1. —Social Media and Insurance Page 1
AXA’s Journey to be the Leading Digital and
Multi-Access Insurer
AXA turned heads last April when it announced partnerships,
first with Facebook and then LinkedIn, as part of its strategy
described by Véronique Weill, the group’s chief operating of-
ficer, “to become the leading digital and multi-access insurer.”
We spoke with Richard Gans, the director of social media for
AXA US, to see how the social initiatives are playing out in
practice, specifically in the US market.
What is the company’s objective for social media?
Gans: The primary focus is to make it simpler for consumers to
interact with us, to find us, to do business with us, and social
media is another avenue for doing that. Social media is not go-
ing away, and adoption rates are increasing across every age
range. As the now-younger audience ages and looks more to-
ward financial services, the shift to social media will be interest-
ing. We want to keep that in mind as part of our larger customer
-centric focus.
How is social media organized at AXA?
Gans: AXA Group is a global brand, and while my team must
comply with governance issued from the head office, we can
follow the path that makes the most sense for our geography,
audience, and product set. In the US, I manage a small dedicated
(Continued on page 2)
The Customer Respect Group P.O. Box 266 Ipswich, MA 01938
978.412.0019 www.customerrespect.com
Volume 4
Number 12
Feb 2015
An Insurance Social index
Who has most Social Impact?
Is it possible or even wise to create a social media
benchmark for the insurance industry? With the im-
mediate effect of social on ROI almost impossible
to measure and with early metrics such as fan count
seen as too simplistic, many social media managers
find the exercise of demonstrating progress to the C
-Suite frustrating. As one leading industry expert
said, “The party is quickly coming to an end for so-
cial (my humble, informed opinion), and creating
something that truly measures the impact of this
space is valuable but still difficult.”
Most social platforms offer substantial volume of
data organized and dissected by extensive de-
mographics but these numbers often mean little to
executives.
(Continued on page 5)
AXA’s Social Media Journey 1
Insurance Social Index 1
Social Notes 8
Social Advice 9
Social and the Super Bowl 10
Twitter Parties 11
Social Platform Tables 12
Around The Horn 25
Published by
978-412-0019
2. —Social Media and Insurance Page 2
team reporting into digital marketing and corporate commu-
nications. Our focus is on corporate activity, and while we
do not manage the social media adoption and training of
advisors (agents), we are responsible for developing preap-
proved social messaging for the content library as well as
social media campaigns for them to share.
For what is social media best equipped?
Gans: Would it be nice if people raised their hands and said,
“I’d like to buy life insurance”? Sure. Is that a reality? Of
course not. It can be more impactful to look at what we can
learn by listening, to understand what consumers care about
and what’s relevant, and cater to them with content that’s
valuable to them. Instead of saying “you need life insur-
ance,” it is better to understand the pain points and build
content around that.
Can you talk about the content strategy?
Gans: The content strategy is focused on helping people
take next steps. For example, we have an ongoing theme
called Small Steps for Savings, which gives quick savings
tips. We also share third-party articles that help with finan-
cial education, and we post inspirational messages and
quotes. Not all the tips and quotes are about financial prod-
ucts, but they all underscore the importance of taking a next
step.
Analysis
The content mix is similar across all major platforms. Each
month on average there are 22 Facebook posts, 60 tweets
(with almost 100% inclusion of links); and 12 updates and
12 job posts on LinkedIn.
Where is the content hosted?
Gans: When possible, the goal is to drive people back to our
own website, but our site doesn’t yet have as much content
as we would like. We therefore link to third-party content
because we believe it is information that will help them take
the next step toward reaching their financial goals.
Analysis
About two-thirds of the posts, updates and tweets link back
to the company’s website. The company’s website is fully
responsive performing well on desktop, mobiles, and tablets.
(Continued from page 1)
(Continued on page 3)
3. —Social Media and Insurance Page 3
Many but not all the website links reach the “Goals” section of
the website, with most of the content factual (as opposed to
advice). AXA has no separate blog. Third-party content, much
of which is advice-based, is hosted by a wide range of external
sites, including Motley Fool, USA Today, and BusinessInsid-
er.com.
Where does customer care fit in?
Gans: We don’t get a lot of customer service requests through
social media, but that’s not to say we don’t get any, and we
have policies and rules in place to be able to react quickly. Our
response time is pretty fast. Moving forward, we definitely see
value in social care and it is on the roadmap, but there are oth-
er areas of customer care that we are focused on. Part of any
consideration is the level of ownership by the service depart-
ment. To be proactive in customer care, it is important to make
it seamless for the customers so they do not get bounced
around.
Analysis
About 80% of insurers allow followers to start new posts on
Facebook (user started posts), and these have become primary
routes for customer messages. AXA, as is the case with many
life insurers, block these posts
On Twitter, just 15% (62) of AXA’s tweets sent in the past 6
months were sent to an individual (indicator of social care). Of
those, just 11 were customer service issues or questions. Re-
sponse time for those was impressively fast.
What is the platform strategy?
