State Auto Digital Agent

Do you know enough about Instagram to know if your insurance agency should be using it? With 150 million people around the world (40% of them in the U.S.) and 25% of the Fortune 500 using Instagram, it’s worth your time to make an educated decision about how your agency can benefit. Instagram is an app on your smartphone that lets you take pictures with your phone, add interesting effects to the photo, and share it with people.  You can take any photo and make it look like you took it in 1976 or that you used a professional camera.  The ease of sharing the photo lets people give their friends – and often people around the world – small glimpses into their experiences. Why would you want a glimpse into someone’s life? It may be for entertainment – you can follow LeBron James ( @KingJames ) and see things from his perspective.  It may be for inspiration – from your favorite author, business leader or motivational speaker. It might simply be to follow your daughter’s p...

A State Auto agent asked us this question on LinkedIn: “How can I expand my agency’s Twitter presence?” The following suggestions can also help you promote your agency’s Twitter feed and add value for your clients who follow you. Ways to Expand Your Insurance Agency Twitter Presence:  Tell your customers, business partners, friends, family members, and strangers you meet on the street (half joking) about your Twitter account and what you're sharing there. Include the link in client emails and in your email signature. Put your Twitter handle on your business card. Ask people to follow you and share your Tweets.  Once people follow you, you want them to keep following along. Keep them interested with a mix of helpful information and personable stories, humor and observations. Keep it professional, but be yourself. Let Twitter complement the relationships you’re building.  Visuals are much more engaging on social media – people are more likely to look at, click on, res...

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...

At a meeting of independent insurance agents, a group of about 100 agents was asked if their agency has a social media policy. Only two hands were raised. Given the concerns agents often voice about social media – from reputation to employee behavior – an internal policy is a great place to begin your planning for social media. A social media policy helps you take a responsible, thoughtful look at the areas you can address to prepare your agency team for work and life in today’s digital world. 4 Reasons to Create a Social Media Policy 1. Put the moose on the table. Address the elephant in the room. However you want to phrase it, your agency leaders need to openly discuss their fears about social media. Your concerns are valid. Social media does come with risks, but you can’t stop it from impacting your agency by ignoring it. Get it all out on the table in a meeting where concerns are listed and grouped into categories. 2. Decide up front how you’ll handle risks. Th...

LinkedIn is the largest professional social network, meaning it is focused on professionals. To some, this means it is only for job-seekers – that having an active profile on LinkedIn means you are looking for a new job. In reality, LinkedIn has grown to be an active social network for people to make connections, discuss business problems, share knowledge and stay in touch. It’s classic networking, happening every day, accessible at any time. 6 reasons to get active on LinkedIn: You need a professional and credible online profile. If someone Googles your name, what shows up? Hopefully a professional profile that looks polished, modern and familiar to people looking for information about you. LinkedIn provides this with the public profile option. It is very likely to appear high in search results for your name, if not at the very top. Your business cards don’t update themselves. LinkedIn is the modern day Rolodex, with some improvements on the old system. If you man...

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...