The following three key concepts are foundational lessons that have emerged in the past couple years – that must be recognized and incorporated into any successful social networking initiative:

1.     It’s not about the technology. Success with social networking isn’t just about the latest technology. Technology is transitory. It is the means to an end: Connecting with people. Social networking represents a permanent cultural transformation and a market disruption.

Many of the old ways of doing business are no longer effective. For example, traditional Yellow Page advertising is no longer effective in reaching most consumers.

The way consumers search, research, find, evaluate, choose and connect with their service providers has changed. How an organization appreciates this change, learns to adapt, and engages the new connected consumer—at the time and in the place where he/she wants to connect—will determine the firm’s future viability.

2.     It’s more than a marketing tactic. Launching a Facebook Page does not equate to social networking success. Effective social networking is more than a marketing tactic. Rather, success requires that social networking be an integrated part of a comprehensive business strategy. A good social networking implementation will involve and impact all business units within the agency. There are many social tools (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google+, and Pinterest) that can be used by an agency to build and strengthen their brand. Yet, like any successful agency initiative it must be well managed, monitored, measured and evaluated.

3.     It’s not magic. Stop waiting for the pixie dust. Social networking requires sweat equity. Social networking does not magically transform or solve an agency’s marketing or communication problems.

Successful agents have learned that using social networking is an effective way to grow a community of online relationships and, perhaps, advocates. Rather than use the tools to amplify a sales message, these producers use social networking to build and strengthen relationships, connect and build trust. Relationships, whether online or off, take time.

Comment and let us know the most important lesson you have learned.

Take These Four Insurance Branding Lessons Home With You

From modest beginnings in New Jersey, a larger-than-life politician has emerged onto the national stage: Governor Chris Christie. And he’s brought along branding experiences that apply to insurance.

Christie was criticized by opponents as an underqualified political appointee and a legal lightweight when he was nominated by President George W. Bush to the post of U.S. Attorney for the State of New Jersey. During Christie’s tenure from 2002 through 2008, the U.S. Attorney’s office won convictions or pleas of guilty from 130 public officials (state, county and local), both Democratic and Republican — without losing a single case.

Among the convicts: County executives for bribery and corruption, a former state senate president for mail fraud and tax evasion, and a former mayor of one of the state’s largest cities for fraud.

Christie swept through the New Jersey political world like a nor’easter storm. He put public corruption in the prosecutorial cross-hairs (although many believe that money still plays an outsized role in Jersey politics, but that’s another story).

In the runup to the 2012 presidential election,Christie is campaigning nationally for former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, after passing up his own campaign for the Republican nomination.

Putting aside whether you, politically speaking, flock to or flee from the New Jersey governor’s positions and record (and Republicans in general and Romney in particular), Chris Christie offers an object lesson in branding:

Playing to your stereotype can work.

Case in point: The Star-Ledger, the state’s largest newspaper, reported that the governor stumped for Romney before the Iowa Republican caucuses on New Year’s Eve, telling the crowd of voters:

“If you don’t do what you’re supposed to do for Mitt Romney on Tuesday [Jan. 3, 2012, the day of the caucuses],” Christie said, defiant in only a suit jacket against the biting cold and wind-whipped rain, “I will be back, Jersey-style, people. I will be back.“

A few hours later in Cedar Rapids, Christie was unrelenting in an interview: “I hope they’ve taken me seriously because I will come back here plenty angry if they don’t do the right thing on Tuesday night. So they don’t want that. They’ve seen that. It’s not good.” [bold type added]

“Jersey style” indeed.

If there’s anything more stereotypical about New Jersey than hinting at rearranging kneecaps, it’s probably only comments about toxic waste, oil refineries and traffic. (Of course, having lived here since age 5, among my favorite stereotypes about the Garden State are the Appalachian Trail, the Battle of Trenton in the Revolutionary War, the Pine Barrens (at 1.1 million acres, it makes up 22 percent of New Jersey’s land mass), my alma mater Rutgers, and 127 miles of ocean beaches. And great pizza in every town. But I digress.)