Gans: We are growing our audience on the three major plat-
forms. On LinkedIn and Twitter, having a stronger following
helps amplify the message. We use a mix of organic and paid
posts. We use paid media to target specific audiences with mes-
sages that may not be relevant to general audiences or to ampli-
fy a message that has already gained strong engagement. Face-
book, even though its organic reach is more restricted, has the
largest consumer adoption, and there is no way to get around
that. We reevaluated our content strategy (in Q4 2014) to use
more social listening and adapt content so that, when we put
something out, it is relevant to the people we are trying to help.
LinkedIn is a key platform, and we use it for three purposes:
(Continued from page 2) We target the professional members, and accelerate
content marketing, corporate branding, and lead-
generation across the network.
Our sales teams utilize LinkedIn to engage with
their professional networks and provide better val-
ue to customers and prospects.
HR promotes AXA’s employer brand and further
develops the expertise of LinkedIn’s sourcing tools.
As for YouTube, as we create and use more video con-
tent, we may reevaluate how we use the platform.
YouTube does not do a great job when it comes to
driving traffic back to websites, which is a key objective
for us. According to a recent study by Shareaholic, just
0.01% of website referral traffic comes from YouTube,
and that is down 93.24% year over year.
Analysis
Facebook: followers grew from 15,000 to 40,000
between June and December 2014.
Twitter: followers grew during 2014, from 5,000 to
16,000.
LinkedIn: followers to the company page grew
from 10,000 in April to 31,000 in December 2014.
Very little of that growth can be attributed to em-
ployees.
(Continued on page 4)
AXA’s follower growth on Facebook, Twitter and
LinkedIn
4. —Social Media and Insurance Page 4
YouTube: AXA has 296 subscribers, growing about 1%
per month, with 27 videos hosted and 6 new videos up-
loaded in the past year.
How about social engagement?
Gans: Organic reach (on Facebook) is certainly not as high as
anybody would like, but engagement is still fair, so there’s al-
ways going to be that balance. Total engagement could be
higher with paid media helping boost a post, but the engage-
ment rate will likely be lower due to the expanded reach. For
example, a boosted Facebook post could have 500 comments
compared to an organic post with only 10 comments, showing
higher engagement. However, when coupled with the reach,
that higher engagement will produce a lower engagement rate.
Analysis
For the past 3 months, on Facebook, AXA averaged 12,000
interactions a month (537 per post), of which 95% are “likes.”
The Normalized Interaction (NI) rate (NI) of 31% (shares +
likes + comments) divided by fan count compares favorably
against the industry average of 15% (the average for life insur-
ers is 13%). This puts AXA in the top 5% for insurers.
Interactions on Facebook show considerable variability, with
interactions per post in the past 6 months ranging between 1
and 7,000. This engagement variability gives the page a Coeffi-
cient of Variation (standard deviation of interactions divided by
interaction average) of 2.22, which is characteristic of strong
but intermittent promotional activity.
On LinkedIn, with content concentrated on financial advice,
there is an average of 14 likes and about 1 comment per up-
date, but link clicks are more customary, averaging 60 for the
updates that offer a link.
What about brand advocacy?
Gans: I definitely think there is a place for brand advocacy, and
creating a formalized advocacy program is a potential 2015
initiative. Currently, we are providing training to employees and
encouraging them to share, but it is not part of a formal pro-
gram. In addition, we are always enhancing our follower strate-
gy and influencer identification; but again, it’s on a project-by-
project basis and not as a formalized program, although there
is interest in expanding this type of work in 2015.
(Continued from page 3) Analysis:
The Facebook share rate (number of shares divided by
total interactions), one indicator of brand advocates
passing on messages, is 3.7%, which is quite low but
this is not atypical of insurers in AXA’s position. Advi-
sors (agents) are provided with, and share content,
through a distribution network (Hearsay Social in
AXA’s case) and strict compliance rules and culture
restricts early employee activity.
AXA engagement on Facebook
AXA Facebook Coefficient of Variability
5. —Social Media and Insurance Page 5
Benchmarks can be misleading with insurers employing widely
different strategies but nonetheless we made an initial attempt
starting with Facebook. The objective: to look at other insur-
ers and quickly assess relative strengths and weaknesses.
Methodology
The Insurance Social Index is comprised of three key compo-
nents—Audience, Engagement and Responsiveness—and the
metric has been applied to 75 insurers using data from No-
vember and December of 2014 and January 2-15.
Audience
The Audience sub-index is a combination of fan count and
most recent fan growth. Despite diminishing organic reach, a
fan base continues to offer a route for permission based com-
munications. Fan growth is an important indicator that the fan
base is being regenerated. Many insurers built a fan base at a
time when recruitment was simpler. As an example Farmers,
grew its fan base to over 2 million almost over 4 years ago and
since that time it has barely increased as indicated with its
0.07% growth over the past 12 months.
Obviously big brand name insurers that have invested heavily
in recruitment will score higher but fan growth will help small-
er pages.
