News without Paper? Get Social.
April 30, 2012 by Dave Willis · Leave a Comment
Several years ago, I heard futurist Daniel Burrus speak at an industry event. Since then, I’ve followed his Technotrends newsletter. I find his insight fascinating and overwhelming, all in one.
Burrus recently shared his “Top 20 Technology-Driven Trends for 2012.” One is “social business takes on a new level of urgency as organizations shift from an information age ‘informing’ model to a communication age ‘communicating and engaging’ model.” He also said 2012 is when electronic books, newspapers and magazines “pass the tipping point, due to the abundance of smartphones with readable displays, tablets that provide a full color experience, and publishers providing apps that give a better than paper experience by including cut, copy, paste, print, and multimedia capabilities.”
A couple of weeks ago, a Burrus article in Technorati focused on the future of newspapers. Advertising was down 7.3% in 2011, he said, a point higher than 2010’s drop. Surprising, he wrote, “was that it was only down that much.
“Hey, GEICO…. Car.” What Makes Videos Go Viral?
March 7, 2012 by Dave Willis · Leave a Comment
Last year, I spent three days rescuing my computer—from a virus (or two or twenty.) Last month, my son’s school shut down for a day—because of a virus. For the very same reason a virus is bad—it spreads so quickly—“viral” is the holy grail of social media today.
I recently caught a short TEDYouth presentation by YouTube’s Kevin Allocca that addressed what causes videos to go viral. Allocca is the company’s trend manager and gets paid to watch YouTube videos. Pretty sweet gig, huh? In his talk, Allocca said three things make videos go viral: tastemakers, communities of participation and unexpectedness.
Tastemakers “introduce us to new and interesting things and bring them to a larger audience,” he explained. Examples include Yosemite Mountain Bear’s “Double Rainbow” video, elevated by tastemaker Jimmy Kimmel, and Rebecca Black’s “Friday,” which went viral after being mentioned by Tosh.O and after Michael J. Nelson, from Mystery Science Theater, lampooned it. Read more
“Hahah pretty hilarious”
October 26, 2011 by Dave Willis · Leave a Comment
“Social media has tremendous potential within the P&C industry—particularly among Millennials—but many carriers and agencies are-ill prepared for the challenges and opportunities it presents.” This comment comes from Boston-based Aite Group, which recently prepared a report on the impact of social media in the North American P&C arena.
The Pew Research Center, in a profile, calls Millennials “the first generation in human history who regard behaviors like tweeting and texting, along with websites like Facebook, YouTube, Google and Wikipedia, not as astonishing innovations of the digital era, but as everyday parts of their social lives and their search for understanding.”
I’m the Dad of two of these creatures—a 1988 version and one born in 1993. Through Facebook, I engage with them, of course, as well as their friends. Occasionally, I come across a post that causes me to shake my head. That’s rare. And it’s okay. As Pew said, Facebook is an everyday part of their social lives and their search for understanding. I suspect my parents would have (or did) shake their heads if they knew every part of my social life and search for understanding at that age. Read more
“This technology has people in it.”
September 27, 2011 by Dave Willis · Leave a Comment
A couple of weeks ago, I sat in on a presentation by James McQuivey, Ph.D., vice president and principal analyst for Forrester, held in conjunction with the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers Education Convocation and Young Agents and Agents Council for Technology (ACT) meetings. In the session, titled “Market Effectively to Today’s Consumers,” he addressed the need to adapt to a hybrid digital/personal customer relationship.
As part of the ACT meeting held later that day, McQuivey answered audience questions for an hour or so. One line he shared during this follow-up Q&A exchange caught my attention. He said, “You need to show this technology has people in it.”
“Online search” is one way to do this. Independent agents need to find ways to increase their ranking in search results. The Consumer Access Portal initiative unveiled at the IIABA meetings should help agents do this. Incorporating local presence will, as McQuivey said, “add the trust to the web experience.”
