Twitter continues to be used by most insurers to provide soft marketing messages about promotions, sponsorships and customer endorsements. Other activities include financial quizzes, insurance related education materials, warnings regarding impended natural disasters and Facebook announcements. Some insurers do respond publically to customer questions but, largely, this is not the significant activity. Some of the direct auto insurers have created separate customer-service twitter identities but their primary identities are still more prominent. In a previous post, I referred to a poll run on behalf of the Red Cross indicating a 1 hour response time is becoming the customer expectation and most insurers are simply not geared up to deliver at that level. One overriding goal for many insurers is to have a dialog with consumers and customers outside of their traditional periods, the policy payment and a claim.  

USAA continues to lead the follower count and while their growth rate has slowed, they were able with an early entry to establish a solid follower base. It is not as if USAA pound the twittersphere with information, being consistently low volume tweeters. On the other hand, State Farm has always been up there at or near the top of the tweet count. A possible surprise is Travelers managing just 8 tweets a month but growing the follower base by 46%. Part of this is due to a consolidation of Twitter activity into a new corporate identity.

Overall the number of tweet has growth within the industry with the average now at 69 per month, up substantially from just 6 months ago at just about half that number.

The movers and shakers and people to keep an eye on include Farmers with a 88% increase in followers over the past 3 months from an already strong base. New York Life and Westfield have impressive growth rates but from initially low numbers implying a new focus and effort on social media. This is certainly the case at New York Life who have also burst on the scene with Facebook.

Leaders by Number of Followers 

Leaders by 3 month Growth

Leaders by Average Tweet Activity

Average tweets per month over the past 3 months

Follow me, I am an exciting Insurance Company

Twitter has been adopted into many roles for insurers as they look to understand and exploit the technology. In a recent survey of insurers, we found that all of the companies engaged with a social media strategy see Twitter as playing a role. So what are they using Twitter for?

As a driver to other forms of content.

Some insurers have build and established blogs, microsites, financial guides and task-focused calculators as ‘Tweet’ destinations. Active in this endeavor include @libertymutual and @allstate with extensive blogs. Online calculators and quote tools are promoted by tweets by @farmersgroup and @newyorklife. @Chubb has been relentlessly promoting their new Facebook site.

To deliver news

Typically these accounts push out news items, often manned by and PR groups and directing links back to corporate websites. PR groups typically do not follow many people and have a low level of conversation. Examples are @USAA_News, @ThriventMedia and @AMFAM_media. Not all of the news relates to the company with Fathers Day and the USA soccer team recently coming in for comments.

To provide customer service

Twitter has a role in reaching out to customers. Used primarily in other industries including BestBuy, Comcast and AT&T, it has started to appear in insurance where it is most prominent in the auto segment. As this use matures, we are seeing more specific twitter identities being added by companies for this role. @Ask_progressive, @GEICO_Service and @esurancecares are three examples even though the primary Twitter identities still field a lot of service questions. There is a high level of  individual conversations and few tweets sent to the entire follower base. To preserve privacy and enable private messages, there is a little ritual mating game played where both partied ‘follow’ each other. Caseloads can be estimated by follower counts. The twitter identity @Progressive, which has been used for customer service sent 80% of the messages to individuals.

To promote sponsorships and events

Last summer, there was tremendous activity in sponsorship activity and we can expect the same increased activity levels again this summer. NASCAR, tennis, baseball and golf are popular sporting themes from insurers including @Nationwide, @StateFarm and @TheHartford. @Metlifeblimp provides updates of every location visited and @NewYorklife promotes events at the Bronx Zoo.

To develop a brand image

Some insurers are creating or enhancing brand images, often going a long way to ‘stay in character’. The @Aflackduck and @TheGEICOGEEKO are good examples. Mutual of Omaha is developing its @ahamoment image.

Provide claims information

After snow, rain, hail storms, after flooding or other natural disasters, insurers are sympathizing with their customers but also providing links to claims groups set up to handle the event. Active in this category include @Progressive, @amfam and @allstate.

To acknowledge compliments

Tweeters, for some reason, seem very inclined to compliment brands on good service or products. Maybe it’s because they can. Compliments are captured and ‘retweeted’ often with a ‘thank you’ message. @StateFarm, @amfam are active in this category

The Numbers 

With so many objectives, it is hard to compare success metrics. One simple measure is the number of followers; another is the customer service ‘cases’ started (or closed). PR and media groups tend to measure ‘influence’ or ‘reach’ adding their followers to those of anyone that ‘re-tweets’ them.

So looking at the simplest measure, followers, here is the latest set of tables.

The Leaders in Follower Count

USAA, as always beloved by its customers, have led this table for a year now and it will hard to see them getting dislodged. State Farm is the ‘energizer bunny’ of insurance tweeters. They just keep tweeting away adding to their follower count, utilizing most of the strategies listed above.

Movers and Shakers

The average monthly follower growth is about nine percent; movers and shakers exceed this number, and restricting ourselves to companies with at least 500 followers, we can predict new strategies or staffing. Farmers takes the latest best ‘mover and shaker’ title with 1525 followers in June, up from just over 200 in March. Chubb is a company to keep your eyes on; they have increased social media activity on Twitter, Facebook, and crowd sourcing. The following companies have increased the follower count the most, as a percentage, in the past 3 months.

Talkers

The average across the industry is slightly less than one tweet per day. So who are the most active tweeters?

State Farm has led this category for 10 months in a row so we must applaud their stamina. In the past 3 months, they have averaged over six tweets per day. Allstate would lead if we combined Allstate and their separate GHCommunity, together sending eight tweets a day.

The leading tweeters by volume