The Facebook Timeline – Insurance Agent Friendly?

Quick Overview
-The Timeline profile is currently only for the Facebook personal template.
-Is a more creative look to the facebook profile.
-You still need to “manually” change to the Timeline look.
-Eventually will change all personal profiles to the Timeline look.
View My Timeline Profile – http://www.Facebook.com/SnoozzyInc



About The Timeline look

The buzz in the world of social media upgrades is Facebook is the release of the Facebook Timeline profile. In today’s article we will try to answer what is the Timeline profile and can it help your insurance agency?

The first thing to understand is that facebook offers its users two different types of free profiles. The “personal profile” and the ‘fanpage” profile. If you were going to create a facebook page for your insurance agency you would use the “fanpage” profile as it’s specifically designed for brands and companies. You can see an example of a facebook fanpage by visiting http://www.Facebook.com/Benefitstore.net

The 'new look' has been voluntary up until now. From now on, users will simply be notified that they are being 'updated' via an announcement at the top of their home page, which users click on to activate the Timeline look. As with voluntary switches to Timeline, those who are 'updated' will have just seven days to select which photos, posts and life events they want to advertise to the world. Via the official Facebook blog, the site announced, 'Last year we introduced timeline, a new kind of profile that lets you highlight the photos, posts and life events that help you tell your story.' Over the next few weeks, everyone will get timeline. When you get timeline, you'll have 7 days to preview what's there now. This gives you a chance to add or hide whatever you want before anyone else sees it.

The Timeline has been criticized for showing off pictures and posts that people might have wanted to forget. The new look also pairs with 'timeline apps', such as Spotify, which post every time people listen to a song, or eat a recipe or visit somewhere.

Using The Timeline For Insurance

If you’re an insurance agency that is hungry to market and wants to use social media to touch more people, then you need to look at using facebook’s personal template as your real time resume. Hopefully you also have a facebook fanpage for the agency. However you still must realize that potential clients are going to do a little homework on who is running your agency. They will search out your facebook personal page to see if you’re someone they can trust and do business with. The facebook timeline truly allows you to project who you are through virtual creativity. As a salesman you have no choice but to open the door to your life, this will build more initial trust and help you generate more sales for your agency.

I hear so many insurance agents and agencies say how “different” they are then the next agency. Well in the past “Showing You Were Different” wasn’t so easy, even if you truly were. But with tools like social media you can truly connect with people that you would have never been able to reach. The facebook Timeline is just another advancement in creative marketing. The agencies that are creative and focused will thrive; those that don’t believe in it will struggle to efficiently market their services!

Peanut Butter & Jelly – Social Media Connections

Back when I was in 2nd grade all of the students had to write instructions on how to make a PB&J. Then one of our classmates would go to the front of the room, where there was bread, a knife and peanut butter and jelly. The student would then read the instructions, while other student followed them. Most students forgot something; maybe it was opening the peanut butter jar, or instructing the classmate to “spread” the jelly. In the end the task usually wasn’t completed as intended.


Flash forward to 2012 and Social Media marketing for our businesses. We find ourselves with a massive audience that we can influence. We all want “action results”, however I find that many agencies are struggling to instruct the user to “make a good PB&J”.

So many times I see someone post, “Become a fan of our facebook page today, we offer advice, tips and fun, just go to our page and become a fan by clicking “LIKE”.” In this “call to action” they’ve forgotten the most important part…. A link to their actual fan page! It’s forgetting the little things that can cause your conversions to go from 80% to 0%!

So the next time you ask someone to become a “fan” or a “follower” or even to review your product lines. Take a deep breath, review the instructions you have written. Can the task be completed as intended by 100% of the people?

Insurance Agency Facebook Strategy – It’s Now Mandatory

Whether you want to admit it or not, facebook has exploded as a key marketing tool for anyone who wants to have strong brand recognition. With over 70% of all insurance agencies using social media it’s gotten much more competitive and harder to generate results. Hopefully by this point you realize that with facebook you can grow a large distribution of “Fans”. When marketing or “posting”, those fans become your guaranteed distribution or virtual reach. With a solid posting strategy you have the ability to actually increase your distribution by touching your fans friends through interaction occurring. At the end of the day this won’t lead to instant online sales while you sleep. However it will lead to “planting the seeds” of your agency in people’s minds. As we know with insurance, it’s not till something happens in our life that we need it. When that life event occurs in your follower you have a much more likely chance that seed will sprout into a referral phone call from a friend of a fan!


So what does your insurance agency really need to do to be successful with facebook? In my opinion you need the three “P’s”. (P)age purpose, (P)romotion, (P)osting Strategy. If you can implement all three on a consistent basis you will be above and beyond most insurance agencies. The problem is most agencies have fallen into a bad trap with social media. They have heard so many times that they need it, that they rushed to create a presence. There was never any thought process on its purpose and game plan. Now these agencies are left with a lot of wasted time and having a social media presence just to have one. What good is that?

Your Page Purpose –

The first key to success is defining what your facebook agency page actually offers people. What does it actually provide its fans consistently? If you want to seriously increase your “Fans” and distribution you can’t just tell people “Like my page, become a fan”. Let’s say you have lunch with your top client and you say, “Hey Bob, we now have a facebook insurance agency page, we would love if you went home and clicked “like” and became a fan.” Well what would you say to Bob if he said “Why?, what does it offer me?”. My point is, almost everyone has a facebook page now for their insurance agency. The ones that are going to rise to the top have an actual purpose for the page, it offers something for free. That purpose maybe promoting one of your clients businesses each week or offering a silly golf joke every Friday but it’s still more then you may have now! Once you define your page purpose it will make getting fans and posting much easier.

Promotion –

Once you have a page purpose, it makes it much easier to promote the page and get fans. Instead of telling everyone to “Like” your page, you can say, “123 Insurance is proud to announce our new free value added service. Visit facebook.com/123Insurance and become a fan today to receive weekly silly golf jokes and special advertising discounts from our clients, which is only available to our fans! Just visit the page and click the “LIKE” button at the top middle of the screen.”

Promoting should be done consistently through many traditional and nontraditional means. Featuring it in your client newsletter, website, email signature, send it to your facebook friends, LinkedIn connections and any other means that people are likely to pay attention to.

Posting Strategy

Now that your page purpose is in place, you have a road map of what you have to post. If you have promised your fans silly golf tips every Friday, then you must come through and post them. Of course you still want to offer a balance of three kinds of posts. (1) Projecting yourself as experts in the products you sell. (2) Agency promotion – Making sure people know the products you offer. (3) Interactive Posts – Posting things that people will “Like” and “Comment on” giving you the ability to increase your distribution.

Facebook is a very powerful tool for anyone looking to influence potential consumers. The problem is its getting more and more complicated to get results. To get to the next level you need to have a game plan that you can consistently execute and modify. If you don’t have that plan then you’re just hoping for results and in business none of ever want to truly rely on guessing!