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Before we jump into the article lets just get the shameless plug out of the way.
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Shameless plug over! On to the show!
Join Insurance Soup – the #1 FREE Group on social media for Insurance Agents and Brokers (OVER 12,000 active members!!) looking to talk about sales, marketing, social media, office culture, compensation, policies, industry rumors, claims, and wacky clients!
Shameless plug over! On to the show!
You all have heard it from your district managers, corporate training, or other sources that you need to use social media in your agency but no one ever shows you how. It’s one of those “do as I say not as I do” situations because the ones telling you that you need to use it has no clue 99% of the time how to use it themselves.
After closely working with over 200+ agents and loosely with over 10,000+, we’ve put together the top 3 basic mistakes we see agents making on social media.
After closely working with over 200+ agents and loosely with over 10,000+, we’ve put together the top 3 basic mistakes we see agents making on social media.
PROFILE SETTINGS
You would be amazed how many agents claim to be using Facebook to generate business yet their profile is locked down tighter than Ft Knox. If your profile is set to private, only your friends can see your post. That means if one of your friends tries to share one of your post to help with exposure to your agency, only your mutual friends are going to see it.When using social media to speak to your audience, your audience has to be able to send you friend requests. If someone is trying to connect with you but you have your settings set to where they can’t send you a friend request, you’re potentially losing business without even knowing so.
You would be amazed how many agents claim to be using Facebook to generate business yet their profile is locked down tighter than Ft Knox. If your profile is set to private, only your friends can see your post. That means if one of your friends tries to share one of your post to help with exposure to your agency, only your mutual friends are going to see it.When using social media to speak to your audience, your audience has to be able to send you friend requests. If someone is trying to connect with you but you have your settings set to where they can’t send you a friend request, you’re potentially losing business without even knowing so.
The good ol’ profile picture. That’s the very first thing someone looks at when viewing your profile. It needs to be YOU!!! I know your cat “Tinkerbell” or your dog “Spot” may be the cutest thing in the world but your profile picture is not the place for them. No one is going to recognize your dog that they may never see and relate them to you or insurance. Your profile picture needs to be you and consistent across all social media platforms.
“Can you Like my page?”
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but if you are focused on trying to get as many likes to your business page as possible you have been wasting your time since you started. The worst is when you accept a new friend request and 30 seconds later you get an invite to like their business page. You haven’t built any form of relationship yet you’re asking them to support your business? Not only will this not help you write more policies but people hate it!Now let’s say you do bug enough people that you have 1000 likes on your business page. True likes, not paid for junk likes from a foreign country. If you were to post on your business page, with Facebook’s algorithms, your post will only reach 5-8% on average. So 50-80 people MAY see your post. There’s only two ways to increase that number. Either post so that more people will engage with your post so that Facebook serves your content up to more people or pay to play using Facebook’s marketing platform.
If you’re asking people who will never do business with you to like your page, that means you have people who will never do business with you passing by your posts as well. If you live in Texas and are asking people to like your page that live in New York, what is that really doing for your business besides increasing your likes by one? Likes do not equal sales AND you are also screwing up your advertising demographics if you ever decide you want to advertise to people that like your page in the future.
Insurance This, Insurance That
“Can you Like my page?”
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but if you are focused on trying to get as many likes to your business page as possible you have been wasting your time since you started. The worst is when you accept a new friend request and 30 seconds later you get an invite to like their business page. You haven’t built any form of relationship yet you’re asking them to support your business? Not only will this not help you write more policies but people hate it!Now let’s say you do bug enough people that you have 1000 likes on your business page. True likes, not paid for junk likes from a foreign country. If you were to post on your business page, with Facebook’s algorithms, your post will only reach 5-8% on average. So 50-80 people MAY see your post. There’s only two ways to increase that number. Either post so that more people will engage with your post so that Facebook serves your content up to more people or pay to play using Facebook’s marketing platform.
If you’re asking people who will never do business with you to like your page, that means you have people who will never do business with you passing by your posts as well. If you live in Texas and are asking people to like your page that live in New York, what is that really doing for your business besides increasing your likes by one? Likes do not equal sales AND you are also screwing up your advertising demographics if you ever decide you want to advertise to people that like your page in the future.
Insurance This, Insurance That
Do NOT only post about insurance. No one cares about insurance until they need it. If the only content you are putting out is about insurance, asking for quotes or about your business, you will drive away 95% of your audience because they don’t care. Your social media can’t be just a commercial for your carrier. No one cares. It should be 80% about you, 20% about your business. That means 4 out of ever 5 post needs to be about you, your office, or something entertaining. Before someone wants to do business with you, they want to know, like and trust you. They can’t begin to do any of those 3 things if you are blasting them with insurance post none stop.
If you are guilty of any of the above or simply want to learn more about how social media can drive serious business into your agency, fill out the short form below and we’ll be in contact soon.
If you are guilty of any of the above or simply want to learn more about how social media can drive serious business into your agency, fill out the short form below and we’ll be in contact soon.
