Social Media Strategy Guide

Many insurance agencies consider, or even implement, a social media channel in their marketing mix. This can be a great way to communicate with your insureds and prospects, as well as a workable addition to your marketing mix. But it does require a plan. Before jumping into social media, developing a detailed social media strategy for your agency is essential and should not be overlooked. This guide will help you understand why creating a social media strategy is vital to social media success and what questions you should ask yourself before getting started. If your agency is currently active with social media, this guide will help you evaluate your existing efforts.

Before getting started, however, it’s important to remember that social media is merely a channel. It requires content. Before you start utilizing social media, you should begin with a content marketing strategy.

Assuming you have your content plan in place, here are some strategies to help you execute a proper social media strategy.

Step 1: Determine what your agency wants to achieve through social media

This is the starting point where you need to ask yourself some important questions.

• Are you looking to drive new business?
• Trying to boost client retention?
• Attempting to increase online referrals?

All of these objectives can be met using social media as part of your agency marketing plan, but you need to determine what you’re trying to accomplish before you begin. Everything you do use social media should tie back to the goals you identify here.

What are your agency’s social media goals?

Step two: Decide how social media will fit into your overall marketing strategy

If you don’t currently have a marketing strategy for your agency, now is a great time to create one! Having a comprehensive marketing plan will help in determining how to allocate your marketing budget and where social media fits into your marketing mix.

Social media should be integrated with your agency’s traditional marketing methods to achieve the greatest benefit. You should clearly outline your goals, tactics, processes, and staff requirements so everyone is aware of the agency’s marketing strategy, their individual roles, and how to work together to achieve success.  This plan should be documented and shared with the entire agency.

How will you coordinate your marketing efforts?

Step three: Use the 5W’s to determine roles, content, and time commitments

Who will be part of your agency’s social media team?

Take some time to assess the strengths of your staff when determining who should be part of your social media marketing team. Do certain people use social media more than others in their personal lives? Is anyone a great writer or communicator? Identifying which staff members are best suited for specific roles will help you shape your social media team and greatly improves your chances for success right from the start.

What should the roles of each team member be?

Before jumping into social media, developing a detailed social media strategy for your agency is an important task that should not be overlooked. This guide will help you understand why creating a social media strategy is vital to your social success and what questions you should ask yourself before getting started. If your agency is currently active with social media, this guide will help you evaluate your existing efforts.

There are a few main tasks that need to be assigned in order for a social media marketing campaign to be effective. These tasks include creating accounts, competitive research, content creation, responding to comments, tracking activity, and reporting. Some agencies assign one person to handle all of their social media efforts, while others utilize a team approach where different people work on specific tasks. Either method can be effective if you take the time to identify the right people to participate upfront.

Where will the content be posted?

Identify which social media sites you plan to use including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, a Blog, etc. You can add or remove sites over time as you determine which ones are generating the best results for your agency’s specific social media objectives. Not sure which social sites are right for your agency? Check out what other local agents and small businesses are doing and research the individual sites to help you decide.

When will you post new content?

Creating a plan for content creation and posting will help your agency stick to an effective social media schedule. Posting on a regular basis keeps your agency engaged with your audience and shows that you are embracing the social media channel. Too often, businesses create a social media presence and neglect it by not adding new content or responding to client comments. You wouldn’t ignore your clients in real life and the same principle holds true for social media. Social media gives people the ability to quickly share their thoughts about a company with all of their online friends, which can spread virtually in ways offline conversations cannot. By sharing valuable content and responding to all comments, you’ll encourage people to promote your agency for you.

Why are you posting?

You should ask yourself this question every time you post something via social media. Each post should have a clear goal associated with it. Is your post meant to drive retention, referrals, or new business? Is it meant to educate, inspire or entertain your audience? By identifying the purpose behind each post, you’ll ensure that you’re providing valuable content to keep your audience engaged.

Who…What…Where…When…Why?

Step four: Leverage social media tools and resources

To help business owners with their social media marketing efforts there are a collection of useful social media tools. Some help you with planning and distribution, and others help with content creation, graphics, infographics, and audience building. Review the options available and determine which one will work best for you. Buffer offers a great breakdown of some of these tools, and it’s a great place to get started. If you need assistance with graphic design, a site like Canva is great and doesn’t require you to know how to use any software or be a creative artist. 🙂

Which Marketing Toolkit resources will you use?

Step five: Track activity, measure results and make adjustments as necessary

Determining ROI for social media activities can be difficult, but that doesn’t mean results cannot be measured. Many social sites have their own metrics tools built right in, like Facebook Insights, which is a free tool available to all Facebook business page owners. Use these tools to track and measure how many people are visiting your pages, the demographics of those visitors, when your visitors are most active, and what content generates the most user activity. These metrics can be very helpful in determining what and when you should post by understanding your audience and the type of content that resonates with them.

What metrics are important to your agency and how will you measure them?

Step six: Remember…social media is all about relationships

Social media should be viewed as an ongoing, two-way dialogue where ideas are shared and thoughtful conversations take place. Posting content related to local news and community events is a great way to connect with your audience on a local level. Also, keep in mind that content does not always need to be directly related to your business. Many successful social media campaigns strategically mix business content with some form of entertainment. The ultimate goal of social media marketing is to encourage your audience to contact your agency or visit your website, which is accomplished by building meaningful relationships through regular content sharing and social interaction.

How will you inform and entertain your visitors?

By now you should have a better idea of how you can utilize social media to help achieve your marketing goals. Use your answers to the questions above to create a framework for your agency’s social media strategy. Be sure to incorporate your social media tactics into your overall marketing plan and you’ll be well on your way to creating an effective, integrated agency marketing strategy.