Engagement
If an insurer posts and receives no response, did nobody see it
or was it just helpful with no action called for. Despite the
inadequacies of Facebook metrics and the ability to manipulate
them, they remain important. The Engagement sub-index is
weighted by the amount of audience effort - ‘shares’ and
‘comments’ which demand more time and commitment are
weighted five times that of a ‘like’. The weighted interactions
are normalized by the fan count. Social media is, or should be,
a dialogue and interactions can highlight topics that customers
care and want to talk about.
Insurers with distribution through independent agencies per-
form well with shares while national brand name insurers
dominate the like counts.
(Continued from page 1)
(Continued on page 6)
Company Fans
3 Month
Growth
Gerber Life 986,935 6.29%
Liberty Mutual Insurance 1,990,203 1.81%
USAA 760,656 4.98%
Mayhem 1,866,443 2.02%
New York Life 610,522 5.86%
Flo, the Progressive Girl 5,433,346 0.14%
Thrivent Financial 414,112 9.70%
Farmers Insurance 2,251,868 0.11%
MetLife 639,514 2.40%
State Farm 1,806,739 1.18%
Insurance Audience Sub-Index Rank
Company
Weighted Normal-
ized Interaction
Rate
The Hanover Insurance Group 205%
Auto-Owners Insurance 155%
PEMCO Insurance 152%
Central Insurance Companies 150%
Mass Mutual 104%
VFIS - Firefighter & EMS 72%
Prudential - BYC 55%
Ameriprise Financial 46%
Nationwide Insurance 44%
The Co-operators 41%
Insurance Engagement Sub-Index Rank
6. —Social Media and Insurance Page 6
Responsiveness
Social media is an invitation for fans to communicate with
insurers, which may be uncomfortable for some but increas-
ingly, customers assume they can reach out, comment, com-
plain, complement and even vent frustrations. While Twitter
was the early primary preferred route, user started posts on
Facebook are increasingly popular. This sub-index is a com-
bination of the number of questions posed directly to insur-
ers (normalized by fan count) with the speed of the re-
sponse. Addressing complaints on social platforms might be
more critical than traditional customer service as the social
route is often a ‘last’ resort used by the most frustrated cus-
tomers.
Combining question volume and response time helps to
balance the sub-index. Insurers receiving few questions can
respond quickly without necessarily having to put into place
internal processes.
Some insurers (about 20%) block user started posts and
these insurers scored zero.
(Continued from page 5)
Company
Question
Rank
Answer
Rank
PEMCO Insurance 2 5
AMICA Mutual 10 6
Chubb Insurance 17 3
USAA 5 9
Arbella Insurance 27 1
Nationwide Insurance 3 12
Esurance 31 2
GEICO 6 13
Sun Life Financial Canada 25 7
MetLife 28 8
Insurance Responsiveness Sub-Index Rank
Average
Response
(Hours)
GEICO 1.3
Esurance 2.3
Nationwide Insurance 4.0
State Farm 4.4
American Family Insurance 4.9
MetLife 8.2
Liberty Mutual Insurance 10.8
USAA 11.1
Allstate Insurance 11.4
Flo, the Progressive Girl 13.9
Insurer with quickest average response rate
USAA
State Farm
GEICO
Progressive
Allstate Insurance
Liberty Mutual Insurance
Nationwide Insurance
MetLife
Flo, the Progressive Girl
Farmers Insurance
Insurers with most user post questions
User post on USAA page with a response
within 97 minutes
7. —Social Media and Insurance Page 7
Company
ISI Audience Engagement Response
Nationwide Insurance 83% 72% 83% 90%
USAA 83% 96% 65% 92%
PEMCO Insurance 80% 24% 97% 100%
Esurance 72% 82% 49% 88%
Sun Life Financial Canada 70% 49% 72% 83%
MetLife 67% 88% 42% 79%
Northwestern Mutual 67% 40% 74% 77%
Auto-Owners Insurance 66% 15% 99% 67%
AMICA Mutual 64% 28% 56% 98%
American Family Insurance 64% 69% 50% 75%
Liberty Mutual Insurance 63% 97% 71% 33%
The Co-operators 61% 14% 81% 73%
State Farm 59% 86% 31% 69%
Mouvement Desjardins 58% 76% 47% 56%
Arbella Insurance 56% 18% 44% 94%
Erie Insurance 56% 31% 58% 71%
Prudential - BYC 54% 85% 89% 0%
John Hancock 54% 21% 79% 52%
MassMutual 53% 71% 94% 0%
GEICO 53% 81% 1% 85%
The Hartford 52% 64% 61% 35%
Ameriprise Financial 51% 75% 85% 0%
Mutual of Omaha Insurance 50% 68% 33% 54%
Chubb Insurance 49% 6% 32% 96%
Allstate Insurance 49% 79% 18% 60%
Protective Life 49% 57% 43% 50%
Horace Mann 48% 43% 53% 48%
Progressive 48% 83% 15% 58%
Lincoln Financial Group 48% 19% 76% 38%
Thrivent Financial 44% 90% 38% 21%
Cincinnati Insurance 43% 29% 78% 17%
Hanover Insurance Group 41% 13% 100% 0%
AXA US 41% 50% 75% 0%
Transamerica 40% 78% 17% 40%
Allstate Motorcycle 40% 60% 22% 44%
Mayhem 39% 94% 36% 6%
If You Build It - ACUITY 38% 53% 19% 46%
American Income Life 37% 11% 26% 65%
New York Life 37% 93% 7% 29%
State Farm Latino 37% 65% 54% 0%
The Insurance Social Index (ISI)
Data for the past three months
8. —Social Media and Insurance Page 8
Social Notes
LIBERTY MUTUAL boosted its social promotional budget af-
ter a relatively quiet Q4. Its 34 January posts attracted 900,000
interactions. All except one post was a “stock image inspira-
tional message” offering no further content. The ’other’ post –
tips on winter fire safety - gained just 650 interactions from 2
million followers.
