2. Why use it?
✤ It’s built for relationship building
✤ Meet your customers where they
are
✤ Monitor/learn from what
competitors are doing
✤ Build your personal brand
✤ Create positive word-of-mouth
3. Risks vs. Benefits
of Engaging Online
✤ Open yourself to commentary -
positive or negative
✤ What you say online lives forever
and can be seen by anyone
✤ Can be time consuming
4. Risks vs. Benefits
of Engaging Online
✤ Turn a negative experience into a
positive one by addressing
comments in real-time
✤ Find and leverage your
advocates
✤ Share information easily with
potential customers in a method
that feels less intrusive
5. How Agents are Using Social
✤ Connecting with potential clients at the time of an important life
event
✤ Share news, information, resources with current clients to show
you’re looking out for them
✤ Keep in touch and follow up - use the opportunity to discuss changes,
enhancements to their plans
✤ Increase searchability online and control the message/what people
see when Googled
11. Unique to Facebook
✤ Relaxed atmosphere where
people come to connect with
friends and family
✤ Ability to create a fan page
separate from a personal page,
with robust analytics
✤ Limited exposure (must
proactively find potential fans)
✤ Proven advertising option
12. Unique to LinkedIn
✤ Conversations are professional
in nature and posts require more
formal tone than Facebook
✤ Users have the ability to join
discussion groups, answer
questions and be recognized as
subject-matter experts, and post
status updates similar to those
on Facebook
✤ Ability to target advertising by
job function and title
13. Unique to Twitter
✤ Mixed formal and informal
✤ Only have 140 characters to say what you
want - resulting in Twitter user shorthand
✤ Greater frequency is required to break
through the clutter
✤ Ability to tag someone in your tweet for
easy exposure
✤ Ability to easily search user content and
find people talking about subjects
relevant to you
15. Next in this series...
✤ Chapter 2: LinkedIn for Agents
✤ Chapter 3: Facebook for Agents
✤ Chapter 4: Twitter for Agents
✤ Chapter 5: Social Media Enhancements
(Pinterest, Instragram, YouTube, Slide Share)
Editor's Notes
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Time consuming - that’s why it’s so important to decide what it is you’d like to accomplish, and define measurable goals before beginning social outreach, so that time is spent judiciously and receives maximum return\n
Be authentic and transparent - disclose your affiliations when discussing work topics - this can be as simple as listing your employer in your bio\n Be consistent and frequent - if you start something, continue it. It shows you have the commitment and resources to follow-through on things. You also don’t want someone finding your page later on and everything to be outdated.\n Consider all potential audiences - Don’t write anything that could be considered offensive, politically charged or unprofessional, regardless of how you’ve set your privacy settings. Rule of thumb - don’t post anything online you wouldn’t want your grandmother to read or see.\n Mind the medium - every social site has its own personality and tone of voice set by the users. Listen before you start posting so you can decide what the best mix of professional yet engaging and personal is for you.\n
The same laws that apply to insurance company and agent marketing materials also apply to social media usage, the agents should keep this in mind as they use social media, check with the insurance carriers with which they are appointed to confirm what the carriers specific guidelines are regarding use of social media.  Insurer requirements may include insurer home office pre use compliance review of all social media materials. Carriers may differ with regards to their guidelines so be sure to check w/ each carrier.  Note that different products may have different guidelines.\n
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how do you talk about life insurance every day -- consider life events, current events, articles, expert resources\n
