Insurance agents trying to compete in today’s marketplace need to be online. While networking is still a great way to meet clients, the internet remains a great place to find new customers you would not otherwise find. In addition, as we discuss on our insurance marketing podcast, most customers these days will look you up online even if they meet you in person.
Even your own friends and family will likely Google you to make sure you have good reviews, a good looking website, and proof that you know what you’re doing.
As you establish yourself online, there’s a chance that you’ll find yourself on social media, especially Facebook. Facebook is the simplest social networking platform that is also free (unless you run ads or pay for a digital marketing service) and frequently used. That makes it important to operate if you’re trying to establish yourself online.
Yet many people make mistakes with their social media presence, and some mistakes can be costly.
Mistake 1: Not Posting
You should manage social media accounts. But in some ways, it’s worse to have no account than an inactive account. Insurance agents that post rarely, if at all – or worse, posted years ago and then abandoned the account and have not posted since – make it appear to customers that they are one of the following:
- Out of business.
- Dead.
- Failing financially.
Even if they meet you in person and know that you’re active, if they see an inactive social media account, they may fear that you’re struggling financially and that you may not be able to meet their financial needs in the long term. So, make sure that you’re posting at-minimum once a month.
Mistake 2: Posting Too Often
Posting is better than not posting. But no one really cares about insurance. They don’t want to see your posts on their feed 10 times a day, every day. They may not want to see you even once per day. Unless you have outstanding engagement and an excellent community of people interested in insurance news and products, it’s best to post no more than once or twice a week.
Mistake 3: Posting Links to Other Sites
Some insurance carriers will provide free or low cost social media posts for their agents, and even automate it so that it posts automatically. This can be appealing for agents, as it means they have a steady supply of posts at no or low cost, and do not need to worry about posting themselves.
The problem, however, is that these posts almost always link to the carrier, not the agent.
Let’s pretend you are an independent agent with your own website, and you are contacted by one of your carriers that we’ll call ABCD Financial. ABCD Financial offers you free posts for your social media account. But all their posts link to the ABCD Financial Website, not YOUR website. You risk potential customers contacting ABCD Financial directly, rather than contacting you. You also are not promoting your brand, or making you look like someone they can trust with their financial decisions. It may seem like an easy way to operate a social media account, but if you are linking to other people’s websites, then you are promoting other people – not yourself.
Mistake 4: Spending a Small Fortune on Social Media Posts
Posts alone are not likely to generate a lot of revenue – at least not without advertising. If you’re spending a lot of money or time paying a company to post on your behalf, but you are not advertising those posts, then that time/money is likely wasted.
Social media does not have the natural reach that it used to. You either have to already build a following or you need to pay for advertising, otherwise your posts will not reach a wide audience. As such, it’s best to make sure you’re not spending most of your marketing budget on social media posts unless you are also willing to spend more of your marketing budget on social media advertising to disseminate it to others.
Mistake 5: No Variation
Lastly, you should vary between being promotional and being informative. No one wants to follow a page that says “buy insurance from me” over and over again, nor are they likely to buy from you if all you do is inform them without a call to action. It is best to vary it. Have some posts that offer valuable or interesting information and content, and then other posts that promote your products and services.
Everyone Should Have Social Media
There is no such thing as a referral based agent anymore – at least not in the traditional sense. Even if you do meet 100% of your clients through referrals and networking, many of those individuals still look you up online first. You may be missing out on calls you did not receive because the person couldn’t find information on you, for example.
That is why establishing yourself online is so important, and social media is a useful part of any comprehensive strategy. Yet, you still need to make sure that you’re operating your social media accounts the right way, so that you make a good impression that builds trust and converts customers.