– traditional children’s song

Those who don’t get to Grandmother’s house by horse and sleigh (or airplane, bus, car, or train) are now traveling there via Facebook. They’re going to all kinds of places on the social networking site.

Facebook.com was the most-visited web site on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day 2009, and on New Year’s Day 2010, according to data reported by Experian Hitwise. “Facebook” was also the most-searched word in 2010, according to the firm’s most recent statistics.

What does this mean for insurance brands? If the people are there, shouldn’t the insurance brands be there too? Maybe brand decision-makers can use:

– Ads and content to the theme of “Safe travels and secure home brought to you by [carrier name / agency name].”

– Facebook postings of blog content about holiday safety tips, an evergreen (pun intended) topic for TrustedChoice.com and others.

– Reminders about claims service numbers and tips in case of a home mishap or car accident around the holidays.

Researching this blog post, I came to learn that this song, which I’ve always associated with Christmas visits, is actually a Thanksgiving song by Lydia Maria Child published in 1844 written originally as a poem. The poem, titled “A Boy’s Thanksgiving Day,” is based on her childhood memories and mentions visiting her “Grandfather’s” house. I always recalled the lyric as “Grandmother’s house,” not “Grandfather’s.” The author was a novelist, journalist and teacher who wrote extensively about the need to eliminate slavery, according to Wikipedia.

Question: What good social networking content do you use (or see insurance brands using) around the holiday season?

But they’re doing so without spending more. In fact, the data show they’re spending less.

That’s according to Shirley Lukens, AAI, principal of Reagan Consulting, who shepherds the annual Best Practices Study, a joint project of Reagan and the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America (Big “I”). Formerly the head of industry affairs for Big “I”, Shirley was a mover behind launching the Best Practices initiative in 1993.

Speaking at the ASCnet TENCon industry event in September, Lukens noted that the most recent 2011 Best Practices research showed that agencies in the study “really stepped up their marketing advertising. They really aggressively advertised and marketed in ways that they hadn’t done in years past.”

But the agencies were not increasing their outlay for marketing; they were keeping it level or even reducing it in some cases, according to the financial data in the Best Practices research. Lukens looked more closely and even spoke to a few of the agency principals. She reported:

“What we found is that they are using much lower-cost technologies to accomplish the same things: Social media…. Those expensive advertising [and] marketing things that we used to do — we aren’t spending the dollars there any more because better technologies are enabling us to do things that we used to accomplish in a much more expensive way.”

Shirley Lukens’s comments on the issue begin at about the 6:00 mark in the ASCnet TENCon video pasted below.

The agencies that the Best Practices study includes are among the most successful in terms of revenue per employee, across a spectrum of agency sizes. Thus, the trend that Lukens spots — being more effective with the same or less advertising/marketing budget — is compelling.

What’s also happening is that effective insurance producers and agency principals are using social networking tools not just to “advertise” or “market,” but to (more importantly) engage and correspond with customers and prospects.

Having said that, I sense that agencies are just starting to scratch the surface of the usefulness of social networking in their businesses. What do you think?

What do agents want from carriers? In the many discussions I have had with agents the answer is, “It depends” and more often than not they are not really sure. Frequent answers include content, leads, and co-funded social marketing programs. Generating good content for their own blogs and social posts is a common concern voiced by many agents. But what type of content do they want from carriers? What can carriers do to really help? For example, are “white labeled” carrier-created articles that agents personalize the best we can do?

Here is what I think. Currently, it is not uncommon to find both parties acting independently and without a clear sense of purpose. Carriers and agents would benefit from the creation and implementation of collaborative social strategy—and implementing such a strategy involves more then just creating content to be shared. One of the first steps would be to identify and agree on the business objectives of their collective social efforts. That is, do they want to increase dialogue and touch points with customers and prospects? Do they want to improve loyalty and reduce “churn?” Do they want to find new customers and write more new business? All of the above?

As I see it, the opportunity here is for agents and carriers to be working in support of each other to provide the consumer with interesting and valuable content—and promote the unique value of the independent agency system. In addition to building online personality and humanizing brands, effective collaboration would require agents and carriers to be watching, listening and monitoring each other. For example, carriers would leverage the local touch points of their agency force by commenting on, re-tweeting and/or sharing posts made by agents.