ALLSTATE LATINO is running a campaign #AbuelaTips
(grandmother tips) which, while proving engaging, are not
growing followers. The normalized engagement rate of 33%
compares to its 6 month average of 15%.
THE HARTFORD was one of the few insurers to use promot-
ed tweets to offer advice in anticipation of the #JUNO snow
blizzard. The ‘snow storm of the decade’ did not deliver as
expected (unless you live on the North Shore of Boston) but
social media was buzzing with help from brands. On Twitter,
Citrix promoted GoToMyPC, its work-from-home product,
Subaru talked up 4 wheel drive cars, hotels chirped on the ben-
efits of staying in town and even Charmin promoted $1 cou-
pons to help stock up with essentials. Largely missing were
insurance companies with storm preparation advice, winter
driving tips and the things people seek almost as much as bot-
tled water on these occasions. THE HARTFORD and LEX-
INGTON INSURANCE promoted tweets while TRAVELERS
emailed customers encouraging them to “stay connected and
receive updates” by following it on social media platforms.
ALLSTATE wrapped up its Mayhem Sugar Bowl pro-
motion that focused on ill-advised “away from home”
social media postings. The campaign added 25,000
new followers to the MAYHEM Twitter feed.
GERBER LIFE added an average of 75 new Twitter
followers every day since the start of the campaign to
find the next Gerber baby. Parents submitted pictures
of darling toddlers using the hashtag #gerberbaby
even well after the contest ended. Gerber Life added
20,000 Facebook fans up to the end of the contest
(2% growth) but Twitter entries keep flowing and fol-
lowers jumped by almost 4,000 (56% increase).
Google Plus does not get a lot of plaudits and while
most insurers have grabbed pages on the platform,
interactions rates are, in general, abysmal. Colonial
Life as the latest to stakes its claim but for the year to
date it has received no “likes (+1’s) possibly not sur-
prising given its 7 followers. NORTHWESTERN MU-
TUAL is the latest firm to step back platform posting
after struggling to build any following.
While most social media groups struggle to build C-
Suite buy-in, the team at AFLAC have no such prob-
lem. Two years ago, CMO Michael Zuna,
(interview at Forbes CMO Summit) said he was skep-
tical of ROI from Twitter. He said he would not
“blindly chase the latest shiny object” Fast forward to
this month, “There’s more precision now, more data
around social that makes me feel more comfortable, I
wish I could go faster.”
Insurers traditionally play significant roles in local
communities and social media helps spread news. It is
typical for messages to be initially spread by employ-
ees. WOODMEN OF THE WORLD lit its head office
tower in shining pink to support cancer awareness and
then orange and blue to promote World Cancer Day.
On each occasion Facebook posts promoting the
lighting gained significantly higher interactions than
usual. SYMETRA showed its support for the Seattle
Seahawks and was rewarded with its most engaged
post of the year by a factor of 50.
The Hartford was one of the few insurers to
promote tweets ahead of the #Juno winter storm
to offer claims advice (from Marketwatch )
9. —Social Media and Insurance Page 9
style test with posts on winter driving tips. The first
was a post promoting blog content hosted by Trusted
Choice containing tips from Triple A. The second post
was advice hosted on its own blog—Westbendcares.
Its own post was the clear winner for Facebook inter-
actions but the real win came from blog sharing under-
lying the value of hosting content on owned proper-
ties. Over 300 social shares came from the blog with
Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter preferred in that or-
der.
Insurers are creating more in-depth advice for agents
and business customers and using social media con-
nections for wider distribution. FOREMOST is offering
a free course on how to identify and prevent auto in-
surance fraud. STATE AUTO’S latest initiative is a pod-
cast series providing fleet operator education. ACUITY
CEO Ben Salzmann is providing industry insights in a
video presentation which was promoted with its own
Hollywood style movie trailer.
Social Advice
Advice based social posts and tweets are the bread and butter
for P&C engagement. GRANGE INSURANCE created a new
theme, “Insurance 101” and MAPFRE, who has been quiet on
social media launched a new initiative with advice and Face-
book hosted videos (“Ever wonder how to change a tire?”)
