Thoughts on Facebook & Insurance

As many insurance agents know, their biggest competitors are actually the insurance companies themselves. This is why social networking gives you a BIG advantage over some of the “mega-competitors” that want to attack your client base.  GEICO can deliver a lizard.  Esurance, a robot.  Progressive has that little hottie, Flo.  But you can deliver YOU.  And people want to do business with PEOPLE.  People trust people, not institutions.  And that’s especially true NOW. 

So: give careful thought to pulling back the curtains on who YOU are in your Facebook profile.  And do the same with your postings.  Be a real person.  Make it possible for people to feel a CONNECTION with you.

Social Media Marketing allows you MUTIPLY the “round of golf” or dinners agents used to rely on to build relationships.  It doesn’t replace the depth of intimacy, but it can multiply it by hundreds or thousands and, when skillfully crafted, can deliver 60% of the “touch.”  Those are very good numbers.

This must be part of you overall marketing strategy.  Your clients are already there.  You should be, too.

Advantages of LinkedIn Groups

Groups have become a great way to network and find new insurance clients on LinkedIn. They’ve been around for awhile, but without any functionality they were a shell of a feature.  Updates that allowed members to communicate through discussion posts and news articles have changed their relevance.
There have also been some goodies added for Group owners.  You can now send a weekly announcement to the group.  You can configure automatic email responses to group inquiries to join, a welcome message to new members, and messages to those you decline or block from future requests to join. Groups are becoming a powerful tool in using LinkedIn effectively.   Here are 2 Key Benefits to LinkedIn Groups


1.  Groups expand your reach
You might have 1000 people in your direct network (first degree connections) but join the top 50 groups on LinkedIn and you’ll have a group reach of close to two million members.  I live in New York and the top 50 groups have over 40,000 members. You likely can’t join the top 50 groups on LinkedIn or in a state…there are requirement’s that you might not meet.  Doesn’t matter because you want to make sure you join the top 50 groups that are relevant to you and have potential clients as members.


2.  Groups allow you to communicate
If I want to talk with other insurance professionals I can post discussion questions or statement on my two insurance related groups.  If I want to market a specific product I can tap my Chamber of Commerce groups.  Each group is based on a common factor and that allows you to target your communication to an appropriate group.The news articles section allows you to share relevant information with fellow group members.  It’s a great way to provide value and to drive traffic.

Facebook Fan Page - Insurance Agency

A Facebook fan page gives your Insurance Agency the opportunity to interact, market and network with clients and potential clients. This is a free way to be in touch with your customers. You can simultaneously send messages to all your customers. You can target the customers based on their location, language, culture, gender and so on. You can tell them about any event that you or your company is making in a certain location, using the Events tab. The bottom line is that you become their friend. They will feel that they are important to you and any human kind appreciates that. The page is the perfect free tool to market your products and stay in front of your clients!

Current Member

Click) To View Joe Walkers Insurance Fan page

Top Products To Market On Facebook

Just some quick feedback from a few of our top Option 2 MyBenefitStore members. It seems the two top products to market to Facebook to generate leads and store traffic have been Pet Insurance and Wedding Insurance. There simple products, that are consumer friendly.

LinkedIn Thought Of The Day!

Keep an eye on status updates from others – it can be a good opportunity to get back in touch – especially if they’ve changed jobs or have set out on a new venture. Even small status changes can help give you something to start a conversation – the sort of smalltalk needed to keep dialogues and relationships going in between more meaty topics.

Buying Ads On Facebook

I think that Facebook has built one of the better ad targeting tools going. You can target ads to Facebook members on all kinds of criteria and run pretty low cost campaigns. The trick though is to run campaigns that are compelling and promote your FaceBook Fan Page instead of trying to sell something. Promote your white paper, events, and educational content – create awareness about your great content and your will get the chance to earn the trust it takes to actually sell something to someone. Here’s where you go to find more info about Facebook Ads. And, I wrote about using Facebook ads to create awareness here.