Clearly, I don’t have all the answers here. I’d like to know what you think and what your experience has been. If you are an agent, what carriers do you think have done a good job in support of your social networking efforts? If you are a carrier, how are you working to help your agents? What is working? What is not?

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.

Most if the time, their posts address the same topics us older folks do—everything from life status updates and comments on friends’ (or their own) photos to the occasional rhetorical question and a shared link. Last week, I was surprised to see one of my son’s friends—actually, a former neighbor who was like a second son around here before his family moved west—post a link to an insurance video. Yes, an insurance video!

He even commented on the posting: “hahah pretty hilarious.” I agree with the comment, although I might have added another “a” at the end of the first word. The video was part of a series from Blue Shield of California. The “hahah pretty hilarious” video included the line “The tooth fairy doesn’t come when you’re 46.” The series also includes a “caring” Little League mom and a fellow who lost an argument with his insurer about “his” circumcision. As a Boomer, I find them as hilarious as an 18-year-old Millennial does.

The Pew Research Center says Millennials are more inclined toward trust in institutions than were either of their two predecessor generations, Gen Xers and Baby Boomers, when they were coming of age. Couple this with the fact that, as Aite Group senior analyst Stephen Applebaum said, “insurance is, at its core, a relationship business,” and that spells tremendous opportunity for independent agents and brokers. Still, the “ill-prepared” comment from Aite Group is troubling. What do independent agents and brokers need to do to engage people of all ages—especially those who are entering the insurance-buying marketplace for the first time? Can it be done without large budgets? Do insurance agents even care? And how many will become what have been called self-selected dinosaurs?

Since that post, much of the East Coast has suffered significant flooding from both Irene and Tropical Storm Lee—and the companies mentioned in my earlier post along with many other firms continued to make effective use of social networking to stay in touch with their customers.

They used everything from e-newsletter and blogs to Twitter and YouTube to post information on how to contact carriers, storm updates, emergency shelters locations, road closings, office hours, FEMA info, tips on cleaning, preparing a disaster supply kit, storm surge maps, “thank you’s” to emergency responders, photos of local flooding, and insurance policy coverage information.

Carol Reese, CIC, CRM, from the Henry D. Young Insurance Agency, sums up much of the rational behind the use of social networking under this type of circumstance: “I feel that social media is a great way to get information out to many people immediately to help them deal with disasters and their aftermath. It also shows the community that we care about what may be happening to them and are here to help them get through the claim process and disaster recovery.”

Yes, these firms provided a valuable service to their customers. Yet, I think we can—really, must—do more. I would like to see our industry develop a single resource, or clearinghouse of up-to-date information, as well as, a comprehensive industry-wide social media response plan.

In the recent East Coast disasters, most agents had to come up with their own content and find relevant resources. Without sacrificing the significance of local community information, I think there would be great value in our industry creating a single and centralized repository of information. Not only would this give agents access to event relevant content but populate the social space with a strong unified and consistent message. For example, if IIABA or a carrier created a video about disaster planning, agents across the country could access, share, and link to that resource.

The communication plan would be designed to enable our industry to deliver a cohesive message and leverage the local presence of the 25,000 independent agents. Thus, the plan would define and model the process of moving a timely communication from the national association level to a local agency.

In my opinion, creating a single resource and communication plan would allow us to take control of our message and offset the typical popular media stories about increased premiums and uncovered losses. Implementation of this model would give us the means to demonstrate the value of the Independent Agency System. What do you think?

I wanted to do something American one nice summer weekend: See a movie. I was in the car with my family (not driving, of course). We had agreed on the movie, “Lincoln Lawyer.” (Admittedly, seeing a movie spur-of-the-moment was more spontaneous than I’m known to be. But maybe that serves me right, as you’ll see in a moment.)

So I looked up the phone number of a local theater on a mobile telephone.

I’d called movie theaters in the past from an old-fashioned landline telephone, and had been able to quickly find out movie times.

Silly me.

Here’s what happened:

1) The first thing I heard was: “This call is sponsored by [sponsor name],” accompanied by music that competed with a fast-talking narrator describing some type of “mobile ring tone club.” Then: “Press 9 for more information.” Elapsed time: 40 seconds. [The next round of information described what ring tones could be downloaded from the "club," followed by another "Press 9 for more information" then "Press 9 to confirm." I pointedly did not press 9 because "confirm" has become associated in my mind with "This is where I start getting charged money."]

