In a few short years, social media has gone from a buzzword to an important marketing tool. As brokers you’ve probably been told to take advantage of social media to help promote the business.
But before you post there are a few things you need to keep in mind. Here are the top five things that you need to know before creating a presence on Twitter, Linkedin or Facebook.
1. Have a strategy
It is important to outline what you hope to achieve before making the leap into social media. Whether it is to engage with a new potential customer base or to position yourself as an expert, social media requires a commitment to your audience.
“Twitter is a conversation; and it isn’t something you can use once or twice and then forget about for a couple of hours,” says Julia Carr, director of marketing and broker communications with
RSA Canada. “If you start a conversation or weigh in on a Twitter conversation, you need to remain engaged – or your followers will quickly lose interest.”
“Retweeting clients can also ensure that your brand remains top-of-mind,” says Carr. “The same approach can be used to ‘like’ a client’s Facebook post.”
2. How will you measure success?
By setting up your website to accommodate online inquiries and sales, you can easily measure the success of your efforts. Be clear with your goals and objectives. You need to plan progress checks once you get started so you can make sure you’re on the right track.
“We had about 100 leads a month and that was from all the people that came to our website that started a quote, finished a quote and clicked ‘Yes, I’d like it’,” says Adam Mitchell, of Mitchell & Whale Insurance, whose client base is almost entirely made up of online customers. “At any time you can turn on pay-per-click or Facebook ads or anything else and spin out another 100 leads.”
Installing Dashboard analytics can offer a precise snapshot of how many page hits you receive, and percentages of how many online visitors follow through with a quote, and response times from agents handling these requests. (continued.)
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It’s important to keep in mind that social media just isn’t about driving sales, it’s also about raising brand awareness and engaging with potential clients online with content that is insightful, relevant to their needs or simply something that may be of interest to them.
3. Listen before you leap
“If you were at a cocktail party, you wouldn’t jump into a conversation with your opinion without listening to the discussion first. The same goes for social media,” says Carr. “You really want to be sure that if you are going to comment that you are adding value to the conversation.”
But be mindful of the community standards of your clients – what might fly in Toronto may not necessarily be welcome in Sydney, N.S. – or even be relevant.
4. Have the right hands on deck
You need to have the appropriate resources dedicated to staying in the conversation.
It is important to treat social media as you would any other means of connection. You wouldn’t want to keep a client who left you a voicemail waiting for too long. The same goes for a client who is engaging with you via social media. Keep in mind that a lot of requests will come during the evening hours, so it is important to have staff available that can dedicate time to responding.
“We know that we’ve got a very short window – probably a five minute window – to respond to those requests,” says Tim Currie, of Navigators Insurance.
And the numbers for responding quickly dramatically increase your chances of closing a deal.
“If you can respond to a lead within 60 seconds, your closing rate is 400 percent higher than the industry average of replying in 48 hours,” says Mitchell. “At 12 minutes, 80 per cent of that lead diminishes to the point of any ability to close it.”
5. Put a ‘Face’ on Facebook
Sounds obvious, but one broker has found success by having the individual salespeople use their own Facebook page that connects with the brokerage.
“All our salespeople have their own Facebook page and it connects with ours,” says Rick Dresher, of Affiliated Insurance Management Inc. “They put their own Facebook page out there and they put ads on Kijiji in various places and it is all connected; drops the lead directly into their bucket tool.”
By taking advantage of how Facebook works best – creating a network of friends who share – Dresher’s brokerage has been able to find clients who normally wouldn’t have been on the radar.
“Social media can be a great lead generation tool, but it’s also important to recognize that you are representing your brokerage,” says Carr. “and you should ensure that you are meeting your organization’s social media policies. And if there isn’t one in place, you should make sure there is one.”
