Social media is not out of the infancy stage, yet we are already starting to witness a transition to what might be the next step in how insurers approach the topic.
Shouting at the Crowd
Social Media is an opportunity for companies to engage with customers, to become more transparent, open and personal. Most companies, not just insurers, have recruited Twitter and Facebook followers steadily, nurturing a new relationship, careful not to come across as too “corporate”. Good social media behavior dictates that you develop a network of fans building trust; these fans become loyal customers and after some ritualistic mating period, may even become brand advocates. This is not completely natural for insurers who can struggle to understand how, why or even if they want to establish an intimate relationship with so many consumers about complex and frankly unpopular products.
USAA has long been regarded an advertisement for “good” social media; they have attracted fans with whom they actively engage, discussing products and relevant subjects such as the potential government shutdown. They trust fans to publically rate and review their products and services. For USAA, this has not been an overnight success: it has taken over two years, during which time they added Facebook fans at a monthly growth rate rarely exceeding 8% or dropping below 6%. They have shunned sweepstakes or any incentives to recruit fans yet more than 172,000 have joined them. The level of engagement is impressive and fans regularly start more than 2,000 new and relevant discussions on the USAA Facebook page every month.
But there is another way. Recently, Farmers Insurance collaborated with the producer of the very popular Facebook social game ‘Farmville’. The campaign lasted not 2 years but 24 hours from midnight on 23 June. During this period, the company was adding new fans, in exchange for virtual gifts, at the rate of 100,000 per hour and at midnight on the 24th, they had amassed an additional TWO MILLION fans.
Is this the beginning of a new departure in social media? Farmers rented a crowd, but is that a bad thing? Clearly, the relationship between Farmers’ and these fans does not compare to USAA and you can expect some, possibly many fans to drift away. This Facebook generation is hard to reach through traditional marketing and Farmers have a window of opportunity to influence this group and potentially their friends. With each fan having an average of 130 friends, and the Farmville crowd will far exceed this, the reach (albeit temporarily) is a staggering 286 million consumers – so forget the SuperBowl. Farmers is the latest and certainly the most extreme example but every month, at least one insurer has a big spike in Twitter or Facebook followers and this is almost always the result of ads or other traditional marketing techniques (and money).
So is social media about transparency and creating a dialogue with customers; is it about changing the way we do business or a relatively inexpensive way (to date) to reach large numbers of potential customers? We want your input; this is an important debate for all insurers. Facebook, Twitter and Linked all need revenue and ads are becoming more important, where do you sit in this debate, what is the better short and long-term strategy?
In the 90’s a John Gray wrote the book “Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus”. The book sold over 50 million copies and became the de facto way of demonstrating different
Insurers are from Mars, Agents are from Venus
viewpoints. This book came to mind while I was researching the relationship between insurance carriers and local agents in social media. The key point is that carriers and agents need each other and social media provides a great – if as yet underused – way to improve their relationships.
Insurers struggle with attracting “fans” on social media (maybe the manufacturers of Preparation-H have a harder task) but why would anyone want to be a fan of their insurance company? It would be after all a pretty sad reflection on your social status. Consequently, insurers swap “likes” for rewards such as sweepstake entries or charitable donations. Whether or not these are true fans remains a largely unanswered question.
After recruiting fans, insurers struggle to maintain meaningful conversations. It is like being seated next to the local insurance agent at a dinner party – and we all know how that goes. To counter this lack of natural banter, insurers often engage with trivial topics (and all these are real) such as “the most underappreciated musical instrument”, “favorite 1980s movies”, and “Cheerios or Cheetos”. To be honest, watching insurers in social media is a bit like watching a sixth-grade dance.
Now look at the agents’ perspective. Social media is a sales tool; it is a way to connect with existing customers and generate referrals. Social media is an extension of how they think and work. Agents have no hesitation in recruiting friends on Facebook or LinkedIn. Engaging with contacts on social media or at the Rotary Club is just part of a normal day.
Ryan Hanley of the Murray Group agency in Albany epitomizes this approach. His number one objective is to retain existing customers. This requires excellent customer service, approach-ability and always being in touch. His second objective is to grow through referrals so a good reputation is vital. Hanley never wanted to be a social media expert; he is an agent but resourceful and accomplished enough to write a blog and is comfortable with social media platforms. He routinely asks his customer if they are on social media, and if so, seeks permission to ‘friend them’. As a personal request, this is usually accepted. He writes blog posts to help his customers and posts messages with strong local interest. He is not trying to sell but deepen relationships. He takes advantage of the fact that Facebook distributes any dialogue he has with his friends to their network, thereby publicizing the relationship.
Hanley takes the referral process further by targeting Facebook ads at the friends of his current network including the name and picture of their mutual friend. He only pays for clicks and limits his spend to $3 a day, providing him with three clicks of which about one a day develops into a prospect.
If it is so simple, why doesn’t every agent do this? The answer is just as simple – they are not Hanley. Not every agent has the ability or desire to write blogs or the time to post messages every day. This is where insurers and agents could really help each other: insurers need social media fan recruitment, and agents need content. It is a natural fit yet few insurers have developed programs to create an influence channel. It is an extension of how the industry already works but sometimes the shiny new toy can blind us from the obvious.
They may have different viewpoints but agents and insurers could better harness the power of social media to help them achieve their common goals.
This article is adapted from one printed in SocialEyes – for more information visit www.customerrespect.com/socialeyes
As news revolves around Facebook privacy, the platform continues to occupy pole position in the minds of many insurance companies. The length of time a consumer spends on Facebook and the ability to develop a sophisticated online presence have been attractive for a while but the feature gaining most attention is the ‘LIKE’ button. Insurance agents have long preferred referrals to leads and the like button promises to deliver. American Family are one of the industry pioneers in understanding and supporting the button. On individual agent Facebook pages, consumers are encouraged to ‘LIKE the agent’ (or the company); this has the effect of posting a message to their friends indicting this ‘recommendation’ and providing a convenient link to the agents Facebook page – very neat.
The number of recommendations of an agent or the brand depends on the use of the button but more on the number of fans; as a result, we are starting to see strategic recruitment efforts from some companies.
The leading Facebook fan pages for companies are:
| Company | Fans |
| USAA | 77686 |
| Allstate | 17800 |
| Thrivent Financial | 14442 |
| State Farm Insurance | 14393 |
| GEICO | 13758 |
| American Family | 10181 |
| Progressive Insurance | 9972 |
| Anthem Footprint | 6080 |
| Nationwide | 5191 |
| NorthWestern Mutual | 4051 |
There are other pages devoted to popular brand images or campaigns, not all of which controlled by the brand owner (an interesting discussion for another day). The numbers can be impressive, the question is how many are true fans of the products. Some of the leaders are:
| Brand Image | Fans |
| Flo, The Progressive Girl | 507500 |
| The AFLAC Duck | 171515 |
| Nationwide NASCAR Racing | 21142 |
| GEICO, The Pothole | 12562 |
| Ahamoment (Mutual of Omaha) | 2030 |
Movers and Shakers
With average recruitment growth across the industry running about 8 percent per month, pages that exceed this number typically indicates a campaign or change in strategy. The fastest growing average monthly growth (over the past 3 months assuming a minimum of 250 fans) are:
| Ahamoment (Mutual of Omaha) | 128% |
| New York Life | 92% |
| Anthem Health Footprint | 32% |
| Amica Mutual | 17% |
| State Farm Insurance | 14% |