2) Then I had a chance to select a movie using the keypad.

3) Then I heard: “Press 2 to continue.” (I sympathize with those who go vigilante as a consumer, so I already had suspicions that I was not going to get my movie times next.)

4) Another ad with the same music and voice, each competing to be heard over the other.

5) Eventually, I got movie times.

Some good things about what happened:

1) The phone call was to a toll-free number, although with cell-phone contracts, calls are still charged against a “minutes” limit.

2) I got my movie times, sooner or later.

One not-so-good thing: Interruption marketing lives, now on mobile phones.

Now, on the scale of marketing offenses (and life’s problems), this doesn’t rank high.

This ad strategy must be like spam: If you send out enough messages, enough people will click to make the racket worthwhile. I’m guessing that among the thousands of people who call movie theaters for showtimes, somebody will download a ring tone and pay a goodly amount of money for it.

I have every respect that this movie theater chain (and it’s a big regional brand) wants to optimize revenue and profit. But when I call for movie times, I don’t want to hear an ad for a phone ringtone.

Besides, what teenagers are downloading ringtones these days? The teenagers I see with cellphones are too busy texting on them, posting to Facebook or Tweeting to take or make any phone calls. So why do they need a ringtone?

If I’m going to spend $12 for a movie ticket, do I have to wait through three rounds of ads in order to find a simple showtime for the movie I want to see?

P.S. I take it all back: Actually, I’d be willing to sit through ads if the theater would pledge to use the revenue to clean the bathroom.

P.P.S. We didn’t see a movie that night.

Often, I hear agents who are not yet actively participating in social networking question its value and/or its return on investment (ROI).Clearly, the use of social networking by our industry during the past couple of weeks has demonstrated that “social” is not just about ROI. During the earthquake and now the hurricane many East Coast agents, carriers and associations effectively used social networking to connect with their followers and communicate valuable information.  Some examples include:

• New York agent, Ryan Hanley who created a video blog offering, “6 Hurricane Preparedness Tips for Homeowners”
• Connecticut agency The Founders Group blog posting, “Hurricane Irene is on her way – Tips for protecting your home!”
• Many Facebook posts and status updates by Connecticut agent V.F. McNeil Insurance including links to the town’s emergency preparation and a request by the governor to sign up for CT Alert Emergency Notification.

Other examples of agents effectively using Facebook include:

• New York agent R.J. O’Brien Insurance
• New Jersey agent Henry D. Young
• Pennsylvania agent William B. Parry & Son

Several carriers including Travelers and Harleysville also did a great job posting storm-related risk management information on their websites and Facebook pages. Marsh USA, @Marsh_inc did a particularly nice job using Twitter. IIABA, New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina and IIABNY all used social networking to communicate relevant information.

I also found our industry actively involved in Twitter conversations and followed them using the hashtags #irene, #hurricaneirene and #insurance.

Our industry shines in times like this. In contrast to popular media stories about increased premiums and uncovered losses, this is our chance to demonstrate the value of the Independent Agency System. I congratulate all of you who worked to make sure your customers had access to the information they needed to properly prepare and recover from Irene.

(The agencies, carriers, and associations listed above are only a small sampling of the many who took advantage of social networking during Irene. Please let us know how you used the social space to communicate and stay connected during this disaster.)

According to the Small Business Administration, “Small businesses represent 99.7 percent of all firms, they create more than half of the private nonfarm gross domestic product, and they create 60 to 80 percent of the net new jobs.”

It wasn’t that long ago that the Internet was expected to be the great equalizer. That is, the Internet would provide independent agents with the ability to expand their reach and the give them the tools necessary to compete with the big boys.

As it turned out large well-funded direct writers applied slick technology and even slicker ad campaigns to buy attention and garner consumer trust. The end result was that most online sales went to a relatively small number of sites controlled by large insurance companies. Small business was simply out spent and outgunned by big business.

Social media in now being hailed as the technology that has leveled the playing field. Has it?

A couple of weeks ago I received this tweet from @carrie_AGIns, “@rickjmiv have you written a post or done a podcast addressing how insurance agents can compete w/ the big boys?”  Carrie then followed up with, “@rickjmiv I would be very interested to see your take. We insurance agents don’t have the funds to do everything. But SoMe is supposed to level the playing field.”

