Tweet, Friend and Connect: Social Media Trends in the Insurance Industry 2

Tweet, Friend and Connect: Social Media Trends in the Insurance Industry Fall 2009 Meeting Friday, September 25, 2009 Lisa Trank, One Purpose PR & Communications

Social Media Bandwagon – Are you on it or not ?
Social Media – a cool time waster, or a useful business tool?

What is Social Media?
“ The secret of social media is that it is not about you, your
product or your story. It’s about creating value for the
communities that happen to include you. If you want to make a
positive impact, forget about what you can get from social
media, and start thinking about what you can contribute.
Funnily enough, the more value you create for the community,
the more value they will create for you.”
-- Tim O’Reilly, O’Reilly Media

Social Media ABCs
Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users' updates known as tweets .
Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length which are displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them (known as followers ).
Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow anybody to access them.
Users :
Source: NielsonWire.com
Site Feb ’08 Feb ’09 Growth Twitter 475,000 7,038,000 1382%

Twitter Demographics
Twitter Most Popular Among Working Adults
Largest age group on Twitter is 35-49; with nearly 3 million unique visitors, comprising almost 42 percent of the site’s audience.
55+ years unique Twitter visitors: 1,642,000
Twitter valuation: $1Billion (NYTimes, 9/24/09)

Twitter on the Move
In January 2009, 735,000 unique visitors accessed the Twitter Web site through their mobile phones. The average unique visitor went to Twitter 14 times during the month and spent an average of seven minutes on the site. There was an average of nearly 300+ tweets per person for the quarter.

Facebook is a free-access invitation-only social networking where users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people.
People can also add friends and update them with messages, download video, photos, links and interact with Twitter.
People can join interest-related groups , create fan bases
Businesses can create Facebook business pages
Targeted event invitation and event management
Users:
Site Feb ’08 Feb ’09 Growth Facebook 809,000 65,704,000 288%

Business-oriented social networking site founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003 mainly used for professional networking.
As of May 2009, more than 39 million registered users, spanning 170 industries.

MySpace is a social networking website with an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music, and videos for teenagers and adults.
Users: 124,000,000 (May 2009/Guardian)

Other Social Media Tools
YouTube allows people to easily upload and share video clips through websites, mobile devices, blogs, and e-mail.
Every minute, ten hours of video is uploaded to YouTube.
User base: 18-55, evenly divided between males and females, and spanning all geographies. Fifty-one percent of users go to YouTube weekly or more often, and 52 percent of 18-34 year-olds share videos often with friends and colleagues.
Online photo/video management and sharing application
4,871 uploads in the last minute
160,129 things tagged with morning
3.3 million things geotagged in Sept. ‘09

Even More you Might Come Across…
Delicious is social bookmarking site and a property of Yahoo! Users can quickly store, organize (by tags) and share favorite web pages. You can also subscribe to RSS feeds of other users and share a page specifically with another user.
Digg is a place for people to discover, share and recommend content from anywhere on the web.
Google Reader is a Web-based aggregator, capable of reading Atom and RSS feeds online or offline.
RSS Feed (most commonly translated as "Really Simple Syndication") is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format. They benefit readers who want to subscribe to timely updates from favored websites
FriendFeed is a real-time feed aggregator that consolidates the updates from social media and social networking websites, social bookmarking websites, blogs and micro-blogging updates. It is a personalized recommendation engine which uses peer and social-networking principles.

Too much of a good thing???

Do You Need Social Media or Even Want it?

Make an Impact that Lasts
Social Media = unprecedented opportunity to speak directly to your customers in ways not previously possible.
Social media is all about attention – how to get it AND to keep it.
Gaining user attention, or building "mindshare," is most easily done by providing utility and availability.
Sharing your expertise with customers.
Publishing out content about your industry, instead of only sales pitches and press releases, creating value-adds for your customers as an “industry” expert.

Customer Outreach
Fast-growing customer base – Generation ‘Why?’
By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers….96% of them have joined a social network
80% of Twitter usage is on mobile devices…people update anywhere, anytime…imagine what that means for bad and good customer experiences?
The #2 largest search engine in the world is YouTube

Reaching Gen Y
According to the US Census Bureau, Generation Y is more than three times the size of Generation X.
With a population of nearly 70 million, Gen Y individuals have tremendous consumer buying power, with $1 trillion at their disposal. They are the most education-minded generation in history, being influenced by Baby Boomer parents who value education and a workplace that demands it. They seek out quality content and know it when they see it.
Gen Y uses technology (especially the Internet) every day.
Technology empowers them in ways never before imagined. This new generation has never experienced life without computers. In fact, many of them were booting up computers long before they were hopping on bikes. (Source: PIA)

Inbound Marketing & Lead Gen
Drive customers and prospects to you with rich content, responsiveness and speed.
Let your followers, friends and connections help drive prospects to you.
Mine your social media tools for valuable lead generation data.

