Gone are the days when social media was reserved for sharing pictures with family and friends. Today, social media serves as an effective way to network with other professionals and clients, and, as a result, grow your business. This guide to social media marketing for insurance agents can help you successfully connect with your clients.
Stay Engaged
If you plan to use social media to prospect for insurance clients, make sure you engage with those who are interacting. For example, when someone comments with a question on your Facebook post about auto insurance facts, respond with helpful and concise information. This helps your audience see you as a reliable source of information, which establishes your credibility and builds trust with potential clients.
Another easy way to stay engaged with your followers is to interact with different people, schools or businesses in your community. No matter the social media platforms you use, take time each day to like, comment and share content from these kinds of accounts. For instance, does your business sponsor the local baseball team? If the team posts about a big achievement or event on its social media platform, share this post to show your support. However, don’t only restrict your content to the organizations you support; show some love to community efforts or events that your business isn’t directly affiliated with. This shows your involvement isn’t strictly for financial gain.
Share Useful Insurance Social Media Content
Is there a big shockwave happening in the industry? Share it with your following. By posting relevant breaking news, your followers will know they can depend on you to lead them during tumultuous times. Don’t forget to keep your audience in mind, though. On platforms like Facebook, where your audience is current and potential customers, avoid insurance jargon.
Go beyond breaking news, too. Social media posts are a great opportunity for insurance agents to provide educational and instructional content that will help followers understand the nuances of your products and the industry at large. When sharing content, make sure to explain how the subject matter will benefit your followers to encourage them to click and read the article. Think about the questions you get asked most frequently – can you answer some of them on social media for the benefit of your followers? By posting valuable, quality content, you let your clients know that you understand and care about their needs and concerns.
At Farm Bureau, we provide access to a wide range of content for social media that agents can share with their current or prospective clients. We strategically create content to align with our products, promotions and national observances so agents can share the most relevant information across their social platforms.
Maintain a Consistent Posting Schedule
Having a consistent posting schedule can help you stay engaged with your community. If you’re posting great content regularly, your followers may look forward to seeing your posts in their social media feeds, which will hopefully lead to more engagement. Plus, regularly posting is a great way to stay in front of current or potential clients.
Make it easier on yourself by creating an editorial calendar outlining the content you’re sharing in advance. You can even use a tool to schedule posts in advance.
Farm Bureau agents can work with a marketing coach to connect their social media to emails, letters, holidays, community events or other notable happenings for their business.
How to Promote Insurance on Social Media Using Paid Advertising
Be prepared to pay to play the game of social media marketing. Organic (meaning non-paid advertising) Facebook page posts reaches about 5% of its audience, according to Hootsuite.
This means your odds of showing up in your clients’ social media feeds organically is lower than you might think.
Be selective when spending money on your social media posts. Curated content from other industry websites is great information to have, but you probably don’t need to promote this content unless it’s explaining urgent insurance updates. Instead, put money behind posts that drive users to your website with a strong call-to-action.
Finally, set a budget for your paid social media marketing efforts and don’t go over that amount unless you feel it’s completely necessary. A good strategy is to determine how much you want to spend on each social post when you’re planning your posting schedule.
Farm Bureau agents benefit from paid advertising created by the corporate marketing team, so they know that effective messages are reaching their clients at the right time.
Join Different Online Groups
Social media platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook have group and discussion forums, or communities, for people who have similar interests. Research different groups that best fit your skill set or location. From there, join groups or discussion forums and prioritize engaging on those platforms as often as your schedule allows. You might even want to block time off on your calendar to check in.
How to Use LinkedIn to Network
While in-person networking is still very important, the internet has started to overpower the face-to-face networking scene. Farm Bureau encourages agents to create a professional persona on their LinkedIn, which is the social platform most beneficial for building connections and credibility for professionals like insurance agents.
Here are some things to consider if you’re looking to connect or network with others on LinkedIn.
Benefits of Creating a LinkedIn Profile
LinkedIn is a powerful tool to connect with individuals in your industry, as well as your community. Through your LinkedIn connections, you can meet potential new clients and continue to grow your Farm Bureau business.
LinkedIn easily allows users to display their work and volunteer experience, credentials and testimonials. Taking the time to list out any certifications, volunteer experience or specials skills helps establish your credibility. LinkedIn offers these 20 tips to help your profile stand out.
Follow industry news sources and leaders and join groups to stay in the know. Staying connected to your industry also demonstrates that you care about what is happening in the field.
Gaining Quality Connections on LinkedIn
On LinkedIn, look for people known as high-level networkers (HLN). These people are typically decision makers, executives, media or thought leaders in your industry.
If you want to connect with a HLN but don’t know them personally or professionally, don’t let that deter you from reaching out to them. Send them an invite to connect and share with them why you want to connect. Let this person know how you can help them, not how they can help you.
Outside of HLNs, pay attention to your target market connections, or the consumers who may be interested in your product or service. This type of user is interested in chatting and learning information by asking questions. These people will seek you out in hopes of finding answers to their inquiries. Joining different groups is key to finding these people.
Don’t forget to cultivate your in-person connections on LinkedIn, too. Seek out members of your local chamber of commerce, business owners, leaders of the nonprofit you volunteer at and even your child’s sports coach.
Using LinkedIn to Grow Your Business
If you’re ready to take your LinkedIn presence to the next level, here’s how you can maximize your profile and make the most of the platform.
Post frequently. To stay present in followers’ feeds, you should post on LinkedIn at least three times per week or 10-12 times per month. Remember, your connections are not coming to LinkedIn to see personal information. Share content that will help educate your connections, whether that’s news from an industry leader or a blog from your website.
Engage with others. Comment, like and share your followers’ content. Make sure you engage with posts and people relevant to your industry. You’ll likely be able to grow your connections because your comments and likes can be viewed on posts, so others in your industry may be interested in having you as a connection.
Join LinkedIn groups. There are vast communities on LinkedIn that focus on different industries or interests. For example, the general interest group called Insurance Professionals has 226,000 members. In this group, you can gain insurance industry insights or find resources for different insurance issues. There are also special interest groups, such as the Insurance Underwriter’s Professional Network, which has 35,000 members. This group discusses relevant industry information and the market to help members grow in their professions.
Use LinkedIn Messaging. If you’re hosting an event or want to stay connected with those in your network or groups, send them messages through LinkedIn Messaging. This way, you can connect one-on-one and personally invite a connection to an event you may be hosting.
Write recommendations or give endorsements. Not only does endorsing or recommending a connection show that you recognize his or her skills, but you’ll also likely receive an endorsement or recommendation in return. It’s important to note that only first-degree connections can provide an endorsement on a person’s profile. If a connection endorses or writes a recommendation for you, reach out to them to grab lunch or coffee to continue networking and building the relationship.
Have a keyword-rich profile. LinkedIn, which was purchased by Microsoft, can function as a search engine. This means you should include important keywords related to your industry in your LinkedIn profile — just keep it natural and don’t keyword stuff your profile. That way, when someone searches for a particular keyword, your profile will be more likely to appear than a competitor’s.
Farm Bureau Helps Agents with Social Media
At Farm Bureau, we know agents may need a hand using social media to grow their business. That’s why we offer our agents the technology to make it easier. We provide a specialized platform that allows agents to efficiently engage with their clients across different social media platforms, like Facebook and LinkedIn.
Grow with Farm Bureau
Are you ready to take control of your life? Look no further than becoming a Farm Bureau insurance agent. We offer our agents the ability to run their own businesses, competitive financing, training, marketing support and much more. Learn more about becoming a Farm Bureau agent.