Before answering, I wanted to know what others thought and posed the following using Facebook Questions: “If you are a small to mid-sized agency how has social media helped you compete with the larger firms or even the large direct writers? Has it leveled the playing field?”

Many think it has. In answering the question some of you indicated that it had dramatically helped increase agency brand awareness. Others indicated that social media enabled them communicate and connect quickly with current clients.

One agent commented: “Yes I believe that it has and will continue to allow us to compete. It is all about “connections” or relationships. I would go even further though and state that the whole of technology is more important to us. When a little agent like ourselves can have all calls after hours routed immediately to our cell phone, now that is service 24/7. When I can use Google Voice to text message a client instantly and get business done “in their hand”, it blows them away. So these tools allow us to provide exceptional service and the social media allows us to keep our name in front of people at a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising.”

Another agent replied, “Yes, we can target market to our neighborhoods on a pay per click basis. We can get in front of more of the right people and get our message out.”

I believe that social media has created a new level playing field that appeals to a customer that values having a local trusted relationship. But the expectations being placed on business are also adding a new level of reasonability and how they respond may greatly influence their success.

So, unlike the Internet, why is social media working as an equalizer? What is different? Help me out here…Let’s continue the discussion. What do you think? As a small business with limited resources what challenges do you face in creating an effective social media strategy?

At Google Inc.’s Think Mobile event in New York, industry guru Mary Meeker said that the pace and force of mobile growth is unlike anything she has ever seen.” —

Mary Meeker, the leading trumpeter of the Internet in its early days and now a venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, is now saying mobile is growing faster than the Web did.

She’s got her evidence …

• Shipments of smartphones and tablet computers outpaced desktop PCs and notebook PCs in the fourth quarter of 2010, globally.
• Mobile data traffic is forecast to grow by a factor of 26 over the next five years, according to the Cisco Visual Networking Index.
• It took about 10 years for electronic commerce to reach five percent of all US retail sales activity. Meeker posits that mCommerce (mobile commerce) will reach the same level of penetration much faster.
• Desktop Internet units (mostly computers) topped one billion in 2000 after being introduced in the 1980s. Meeker forecasts mobile Internet devices will surpass 10 billion units in less than 10 years.
• Real-time features of social networking such as music sharing and location sharing are accelerating mobile device usage.

Insurance marketers, many of whom are still catching up with social networking (as well as older technology such as Web sites), now face another significant change. Business partners and consumers will be using new mobile technology devices (smartphones, tablet computers, book readers, car-based Web systems) to search, learn, interact and buy.

One insurance marketer catching the wave is Humana, which recently announced new services for a highly mobile consumer demographic where connecting has life-and-death implications: the U.S. military.

Meeker’s conclusion about So/Lo/Mo (social/local/mobile): “It’s going to be a fascinating decade.”

Questions for the insurance pros out there:

1. Are mobile devices insured on a homeowners policy?
2. When an exec loses his or her phone or tablet computer, how would you handle the business interruption claim and/or the identity theft risk?

If this sounds familiar, maybe it is time to slow down and reconsider:

- Are you providing substance?
- Are you engaged in the conversation?
- What is the right balance between quality and quantity of contacts?

After you begin to engage in social networking for your business, it is the quality of the contant that will keep your followers coming back.  Substance can come in many flavors. But any way it comes, it should be good, interesting, valuable content.  And that content should come from the heart, mind and soul of you and your company.

Granted, sizzle is good. It helps to attract prospects. But to turn them into profitable customers who are loyal to your brand, you need the steak beneath the sizzle.

The inbound, permission-based marketing of today relies on the concept of content marketing. Content marketing is based on the notion that prospects and customers want to buy insurance from someone who they perceive as providing value. They want to work with someone who is a thought leader or expert in the field of insurance. In other words, they want to buy from someone who helps them become more informed and intelligent. Content marketing is the polar opposite of lizards or wads of cash wearing glasses pitching a sales message.

This should be good news for many insurance agents and brokers. Used properly, the social Web can be an effective medium for delivering value and high-caliber communication.

I realize this is contrary to the way many “experts” operate. It is the opposite of hording information/knowledge. What I advocate is using your blog, Facebook posts, tweets or participation in Linkedin Groups not as a megaphone for your sales message, but instead to freely share your knowledge and consistently provide quality content.

Don’t we want to do business with people who are knowledgeable?