Monitoring
Listen and respond to what your customers and prospects say to improve your marketing and sales communications.
Watch and be on top of industry trends as they unfold, instead of after they’ve already happened.

Customer Service
Social media provides a great opportunity for you to engage your members, let them engage with each other, as well as listen to them and be more responsive.
Manage risks, disaster and crisis communication

Brand Integrity Management
Social Media supports your overall integrated marketing strategy. It is not a stand-alone tool, but one that will extend the reach of your marketing funds and efforts.
Fluid and consistent presence across Social Media platforms supports your company’s brand promise and image.
Positive image building through personalized and constant brand/customer management.

Insurance Industry-specific Social Media/Networking Trends and Analysis

and Social Media
Websites: 16
LinkedIn: 13
Twitter: 1
FB: 0
Blogs: 1
E-letter: 16
Intranet: 9
RSS Feeds: 8
YouTube: 1
Flickr: 0
MySpace: 0
from www.greenwichgroup.com

www.sexyinsurance.ning.com
The first social network for the insurance industry
Leverages powerful Google application technology (OpenSocial).
Sexyinsurance is touted as filling a gap in the social networking web, providing a niche space for insurance professionals to meet, network and job search.
Launched in 2008

www.wikonnect.com
WikonnecT is a customized Web site where CSC employees, clients and industry experts can interact and obtain actionable solutions to industry or software needs.
8,000 users from nearly 700 insurance companies interacting across more than 100 communities.
Site is now being extended to its life insurance and annuity clients.

Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers

Industry Analysis
In 2008, consumers' use of social technologies exploded, with 75% of U.S. online adults now participating in or consuming social media at least once a month.
According to Forrester Research, insurance eBusiness executives should build a social strategy that addresses customers’ and agents’ problems, prepares for risks, and measures what matters.

Industry-specific Concerns
Proprietary information and privacy
Compliance and regulations
Professional standards
The Hartford CyberChoice 2.0 addresses liability risk of storing electronic data via web-based communities.
Negative customer and/or agent feedback
Staff and technology resources for small business
Get legal involved early, gain access to available support tools be ready to respond quickly and be authentic with social members.

Social Media Case Studies: The Good, The Bad and the In-betweens

Dell Outlet: More than $3 million in revenue attributable to Twitter
When Dell Outlet employee Ricardo Guerrero discovered Twitter in 2007, he thought he’d hit on a good channel for pushing out information. The rest of the team agreed.
Short lead time
Communicate message effectively
Dell Outlet began started using Twitter for one-way communication.
The company was surprised when people responded.
Customers wanted to ask questions. They wanted to share their experiences, good and bad.
So instead of using Twitter just to let people know about deals, the company has come to think of it as a good place to interact with customers—and to raise awareness about the brand.

Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield
Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield across the country pilot Twitter and Facebook to “identify members who may have questions or concerns about their health benefits.”
Anthem has also formed a Facebook channel and a YouTube channel to promote wellness and member interaction.

Domino’s Pizza: Leaving a Bad Taste in Customers’ Mouths or Brand Opportunity?
2 Domino’s Pizza employees post YouTube videos of them tampering with food.
Domino’s employs same social media to conduct fast and highly effective damage control

Time to Tweet and Connect…

www.twitter.com
Set up a profile
Follow, Unfollow, Block
LocalTweeps
#Hashtags
Search
TweetDeck

www.facebook.com Business Pages: http://mashable.com/2009/09/22/facebook-pages-guide/

Setting up a Winning FB page
Facebook Pages are different than profiles. You have a profile for you, Jane Doe, but your business can’t have a profile — it can have a Page - useful because you can include everything that relates to your business in one place with a built-in potential audience:
- Overview of company - Website and contact info - Press releases - Videos - Blog RSS - Twitter updates - Company news and status - Customer interaction
One of the major benefits of a Page on Facebook over (or in addition to) a webpage is that it’s so simple to update. With a website, if you’re not technical, you have to contact your web developer, who will then charge you to make even a tiny change. With Facebook, updates are as easy as logging in and typing or uploading. The fresher your content, the more you will engage people.
Google thinks very highly of Facebook in its search engine results!

www.linkedin.com
Profile set up
Work History
Status Updates
Areas of Interest
Connections
Human Resources Tool
Recommendation
Expert Status

Social Media Evaluation: P.O.S.T.
Use the P.O.S.T. method to evaluate social, mobile and any other technology investment.
P.O.S.T. may tell you to stop where you are—sometimes the best decision is to not move forward.

