#Insurance Tweets

Using Social Media for marketing is not a new idea. Most insurance agents have a Facebook, are blogging, and have a Yelp or Google Plus account. But for some reason insurance agents have stayed away from Twitter. Don’t believe me check it out. Search #insurance or #insuranceagent in your Twitter account and not a lot comes up. What does this mean for you? Well if you are an insurance agent it means there are millions of people on Twitter and not a lot of noise or competition for you voice to be heard on the topic of insurance.

Benefits for using Twitter 

It’s free and it is another way to communicate with the leaders in your industry, competition, customers, and prospects about what you do every day, sell insurance. Using Twitter to share your original content on your blog and website is also a plus. Connecting to the big dogs of your industry, learn from them and R and D (rob and duplicate). No sense in rebuilding the wheel.

Pitfalls of using Twitter

It can be confusing or even overwhelming to start using Twitter. It can be hard to understand how to tweet or even what you really want to tweet about or who you want to connect with on the social service.

Twitters short message lifespan is also a drawback. Your message will stay at the top of someone’s feed for only a few min. Where posts can stay hours or even days at the top of a message board on Facebook. This means you have to tweet more often than you would post on Facebook or Google Plus. 

Best Way to Use Twitter 

 

Connect with Niches

The best way to use Twitter is to make connections with people you want to sell to. Pick a niche and connect with the movers and shakers in that niche. An example is car collectors. “Follow” every car collector you can find on twitter than look who they are following and follow them too. Then when you tweet remember you are tweeting to that specific group and make the tweet something that they share with each other and retweet. 

 Learn From the Masters

Also follow people you admire. Learn from them and communicate and connect with them via Twitter. One of the cool things about Twitter is you get the chance to communicate with people you normally would not be able to chat with. For me I follow a lot of marketing wizards on Twitter. I can comment on an article they posted or tweet them with a question and they can tweet or send me a personal message back. I am getting professional free advice from the masters; where else can you do that.  

Scope Out the Competition

This one is easy to do. Look up your competition. If they are local chances are they are not on twitter so you are already #winning. If they are a big company it never hurts to follow them and see what they are doing. It never hurts to know your competition. 

Other Helpful Notes

Worried about messing up? Well you can't do any worse than Progressive. Check this out. 

How to use the Hashtags (# Symbols)?

How to use the @Replies and Mentions?

Have more questions about how to use Twitter?

Follow me on Twitter here. I like to tweet about insurance news, marketing info. and other stuff. Look forward to seeing you in the Twitter sphere. 

What is the ROI on Social Media for Insurers?

Is social medias cost worth its value in gold?

As an Insurance Marketer who assists agency with social media I have heard this question hundreds of times. Agents want to know that they are getting leads and new customers from every marketing effort they pay for. Which is completely reasonable, but it might be time to stop for a moment and look at the bigger picture of using Social Media. After Hurricane Sandy it became extremely clear what the true ROI on Social Media is for Insurance Agents. 

The true Return-On-Investment for using Social Media is communicating instantly, with millions of people, in a time of confusion, danger and need. As Katie Peet, the social media director at Sate Auto Insurance put it, “For an insurance company, what is the ROI of being able to reach your customers, in their worst moments, so they know exactly where you are and how they can get help from you?” Connecting with customers during any disaster is difficult and has always been a hurdle for insurance agents in the past. Now with social media agents can connect with their customers giving them instructions on how to get to safety, where local aid stations are set up, where food and supplies are being given out and how to file a claim to receive the correct amount of compensation. 

The hard part is that you cannot wait till a natural disaster like Hurricane Sandy to connect with your customers on Social Media. You have to build those connections now. So when a disaster strikes you can mobilize your workforce to distribute important information to your customers as quickly and cost effectively as possible. 

Need some more proof that social media is a good investment for insurers? The hashtag “#Sandy” was used nearly 20 million times in tweets during the storm. The mayor of NYC used his @MichaelBloomberg Twitter account to give instructions to residents quickly and efficiently. Cory Booker, the mayor of NJ, FEMA, the Red Cross, National Weather Service, and numerous other insurance companies used social media to communicate and respond to people affected by the super storm Sandy. 

Could you as an insurer responded to your customers in a quicker more cost effective way during a disaster? If the answer is no, then it might be time to start building your social media presence. 

Blog Source:Commentary:Sandy Shows Social Media is Practically Made for Insurers by Katie Peet