Neither company currently host blogs so restricted to real
estate on the post graphic. PEKIN introduced a new tactic,
asking coverage questions with the correct answer in a later
post. Answers/guesses could be posted as a comments but
maybe it is asking too much, people might be interested in the
advice but insurance QA spread over time is not exactly Jeop-
ardy – responses were limited to say the least.
SHELTER INSURANCE is one of the perennial top perform-
ers in advice based posts and these prove very popular with
its agents who share them with customers. Shelter does not
host a separate blog but provides deeper content by adapting
the news section of its website for the purpose. One lesson to
take away from recent SHELTER activity. Agents like to mix
up the content and not simply push a constant stream of ad-
vice to customers. The most shared recent post on the Shelter
page is a recipe for Strawberry brownies.
New content is a struggle but insurers do not need to be cre-
ate it all. Curated content is highly valuable and while it is not
as valuable as driving customers to your own website, it can
be useful to ascertain interest. STATE AUTO shared Ohio In-
surance Institute’s advice about deer collisions and BANKERS
LIFE provided links to a Consumers Report blog post on
winter driving. WEST BEND perhaps were running an A/B
Shelter Insurance mixing up the content to grow shares
West Bend gained more shares from the blog post
than from the social platform posts and messages
10. —Social Media and Insurance Page 10
Social at the Super Bowl
PRUDENTIAL heavily promoted a Facebook post draw-
ing attention to the number of people watching that had
also witnessed the first football season in 1920. Using the
hashtag, #LivingLonger, the post attracted 60,000 inter-
actions including 4,000 shares, the best performing post
for Prudential for over a year.
PROGRESSIVE’S corporate page pushed interactions up
from a monthly average of 3,000 to well over 17,000 fea-
turing its Marshawn Lynch Super Bowl ad.
PEMCO took its Seahawks Super Bowl 48 campaign
and doubled the stakes for SB49. This years’ campaign
sought 24,000 fan images and 48000 signatures for a
12,000 square foot banner to be flown over the stadium.
The campaign Facebook post earned 7,000 Facebook
interactions and added 1,000 new followers. On Twitter,
the follower count was unchanged but the campaign
hashtag #12sFly was used 1,200 times. Check out the
campaign video.
AMERICAN FAMILY INSURANCE ran a regional Super
Bowl ad and staffed a social media “war room” for the
game. Using the hashtag #DreamFearlessly, the team
asked for, and listened to people’s dreams, linked to the
TV ads and other related videos on YouTube and Vines.
The goal was to drive people to a new website—Digital
DreamBank. The hashtag was used 6,400 times with
over 7 million potential impressions and the Twitter feed
added 4,000 new followers (up to 41,200).
Who would have thought that an insurance company would
air the most controversial TV commercial of the Super Bowl?
That was the question posed by a major ad journal but as
ESURANCE arguably did the same thing last year, maybe in-
surance is now the most likely to be at the forefront of inno-
vative marketing. As to the ad which I am sure you have all
seen (click here to view), NATIONWIDE defended its choice
to discuss a child's death saying it wanted to start the conver-
sation about safety and prevention.
In pure social media terms, NATIONWIDE was the most-
mentioned advertiser on social media during Super Bowl
XLIX. The company’s Facebook page, after a period of rela-
tively stagnant follower growth, added almost 10,000 fans and
moved up to 82,000. Over 7,000 comments were posted to
the page which generally attracts a handful each day. In addi-
tion, over 2,000 user started posts, another option for con-
sumers to express opinions were added. On Twitter, over
4,000 followers were added even though NATIONWIDE
stopped tweeting for 10 days with the exception of replying
to incoming messages of which there were over 1,600. Men-
tions of NATIONWIDE on Twitter jumped from an average
of a few thousands a day to over 5 million. On YouTube,
subscribers to the company’s channel leaped up from 3,700
to 6,500 with 7 million video views of the ad attracting 7,000
comments. The video received 10,000 likes and 19,000 dis-
likes roughly in line with findings from Amobee, a marketing
intelligence company who found that 64% of the mentions
about NATIONWIDE were negative with just 12% positive.
The campaign hashtag #makesafehappen was used over
7,000 times.
Nationwide Insurance Super Bowl Facebook activityAmerican Family Twitter followers around the Super Bowl
11. —Social Media and Insurance Page 11
Come to the Twitter Party
Consumers want information and advice regarding personal fi-
nance. In the past this was when the local advisor could expect a
phone call. But times have changed. There are now more chan-
nels for consumers to seek advice, one of which is the growing
body of online influencers. Many influencers have no formal
qualification but have built trusted reputations among large num-
bers of followers. One especially active group of influencers are
‘mommy bloggers’ who are, and who speak with, young mothers.
Sun Life in Canada teamed up with the wonderfully named Yum-
my Mummy Club to offer ‘Twitter Parties’ - hashtag based chats
devoted to subjects such as the recent topic -retirement planning.
Twitter parties allow participants to ask questions but also re-
spond to questions about their own experiences.
