The
Watkins Insurance Group team has always held a high regard for being involved
in the community. The team has embraced the agency’s tagline, “We’re here to
help,” both when providing service to insurance customers and in the local
areas surrounding their seven branch locations. This service-oriented culture
naturally led Watkins to use social media to expand its engagement in the
community, beginning with a Facebook page in 2011.
“We use social for promoting our agency’s volunteer
efforts, but we also promote other organizations in our community helping
people,” according to Hanna Ogle, personal lines manager and director of agency
automation. “Even if we’re not involved in it, we’re sharing it to help. We’re
living up to our tagline.”
An
IIABA Best Practices Agency in 2013, the Watkins team is a leading example of
putting social media to use in an agency. Their success is partly due to their
unique approach that they call “ShareWatkins” - a modern take on a long
tradition of community service.
The "ShareWatkins" Approach
The “ShareWatkins” idea came after the agency got involved with social media, as they realized the opportunity they had to share their culture of helping people with the outside world. Many of the agency’s producers were already participating in local non-profit organizations in which they felt personally vested, and the Watkins Aware program led monthly community service projects. The team looking to market Watkins more broadly wanted to get people from each of the seven branch locations to share what they were doing on an ongoing basis. |
| The “ShareWatkins” committee in Fall 2014: Amanda Sasser, Dshanya Reese, Sheila Noxon, John Aoueille, Hanna Ogle, Kelly Lyttle |
“We had people raise
their hand to be involved, and we needed a formal approach to keep the pipeline
of information flowing,” Ogle said. “It wasn’t just about marketing and sales,
it’s about who we are and how we’re trying to help people.”
What began as a
marketing committee was transformed into “ShareWatkins”, a name for their group
but also for a process that they could embed into the agency culture.
The “ShareWatkins”
committee sets the example for others in the agency, and works with them to
create and share content. The team also looks for ways to connect content and
social posts with business goals. For example, producer Chris Heinchon wrote a
blog post about business insurance for breweries. The post was designed to
build Heinchon’s network and create positive buzz on his LinkedIn account.
“We want Chris’s clients
to be impressed by what they see posted on his LinkedIn profile. He knows his
stuff, and the blog post proves it,” Ogle added.
Making it Happen
“ShareWatkins” is a committee by design. Involving other
employees was a practical way to share the work load but also a natural way for
the people at Watkins to operate.
“We could have just done this and not involved anyone,
but that’s not how we normally do things at Watkins,” said Hanna. “We like to involve everybody.”
“Everybody” includes a mix of roles from commercial
lines and personal lines, from producers to upper management. The committee
meets once a quarter to discuss metrics and plans for the next quarter.
“We’ve had a natural growth over the past few years, and
now we feel comfortable with the content we’re generating on Facebook and
Twitter,” according to Marketing Coordinator Dshanya Reese, who manages the
day-to-day publishing and engagement for Watkins.
“Now we’re focusing on how we
present ourselves on LinkedIn and how we can get content on YouTube.”
Committee members are encouraged to write content about
their areas of expertise. Knowing that their team members might be wary of
writing something that will be published, Ogle and Reese purposefully include
them in discussions about what content will be most useful and who is the best
person to write it. The committee also provides coaching and feedback to help
talented sales professionals craft articles based on storytelling and personal
anecdotes.
“We could write it, but that’s not the same as someone
with specific expertise on that topic telling the story,” Ogle said. “It’s
about pulling our talent together in our agency and helping them to be
involved.”
In addition to educational articles, “ShareWatkins”
posts about new hires, office activities and personal interests of the agency
staff. They get the best results from posts that relate to their team members
on a personal level. This works for
Watkins, because they want people to get to know them.
“We want them to like us and to know us, because those people are
going to be more likely to call us and buy from us,” Ogle said.
Reese added: “If Watkins has a place in someone’s life due to a
30-second post, we’re doing the right thing. It’s one more customer touch.”
Is your agency finding success with social media? We'd love to feature you! Leave a comment or email us at social@stateauto.com.
This article is featured in the Winter 2015 issue of SA Today.
Comments
Post a Comment