The hybrid digital/personal customer relationship plays an important role after the sale is made—and not just 10 or 11 months after, either. Ongoing communication and interaction, online and in person, reinforces the connection, leads to new sales opportunities, and builds customer loyalty.
This hybrid relationship can actually start before the sale. Social networking—Facebook and YouTube, in particular—is ready-made for such connections. “Introduce your business on Facebook, ask people to like it, and tell them if they do you’ll periodically post things about how to handle a car accident or other issues when you learn them,” McQuivey suggested. “At least the customer will have your contact info.” This is especially important with younger customers, many of whom prefer Facebook communication over other forms—including email.
McQuivey cited our friend, Lisa Parry Becker, who chose not to attend the meeting so she could stay home and help customers with flood claims, as a prime example of how to tie digital and personal. “Share the news of Lisa staying away from this meeting to help clients,” he said. “You as agents have always been personal. You’re connecting to human beings who live in your community. You just need to let people know that.”
Have you found success building out hybrid digital/personal customer relationships? Are you too focused on one or the other? How do you find balance? Are some agents or other businesses doing a really good job of combing the technology and people? If so, what’s making a difference?
When to Cry “Uncle”
August 23, 2011 by Dave Willis · 1 Comment
This weekend, I was sitting at my computer, minding my own business. Well, sort of. I was actually checking out local Facebook accounts of a rather unusual hail and wind storm that blew through our area on Friday. Then it happened. I got the dreaded e-mail. Not a “You’re fired” e-mail and not one that said my bank account was overdrawn.
Nope, it was worse than that.
It was titled quite simply, “Blog post.“ And it read, “You are up for next Tues. Thx.” Following a momentary mini-panic, I did what any trained writer would do. I reached for a cold one, clicked in my web browser address bar, flexed my fingers and proceeded to type away: g-o-o-g-l-e-.-c-m-<back space>-o-m-<enter>.
Then I entered the phrase, “how to come up with blog topics.” Care to guess how many results were returned? More than 288 million. Okay, I thought, “Put quotes around the query, Dave.” So I did. A mere 72,900 results came back. I’m guessing someone else wondered the same thing. Or 70-some-thousand people thought they would.
I paused, and thought, “No, you’re a writer. You can do this.” Read more
Is My Brain Big Enough?
July 26, 2011 by Dave Willis · Leave a Comment
One of the defining characteristics of my son’s high school is “Purposefully Small.” In its description, the school cites The Tipping Point, in which author Malcolm Gladwell explores the importance of community size. The school site says, “Research shows that once a community extends beyond approximately 150 members, it becomes more bureaucratic and the relationships become more shallow.”I found the notion of deliberate community size to be interesting, so I probed a little. I came across a fellow—an evolutionary anthropologist, no less—named Robin Dunbar, whose work supports the concept. In fact, a Wikipedia.org entry actually exists for “Dunbar’s Number,” which is generally identified as 150. It says, “Dunbar’s Number is suggested to be a theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships.” Basically, that means the brain can’t handle relationships with more than 150 or so people.
That got me thinking about social networking. I have 286 Facebook friends, although I suspect a lesser number would show up if I put out a call to help me move furniture or something. I have just over 1500 Twitter followers; last year, when my son started to Tweet, he commented to my wife that he “didn’t realize how popular Dad was. He has more than a thousand followers!” Read more
Real Lessons from Real Time
June 25, 2010 by Dave Willis · 2 Comments
By David Willis
Three years ago, when the Real Time/Download Campaign launched, Aartrijk staffers, in our Campaign communication leadership roles, fielded a range of Campaign Web site visitor queries, such as: “How much is this Real Time software you’re selling?” and “Where can I buy your Real Time product?” We’d explain that we weren’t selling anything and that Real Time was actually available in existing agency systems.
Today, we rarely get such questions. Most property and casualty insurance professionals understand that Real Time is a workflow—it’s the ability to click on a button from a client file in an agency management system or comparative rater and get immediate access to carrier info on that client. They recognize Eddie, the Campaign’s mascot, as a the friend of improved workflows and profitability. And they know how to access Real Time in their systems.