The Yummy Mummy Club has 38,500 Twitter followers and
45,000 Facebook fans so they have an audience. The appeal for
Sun Life participation is obvious, hosting events for hundreds of
people wanting to chat about a topic that aligns well with the
company’s products. As is usual, the ‘party’ offered cash prizes as
incentives to follow the club and Sun Life on Twitter. For the
retirement party, this was three pre-paid credit cards each worth
$300.
The hashtag (#Moneyforlife) was used over 5,000 times in the
party and over 300 attendees chose to follow Sun Life on Twitter.
During the event, Sun Life largely took a back seat but did find
70 opportune moments that warranted passing on links to
webpages to “find an advisor” or its relevant calculators and in-
formation. The YummyMummyClub was generous in its praise
for Sun Life’s sponsorship including posting many brand images.
Twitter chats/parties can be used for lead generations but they
also offer tremendous listening opportunities. In the retirement
Twitter party, the question prompting most comments was
“What do you think are some common pitfalls when it comes to
financial planning? And the most common response? “Not hav-
ing a plan and not saving for emergencies”. Advisors dream of
finding people that laments their own lack of financial planning.
Twitter parties shows that those people are out there but they are
not making that phone call and not taking the traditional steps in
order to make changes.
Sun Life Twitter party run by Tummy Mummy Club
New followers to Sun Life Canada Twitter account
The hashtag was used on over 5,000 tweets
12. —Social Media and Insurance Page 12
Table Ordered by Normalized Interactions
per Post for the Month Change
Month
as % of
average
Total
Interac-
tions
3mths
Total
Shares
3mths
Shares
as % of
TI
3mths
Normalized Inter-
actions (NI)
Pages > 100,000 fans
NI per
Post Fans Month 3mths Month 3mths
Ameriprise 2.85% 106,857 4.0% 10.92% 22.8% 28.2% 82% 87,127 7033 8.1%
Prudential BYC 2.24% 256,244 2.1% 15.89% 26.9% 32.3% 112% 238,734 26033 10.9%
State Farm Latino 1.51% 238,765 0.5% 0.80% 33.2% 19.5% 216% 139,122 4918 3.5%
AFLAC Duck 1.32% 548,881 2.7% 7.18% 30.4% 31.1% 100% 502,513 40583 8.1%
Liberty Mutual Insurance 1.28% 1,990,203 0.6% 1.81% 43.6% 25.9% 150% 1,538,758 86431 5.6%
Mayhem (Allstate) 0.68% 1,866,443 1.9% 2.02% 9.5% 8.9% 125% 490,883 54142 11.0%
Esurance 0.51% 383,731 2.2% 5.56% 18.5% 13.5% 137% 152,065 10809 7.1%
The Hartford 0.50% 120,925 0.5% 2.86% 18.5% 16.2% 193% 58,280 7919 13.6%
Progressive Insurance 0.40% 342,329 1.6% 6.97% 5.2% 2.1% 272% 21,587 5900 27.3%
Mass Mutual 0.35% 136,317 0.5% 4.59% 13.2% 69.6% 31% 280,789 30480 10.9%
Thrivent Financial 0.30% 414,112 1.4% 9.70% 7.0% 7.9% 111% 95,640 18547 19.4%
Mouvement Desjardins 0.25% 149,564 0.5% 7.27% 7.1% 7.3% 103% 32,165 9281 28.9%
Soy La Mala Suerte 0.24% 217,408 0.0% 0.16% 1.2% 3.6% 20% 23,219 813 3.5%
State Farm Insurance 0.21% 1,806,739 0.3% 1.18% 8.5% 8.3% 115% 446,447 32006 7.2%
American Family 0.11% 246,103 0.1% 1.16% 3.3% 12.1% 31% 89,382 9165 10.3%
Allstate Motorcycle 0.10% 183,754 0.0% 0.08% 3.0% 2.5% 96% 13,809 3383 24.5%
USAA 0.06% 760,656 0.5% 4.98% 2.0% 18.8% 15% 424,538 43173 10.2%
Transamerica 0.06% 503,268 0.0% 0.08% 1.2% 2.2% 49% 32,784 8149 24.9%
Flo, The Progressive Girl 0.06% 5,433,346 0.1% 0.14% 1.1% 1.5% 73% 249,989 31550 12.6%
MetLife 0.05% 639,514 0.5% 2.40% 1.1% 8.8% 18% 167,975 21450 12.8%
Safeco 0.05% 157,070 0.1% 0.85% 0.9% 1.4% 18% 6,674 1785 26.7%
Allstate 0.04% 429,445 0.6% 1.74% 1.3% 2.0% 55% 25,322 8660 34.2%
Gerber Life 0.04% 986,935 2.8% 6.29% 2.3% 2.6% 90% 74,166 1140 1.5%
New York Life 0.03% 610,522 3.0% 5.86% 1.3% 1.7% 68% 29,676 4197 14.1%
California Casualty 0.02% 105,537 -0.1% 3.34% 0.4% 1.0% 32% 2,992 1247 41.7%
