State Auto Digital Agent

Looking for some guidance on digital marketing? Trusted Choice is offering member agents a free one-on-one consultation for your website and social media.  This “digital review” includes a 15-30 minute phone call or Skype conversation, content services referrals and a follow-up conversation. It’s all complimentary.  For a free social media checkup, send your social media links to Patrice Nickols at patrice.nickols@iiaba.net .  For a website review, send your website address to Kiescha Cherry at kiescha.cherry@iiaba.net .  And, you can always contact the State Auto team at social@stateauto.com with questions and ideas.  Best wishes for a successful year in digital marketing!

This is the third post in a series about creating your social media response plan. We've covered Step 1 - Who Will Respond? and Step 2 - When to Respond . Imagine you have completed steps 1 and 2 of your Social Media Response Plan.  You have two trusted members of your agency staff who are monitoring the web for mentions of your agency. They have some practice responding to positive comments and questions posted on your Facebook page. Now imagine a client posts a complaint about your service on your insurance agency's Facebook page. You know you need to respond quickly. What should you say?  It helps to know your goals for the interaction. Don’t fall victim to the mindset that you must prove your point.  You may never be able to satisfy the person making the complaint.  Think about the people who will read this interaction now or in the future. First, maintain your professionalism. Second, get the conversation offline as quickly as possible.   S...

This is the second post in a series about creating your social media response plan. In the first post, "How to Create a Social Media Response Plan," we covered Step 1 - Who Will Respond? Knowing when to respond is just as important as determining what you will say. If you see a negative post about your insurance agency, it can be tempting to jump to your own defense. Part of being prepared to respond is determining in advance which types of situations warrant a response. Step 2: When Will You Respond? Situations When You Should Respond Someone asks for your help. They may post this directly on your Facebook page, or this might be a call for help on a blog or website that isn't associated with you. Regardless of where they post it, if they mention your agency and ask for assistance, you will likely need to respond. Someone says something directly to you. When someone   directs a post to your agency, you must respond, and quickly. This might be a mention on Tw...

Your response plan is so important; we didn't want to squeeze the details into one blog post.  This is the first post in a series that will walk you through the steps of creating your social media response plan. Social media is a megaphone.  With little time and no cost, people can voice their opinions and share their thoughts about anything.  If someone feels they have been treated unfairly, they are more likely to want to tell other people about it.  This means that anything you do or say to a customer can be shared.  If you treat someone poorly, expect to hear about it in your monitoring.  Assuming you always do the right thing and treat everyone fairly, you still may end up receiving undue negativity.  That is human nature – you can’t make everyone happy all of the time.  The first step is listening.  If you don’t know someone is talking about you, you can’t possibly respond. Creating Your Social Media Response Plan ...

We now see regular examples of people turning to social media during times of disaster and other emergencies. Why is social media being used in this way, and what does this mean for the insurance industry? The Red Cross surveyed people who said they used social media in an emergency situation. Here’s what they found: 76% contacted friends and family who were affected by the disaster 24% let their family and friends know they were okay 37% used information on social media to buy supplies or find shelter 44% asked their friends on social media to contact responders for help 80% Expect emergency response agencies to monitor and respond to social media These responses indicate that people tend to use the easiest, most accessible means possible when they need to communicate with loved ones and take basics steps for survival. When a disaster happens, first responders, and aid organizations need to get important messages to the people impacted, and so do insuranc...

Many of the State Auto agency partners I meet ask, “How do I get started in social media?”   Insurance agents are busy people who do not want to waste time on the wrong actions. You may be relieved to hear that the first thing you should do in social media is simply to listen.   Social media is a conversation.   The technology and tools that make up what we call “social media” allow people to talk with other people all over the world quickly and easily.   People are sharing information, pictures, video, opinions, questions and more.   These interactions are usually open to the public, so anyone can join in.   That also means that anyone can listen. This is your opportunity to get to know your customer better, and it is relatively easy and cheap.   To get started in social media, start by listening to what people are saying on social networks.   You can put monitoring in place to tell you what is said online about your brand, your people, ...

Pinterest is a social media site for sharing images you find around the web. It describes itself as “a tool for collecting and organizing things you love.” People (80% are women) spend an average of 16 minutes each time they visit Pinterest, posting pictures they’ve found of things they like, from classroom, home décor and wedding ideas, to recipes, work out routines and inspirational quotes. What does Pinterest mean for businesses? Retail is finding a sweet spot on the site, which now accounts for more than 25% of social shopping sessions ( source ). Web referrals to a retailer from an image “pinned” on the site spend 70% more money than visitors referred from other, non-social websites ( source ). Pinterest for Insurance Agents Pictures of insurance policies are not likely to show up in the list of most popular Pins at http://pinterest.com/popular/ . But – insurance agencies are made up of people, with unique talents, interests and community activities. Pinterest could b...

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 trad...