Social media is a two-way channel where you have the opportunity to build and enrich relationships with your customers and prospects. From Facebook to Instagram, your audience is using social media to socialize, learn, and buy. If you want to fuel growth and create relationships that are stronger and last longer, social media is the key.
Why Social Media?
Social media platforms continue to dominate the digital marketing space. According to the latest social media statistics, the most popular platforms keep growing and there are plenty of up-and-coming platforms staking their claim.
Consider these statistics:
- Facebook
- 1.6 billion daily active users, and 88% access the app via mobile
- YouTube
- 149 million daily active users spending an average of 40 minutes per visit
- Instagram
- 600 million daily active users and 1 billion monthly active users
- Twitter
- 134 million daily active users and attracting 460,000 new users each day
- Reddit
- 330 million monthly active users, 14 billion views per month, and 138,000 niche communities
- Snapchat
- 109 million daily active users and 10 billion views per day
Building Relationships on Social Media
Social media isn’t just another marketing tool. In fact, social media isn’t so much about marketing as much as it is about building relationships. You’re not advertising on social media with sales pitches and special offers, you’re connecting and engaging with prospects and clients.
Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms allow you to connect in a more personal way. Being active and genuine on these platforms helps build relationships that seem more authentic than other digital marketing tools since they are used by clients and potential customers daily. What should you share on your social media platforms?
What should you share on your social media?
- Interesting images
- Office and team events
- Motivational quotes
- Blog posts
- Support of local charities
- Fun facts
- Live videos
- Share carrier blogs
- Community events
A Little Birdie Told Me
Twitter allows you to engage with your followers and with the people and companies that you follow. Nobody will choose an insurance agency because of Tweets, but once they see that your followers are commenting, it might tempt them to try! Creating public conversations like an AMA (Ask Me Anything) is a quick and fun method to engage with clients.
Add #Hashtags to get your Tweet found on trending topics easily. Since you only have 280 characters, an image can help your post get seen! Don’t forget to link to your website or blog post, which contributes to the character count as well.
LinkedIn is all about finding B2B connections and building your company brand. LinkedIn Groups are an excellent resource for building relationships on social media with professional peers and others. Be sure to respect people’s time and post valuable content.
Consistency Is Imperative!
Just like in real life, selling insurance through social media takes effort. When creating your posts, it’s important to keep your company branding consistent by including your logo, web address, and phone number. When your online business listings are accurate and branded, your social media marketing strategy has a strong foundation.
If you randomly post once a month, don’t expect to have a bond with your followers. Frequent and consistent posts strengthen your brand’s presence on social media. If you can’t post on a consistent level on each of your social media accounts, choose one or two accounts to focus on.
One way to make your postings more efficient and consistent is to plan, create, schedule, and share the posts.
- Plan
Choose a topic for each day of the week, like Motivational Mondays, Insurance Tuesdays, Witty Wednesdays, Throwback Thursdays (#tbt), and Fun Fridays. By choosing your daily topics, it is easier to create or find posts.
- Create
Free tools like Canva and Pixaby allow you to use copyright-free images with software that gives you pre-formatted social media posts.
- Schedule
You can schedule your posts using social media platforms or through software like Buffer, Hootsuite or our own insurance marketing hub.
- Share
You could promote a carrier’s blog post by sharing it, or share and comment on a post from an account you follow.
Create a social media team so you can assign different days and distribute any research while also encouraging teamwork and innovation. Remember to keep it fun, social, and consistent!
Build Your Brand with Video
Video is the future of social media marketing for insurance agents. Videos let you tell an in-depth story that can connect more deeply than a 30-second T.V. commercial. Most social media platforms now have easy ways to incorporate video into your posts. You can add images, pop-up text, and music to your videos to really make them stand out!
- Facebook Live is a live-streaming video service. You can even stream live videos from your phone and then post the video to your Facebook page. Facebook Live is a fun and simple way for you to use the power of video to communicate your brand stories and build authentic relationships with fans and followers — in real time. Your videos can be up to 8 hours long.
- Instagram Stories can be up to 15-seconds long but can be strung along to record longer lengths which are still segmented into 15-second segments. It’s a much shorter option, but it can also be posted during or after the event. It will remain in your Stories for 24 hours, and then you can categorize the Story as a highlight to be available in your profile for however long you desire. Because your video isn’t live, you can edit the video. It is important to make sure your videos are the best they can be. You can also post videos to your feed directly, which can be anywhere from three to 60 seconds.
- Twitter lets you post live videos using Periscope. This streaming application has about 10 million registered users and nearly two million daily active users. Transform your mobile phone into a real-time streaming station for broadcasting your brand.
Consider the following affordable video editors to help your videos look professional and stand out:
Let your office personality shine through your posts.
- Make it social and useful
- Introduce team members
- Share office celebrations
- Create engagement
- Promote community events
Ready to Get Social?
Social media is one of the most powerful marketing tools for building your agency or brokerage brand. There is an old saying: “Relationships are like campfires — they both require stoking.” Stoke relationships with your clients and prospects by using industry-specific social media for insurance agents. Agency Revolution’s marketing platform, Attract™, gives you the tools you need to put social media to work for your business.