The Gecko (GEICO) 0.02% 313,572 -0.1% -0.14% 0.4% 0.6% 54% 6,009 474 7.9%
Genworth 0.01% 139,977 -0.1% 0.34% 0.1% 0.2% 31% 951 187 19.7%
Farmers Insurance 0.01% 2,251,868 0.0% 0.11% 0.4% 1.2% 29% 83,586 24756 29.6%
GEICO 0.01% 413,665 1.1% 2.51% 0.2% 0.3% 80% 3,078 404 13.1%
21st Century Insurance 0.01% 126,289 0.0% 0.15% 0.1% 0.1% 101% 425 35 8.2%
Table Key
Change Fan change in month and for past 3 months
NI per Post Normalized Interactions—(Shares+Comments+Likes) divided by fan count and number of posts to determine the ex-
pected interaction for each post
NI Normalized Interactions—(Shares+Comments+Likes) for the month irrespective of the number of posts divided by fan
count. For March, and past 3 months
Month as % of Average Normalized Interactions (NI) for the month as a percentage of the average NI rate. Indicates spikey activity
20. —Social Media and Insurance Page 20
Company Twitter Name
Follow-
ers
Fastest Follower Growth for the Month (minimum 1,000 followers) Month Change
Tweets in
the month
AllState - Mayhem Mayhem 81,758 43% 121
Gerber Life gerberlife 8,980 25% 230
Nationwide Insurance Nationwide 39,365 11% 154
Liberty Mutual LibertyB2B 30,170 8% 63
Sun Life (Canada) SunLifeCA 5,094 8% 134
Prudential News PrudentialNews 8,254 8% 71
New York Life NewYorkLife 191,201 7% 99
Equitable Life of Canada equitablelife 1,036 6% 99
Prudential BYC PrudentialBYC 47,318 6% 47
Allianz Life AllianzLife 1,280 5% 75
Fastest Follower growth past 3 months (min 1,000 followers) 3 month Change
Average
Monthly
Tweet Rate
Gerber Life Corp 8,980 50% 201
AllState - Mayhem Mascot 81,758 43% 43
Zurich North America Corp 34,282 38% 82
Prudential News News 8,254 31% 49
Auto Owners Corp 1,214 29% 29
State Farm of Canada Corp 16,389 23% 149
Prudential BYC Corp 47,318 23% 36
Protective Life Corp 2,213 22% 191
Sun Life (Canada) Corp 5,094 19% 191
New York Life Corp 191,201 17% 128
Most Active Tweeters in the month Type Month Change Tweets
GEICO Customer Service Help 3,994 1% 800
Jake from State Farm Mascot 31,200 2% 700
Pet Plan Pet 15,900 2% 700
Cigna Corp 13,950 2% 600
State Farm Insurance Corp 64,384 2% 561
Allstate Cares Help 2,655 4% 458
USAA Help Help 13,178 1% 443
American Family Corp 37,914 2% 375
PEMCO Corp 4,417 2% 359
Allstate Insurance Corp 54,451 3% 348
Twitter Table Key
Follower Change Change in followers for past Month, and past 3 months
Tweet Rate Number of tweets per month for month and average per month and past 3 months
23. —Social Media and Insurance Page 23
Change Pin Change
Foll Mth 3 Mths Pins Mth 3 Mths
Horace Mann 7,627 6% 14% 3093 6% 20%
American Family 4,521 2% 7% 2196 0% -1%
California Casualty 3,149 2% 9% 5436 0% 1%
USAA 3,139 1% 4% 627 1% 1%
Tech Timeout (Foresters) 2,184 0% 4450% 142 1% 6%
Transamerica 1,638 1% 3% 1395 -7% 0%
Esurance 1,514 0% 0% 444 3% 5%
Allstate 1,102 3% 8% 886 1% -3%
American Collectors Insurance 866 1% 1% 1470 0% 0%
PEMCO 585 2% 6% 3426 4% 17%
Mass Mutual 538 3% 35% 316 -23% 30%
Cigna Together 537 8% 14% 995 7% 15%
Farmers 460 3% 13% 588 3% 19%
Perfect Circle 394 1% 3% 2770 0% 0%
Liberty National Life 360 1% 6% 2608 1% 3%
Thrivent 311 1% 6% 315 9% 9%
American Income Life 308 6% 9% 1767 1% 4%
Northwestern Mutual 252 5% 22% 346 18% 35%
Need more data? Get the industry data for:
Facebook
Twitter
For other platform data, please contact us
Pinterest is one of the fastest growing social networks but it
may have lost some of its momentum. Pinterest delivers 5%
of total visits to websites (the second best social platform for
referrals after Facebook) but that is down from its high in
March 2014 at 7%. A few insurers initially jumped on the
platform creating incentives to grow followers but for most
this has waned. Pinterest leader Horace Mann however is as
committed as ever and gives the platform pride of place on
its website home page.
