Shortcuts to Social Media: Top 4 Resources for Agents
The following article is a guest post by InsuranceJournal.tv contributor Rick Morgan, chair of the Agents Council for Technology (ACT) Web 2.0 workgroup. Rick is also SVP of Aartrijk (a branding firm serving insurance-related firms) and serves as chair of the insurance branding event, Brand Camp.
The connected consumer expects insurance brands (including independent agents) to engage and communicate with them in social networks and in the ways they prefer.
Agents are and must be their own brands. But when do you find the time to engage? You’re probably tired of hearing that you need a blog, you need to be active building and engaging your Facebook community, you need a business profile on LinkedIn and Google+, you need to Tweet every day, and now you need to have a Pinterest account. You may be protesting: “Enough!”
Yet, when you listen to agents Ryan Hanley and Chris Paradiso (among others) who point to more than 20 percent revenue gains directly attributed to social initiatives, you know you want to be doing something more with social media.
Yes, you are busy. You don’t have time to be doing all this social media stuff, much less figure out exactly how to start and/or create an effective strategy to realistically implement. You’re not alone. But you can tap others’ experience and knowledge (via free resources) and take the shortcuts they’ve already created.
Here are the top four resources I have found helpful, informative and educational to create and implement insurance social and digital marketing plans:
Busy? Yes. But with all this available help, there are no more excuses. It’s time to ramp up your social activity.
One more resource that’s local to our industry: Aartrijk Brand Camp, which provides the forum for solution-focused discussion of key challenges facing insurance organizations. Brand Camp puts people from agencies, brokers, carriers, trade associations, and vendors with various backgrounds in a room together. The ideas bang against each other and result in intriguing concepts that interest and motivate today’s brand decision-makers and business leaders.