titled, 100 Blog Topics I Hope you Write. With a fair amount of my professional life spent teaching social media best practices to insurance professionals, I frequently hear the question, “What should I blog about?”
To be clear, Brogan did not advise creating another list of blog ideas, but the following topics are for seasoned or aspiring insurance agency bloggers. Some focus on the community, some on insurance expertise and some are completely random. I’m not quite as ambitious of a pioneer, so you only get 50.
Have ideas for blog topic you’d like to see? Fire away in the comments and IMHQ just might take a stab.
Without question, Google is the sultan of Internet search, used for roughly 72% of all searches.
In another move towards a smarter Internet, Google recently announced a groundbreaking addition to its search results called Social Search (you will need a Google account to use). Once an account is set up, users create a profile linking all of their social media platforms to the account. Whenever the user is signed in and searches a topic, they receive search results from their social circle alongside the typical results they would normally see.
Why is this so important? Number one, Google is doing it, so it’s important by default. Number two, Social Search was created with the notion that people will trust recommendations from their social circle as much or more than local or SEO-influenced results. If people say nice things about you, your agency or insurance in general, these things will come up when someone in their circle makes a query for insurance. Leads anyone?
Before you go out and create 10 different social media profiles, it’s important to understand how this can also HURT your agency. Social Search also provides image results. This is great if you want to share some photos on Facebook from your recent trip to Australia. This is not so great if someone searches your agency and finds a Facebook picture of your young staffer doing kegstands of Foster’s at a company picnic. Likewise if an employee tends to lament the mundane nature of his or her job or share information that’s better left in private.
So how do you harness social search for good while avoiding the bad? First of all, you create a dynamic, functional insurance website and make sure the office sales culture is positive with healthy work habits. There’s nothing worse than disarray on display and solid processes and people must be in place before anything goes social.
A social media policy that governs employee usage and settings is the next step. Businesses that benefit most from social media are the ones that clearly define objectives for its use and don’t just let employees spend as much time as they want doing and saying whatever they want. Here is a good checklist for what needs to be in a social media policy.
Once you understand what social media will be used for in your agency, start participating in communities as a peer and gently remind people of your insurance services when appropriate. Run clever promotions through Facebook, share funny anecdotes on your blog, promote other local businesses on Twitter and show you’re an insurance thought leader without directly marketing at people.
These efforts have a humanizing effect and grow your social presence, ultimately making you worth searching for.
Falling out of aircraft is risky behavior. One malfunction can permanently affect the ability to keep working or breathing, yet thrill-seekers flock in droves to plunge in the name of extremeness for what some consider the ultimate rush.
The tethered novice is making a choice to jump, absolving the instructor of all fault with a signed release. But liability aside, what sort of coverage would a life or health insurance policy provide if additional expenses, or worse, resulted from jumping? The answer, it’s best to ask an independent agent.
If a policy already exists, it depends on whether the individual was actively planning to start skydiving when it was signed. If jumping was unplanned, the policy should cover fully, if not, it’s worth investigating. And if you don’t have health or life insurance, it’s probably a good idea to take up lawn bowling.
As for the instructor, personal accident insurance is a good idea. For his or her business, many independent agents offer outdoor insurance for activities such as whitewater rafting while others specialize in sports, either would be a good source of information about accident insurance, general liability insurance, directors and officers liability and other extreme coverage issues.
The video below shows another risk associated with skydiving, one that is completely unforeseen (and quite hilarious). It’s only 23 seconds, watch to the end, it’s worth it…
How do you write that claim? Skydiver enthusiasts are a growing community with special needs the can best be met by an independent agent. Whether they will find you depends on online insurance marketing efforts and whether you’re able to be found.