24. —Social Media and Insurance Page 24
Follower
Change
(3 Months)
Follower Change (3 Months)
Followers Employees Non-Empl Employees
Non Employ-
ees as % of
AIG 14% 155,438 44,062 20% 2% 72%
SwissRe 14% 77,222 8,929 16% 2% 88%
GEICO 13% 28,696 11,832 20% 4% 59%
ZurichNA 12% 51,830 7,117 13% 1% 86%
Great-West Life 11% 10,195 5,318 20% 4% 48%
American Modern 11% 3,055 753 13% 4% 75%
Western & Southern Life 10% 1,971 1,048 17% 5% 47%
Foremost 10% 6,148 484 11% 0% 92%
Encompass 10% 3,145 648 12% 2% 79%
Allianz Life of NA 10% 16,535 3,122 12% 2% 81%
Grinnell Mutual 10% 1,091 419 15% 2% 62%
Guardian Life 10% 14,085 4,761 15% 1% 66%
American Income Life 9% 6,783 3,526 16% 4% 48%
Alfa 9% 3,517 1,358 14% 3% 61%
Auto-Owners 9% 7,008 1,831 11% 4% 74%
Travelers 9% 113,614 23,427 11% 2% 79%
RBC Insurance 9% 8,253 2,036 11% 2% 75%
The Co-operators 9% 8,817 3,480 15% 0% 61%
Lincoln Financial 8% 20,228 5,838 11% 3% 71%
CNA Insurance 8% 23,935 5,091 10% 2% 79%
Acuity 8% 3,650 781 9% 5% 79%
Bankers Life 8% 11,667 4,814 13% 2% 59%
Chubb 8% 39,613 7,348 10% 1% 81%
Securian 8% 5,159 1,531 10% 3% 70%
Great American 8% 10,652 1,828 9% 5% 83%
American National 8% 4,220 1,995 13% 3% 53%
AON 8% 74,860 13,150 9% 2% 82%
The Cincinnati Insurance Companies 8% 5,523 2,154 12% 2% 61%
MetLife 8% 131,073 33,955 10% 3% 74%
AXA US 8% 31,080 3,020 9% -1% 90%
Esurance 8% 14,159 1,826 8% 4% 87%
Sun Life 8% 60,525 15,237 10% 2% 75%
New Jersey Manufacturers 8% 1,632 756 13% 2% 54%
Amica 8% 4,883 1,699 11% 2% 65%
Erie Insurance 7% 9,230 2,984 9% 4% 68%
Combined 7% 7,510 2,592 9% 4% 65%
John Hancock 7% 21,955 5,025 10% 0% 77%
Prudential Financial 7% 60,931 18,599 10% 2% 69%
Progressive 7% 36,105 15,412 11% 2% 57%
RSA Canada 7% 7,481 1,389 8% 3% 81%
Horace Mann 7% 4,865 702 8% 2% 86%
Safeco 7% 14,321 2,847 9% 0% 80%
25. —Social Media and Insurance Page 25
Around The Horn
Some key takeaways from “Social Media, Digital Communica-
tions and Compliance” at the FINRA Advertising Regulation
Conference.
From Shayna Beck, senior manager of retail communications
at VANGUARD:
The hype is over on social media. Instead of leading with
social, we lead with ‘here’s the message’ and ‘how should
we distribute it?’
A big challenge is measuring ROI for corporate social
media programs. Although there are easy things you can
measure like number of fans, once you have a mature pro-
gram, you need to measure the value that social brings to
the organization. This is not easy but like PR, you can’t
measure it, but you have to do it.
From Ted Newton, assistant vice president advertising review
at MASS MUTUAL:
The biggest challenge is bandwidth. MassMutual allows
agents to post pre-approved content to social platforms.
However, agents want to create their own posts. Compli-
ance is grappling with how to supervise the personal mes-
sages of more than 5,000 agents.
The future lies with mobile and meeting the challenge of
how millennials want to interact with the industry. Life
insurance is sold face to face, but the industry must adapt
to the new generation’s preference to interact socially and
have meetings virtually.
CNN recently ran a feature on auto insurance companies that
put pressure on auto repair shops to use old or reconditioned
parts. The topic was boosted by key CNN presenters, such as
Anderson Cooper (516,000 Twitter followers) as well as CNN
itself (16 million followers). Tweets included ‘
Are some car insurance companies putting profits ahead of your
safety?’
‘2 attys gen say some insurance companies are ripping you off on
accident repairs’
Auto insurers accused of pushing cheap and sometimes dangerous
repairs’
The tweets were retweeted hundreds of times with
many insurers specifically mentioned. The question is
whether insurers should respond? In the event, we
found no evidence of insurers stepping in even though
we did find plenty of body shops and lawyers doing so.
According to a report by Shareaholic, social media is
responsible for over 30% of all website referral traffic,
up from 22% the previous year. In December 2014 so-
cial referrals exceeded those from search but with the
social referral rate erratic, the bigger story might be the
consistent drop in search referrals. Facebook dominates
website referral and even growing on its leadership po-
sition. Of all social referrals, Facebook is responsible
for almost 80% and the combined efforts of Twitter,
StumbleUpon, Reddit, GooglePlus, LinkedIn and
YouTube is just 5%.
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