People.
Review the profile of your target audience. Most of the data is available in your customer database. If it’s not there, then ask your customers. When evaluating your technology strategy, consider two other elements of the people equation: a) your employees, and b) your partners.
You need a target customer segment with demonstrated or emerging behavior to create the foundation for new channel or technology investment. You also need to evaluate your internal resources (human and capital) and external partners to determine if you can succeed.

Decide on your goals. Make sure they align with your enterprise business objectives.
The objectives must be measurable, complimentary and should focus on growth for the company; efficiency to improve profitability or have the potential to positively impact your target customers (e.g. improve customer experience, satisfaction or retention).
Objectives.

Strategy.
Determine your approach to meet your objectives. This is the game plan to determine how you are going to allocate resources to meet the objectives.
Don’t over think—develop a plan and execute.
Make sure your approach supports and extends your overall marketing strategy.

Technology.
Choose the technologies that will enable you to implement your strategy. Technology is merely an enabler of the objectives based on your target customers.
Social Media does not have to be “all or nothing”
Use the available metrics and analytics tools (Google Analytics) to help you measure your ROI.

How to Monitor Your Social Media Presence in 10 Minutes a Day by Rebecca Corliss (HubSpot.com)

5 Easy (and Free!) Steps:
Monitoring your business' social media presence is incredibly important. You need to respond to people talking about your brand and understand how people view your company. However, a common concern is that it takes up too much time.
If you set up a solid routine, monitoring your online presence doesn't have to be a hassle at all.

1) Check Twitter for chatter about your company ( 2 minutes ): Use tools like TweetDeck or Twitter Search to monitor conversations about your company in real-time. To check once a day, set up an RSS feed for a specific Twitter Search to go straight to your Google Reader . Do this by clicking the little RSS icon after you complete a search. Now, ongoing search results will be sent to your reader.
2) Scan Google Alerts ( 1.5 minutes ): Check your Google Alerts for your company name, products, executives or brand terms. To set this up, enter your search terms and select to receive updates as they happen or once daily. Now, when people blog about your products, an alert will be sent to your inbox. You can read the articles and respond right away!
3.5 minutes +

TweetDeck

3) Check Facebook stats ( 1 minute ): Visit your Company Page's Facebook Insights. This can be found by clicking "more" under the page's main photo. Scan your fans and page views count. If you are a member of a group, check to see if any new discussions started.
4) Answer Industry-related LinkedIn questions ( 3 minutes ): Search for questions on LinkedIn that you or members of your company can answer. You can set up an RSS feed for specific question categories to go to your Google Reader as well. When you find a relevant question, respond and include a link to your website.
4 minutes +

2.5 minutes = 10 minutes!
5) Use Google Reader to check Flickr, Delicious, Digg and others ( 2.5 minutes ): Also set up RSS feeds for searches on your company name and industry terms in other social media sites. Similar to monitoring LinkedIn and Twitter, your Reader will serve as a great place to centralize your other searches too!
Do each task in the morning when you start work and you should be good to go!

In case all of this isn’t enough to convince you…
Time Management:
If properly managed, social media tools can save you time and energy
Budget-minded:
IT’s FREE (at least for now)
Be and stay competitive in a challenged economy

Just imagine the below for your bottom line!

Additional Resources
http://help.twitter.com/forums/10711/entries/14022
http://mashable.com/2009/09/22/facebook-pages-guide/
www.HubSpot.com
[email_address]

About Lisa Trank and One Purpose
Lisa Trank is owner of One Purpose PR & Communications, a sustainable public and social media relations consulting firm. Lisa has developed and led national public relations and grassroots marketing campaigns for organizations in civic, non-profit, education, high technology, SMBs and the arts sectors. She maintains two active blogs, is a member of Ladies Who Launch, Boulder Media Women and is a frequent presenter/trainer on Social Media for a wide variety of industry audiences.

Thank you and have a great day!
303-579-4522
www.onepurposepr.com
[email_address]

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Tweet, Friend and Connect: Social Media Trends in the Insurance Industry 2

by One Purpose PR & Communications on Sep 25, 2009

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Tweet, Friend and Connect: Social Media Trends in the Insurance Industry 2 — Presentation Transcript