How can Facebook help an insurance provider. We have seen recently, a slow but steady dribble of companies establishing their Facebook outpost but with a few exceptions they are little more than placeholders for a future as yet undetermined strategy. American Family however has taken a bolder approach, and part of that boldness is to announce what they are doing.

American Family Insurance agents are local business leaders and prominent sponsors of community events, athletics and local celebrations. They are trusted local advisors with strong community ties and local relationships. Their activity in local communities is vast. But their activities within online communities? Minimal. American Family has committed to putting 4,000+ local agents on Facebook in less than 12 months.

Amfam has worked to energize employees; launch a corporate Facebook page; developed custom Facebook applications; and launched Facebook pages to reconnect our local agents with their online community.

According to Amfam “Growth in the insurance industry is dominated by large online competitors, with large budgets. Traditional local selling tactics (cold calling, local ads, directory listing) have proven ineffective for local agents.”, the company goes on to say that “The most effective marketing tool for agents? The referral of a friends, family member, or informed stranger. The best source of new business for local agents is a pre-existing relationship.”

According to research, 65% of their target market uses social media more than news sites (51%) to stay informed.

The Business goals for Amfam are:

• Empower local agents by making them available to customers, prospects and each other using Facebook;
• Engage customers in conversations on Facebook and build advocacy among influencers;
• Provide social tools on Facebook that enhance marketing information and improve the success of traditional prospecting tactics.

In the last Insurance Facebook Index on this blog, Amfam placed 6th in insurnace companies with a strong corporate presence but as yet with a smaller fan base than other companies. Having said that the fan base increased at a rate of 33% over the previous month and now reads over 4100 as they move up the table.

Connecting agents with leads is one of the high priority goals of most providers, has Amfam stolen a quick lead?