It’s not just a brash tone and combative stance against critics that Christie brings to his personal branding effort. Like him or not, Christie brings a track record to back up the trash talk. U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt took a policy stance of “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” Christie’s stance might be described as speaking bluntly and smacking a big proverbial stick against his hand.

The outspoken governor of the ninth-largest state attracts a lot more media attention, of course, than an independent agent, a mid-sized insurance carrier, or an insurance trade association. And underlying any of Christie’s words is plenty of political calculation, to be sure. But there’s little doubt he plays to his own stereotype. Insurance marketing decision-makers might put aside the political elements and consider the following:

1. Do well at what you do. Christie batted a thousand in public corruption cases; that gave him credibility. Lesson: Don’t shy away from talking about what you do well just because others do something similar. And don’t take it for granted. What have you excelled at? Do you pay claims faster than others in the industry? Is your service measurably better than the competition? Are you good at handling specialized risks of some type?

2. Consult the team. Christie is reported to have developed a cadre of loyal advisers that bridge his various political jobs, and to reach out to them for insights and perspectives before making decisions. Lesson: Listen to people smarter than you. Who do you ask for advice? Are you doing something for them?

3. Stick to your guns. Maybe guns is a, er, loaded term But you get the point. Lesson: Stick to what you believe, because the going’s going to get rough. What challenges are likely to come your way? Maybe you’ve experienced fussy claimants, balky prospects and reluctant business partners. What can you learn and share about these business developments?

4. Say it. Tell it like you are. Lesson: If you’re doing what you believe in, be willing to talk about it. What would you say about yourself if you were in front of a group of people that know you but maybe don’t really know what you do and what you’ve done?

At Aartrijk, one of our Jersey-based clients is American Collectors Insurance, which in its brand audit several years ago discovered one of the valued capabilities it offered its customers and agent partners is that its employees (which it calls “brand ambassadors”) are always available via phone. That’s right, they’re fighting phone-tree hell. It sounded trite at first, but the company’s leaders realized that availability mattered. So the brand developed a “real person guarantee” and promised that callers to its hotline could always push “0″ on the telephone keypad to get a “real person” without waiting long. Goodbye, phone tree. Hello, answers from a live person.

 What’s your stereotype? How can it work for you?

But what exactly does “24/7” mean and is it really necessary?

If you believe the argument that auto insurance is a commodity, then the 24/7 expectation is justified. Yet, what your customers are buying from you, the agent, is more than a quote or a policy—they also are getting a personalized service built on a trusted relationship. Perhaps geckos don’t sleep but living, breathing insurance agents need their rest.

Clearly, mobile, social, and Internet technologies have created more channels to reach the consumer and for the consumer to reach you. Whether it is high noon, midnight or a weekend, 24/7 capabilities have made predicting when a customer will want access more difficult than ever—and added a level of expectation that for most agents is impossible to achieve. Rather than getting pulled into the 24/7 games of the online and direct carriers, use these technologies to amplify the unique value you offer as an independent agent. Use those technologies to build a strong online brand personality and engage with your community.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that you don’t need to have “after hours” emergency contact numbers and a website with some self-service options. Just don’t lose sight of the fact that your customers are doing business with you because they value your expertise and have access to you and your advice and guidance in time of need. I think your customers value that more then being able to “shop” insurance at 2 a.m.

What’s your take and how are you using the new technologies to strengthen your brand?

Tim Tebow, Denver Broncos starting quarterback, Heisman Trophy winner -- and rebranding lesson

Tim Tebow was the biggest brand in college football just three years ago. During a career at the University of Florida from 2006-9, he set records in career passing efficiency and total rushing touchdowns in the Southeastern Conference (considered by many football fans to be the most competitive conference in the country).

Tebow’s teams sported a 48-7 record during his four-year career and won two national championships. He won the Heisman Trophy, emblematic of college football’s best player, in 2007, when he became the first college football player to both rush and pass for 20 or more touchdowns in a single season.

Now, Tebow is among the biggest brands in professional football, in just his second National Football League season. His number 15 Denver Broncos jersey is the largest-selling among all NFL players. Last weekend, he threw a game-winning touchdown pass in the first play of overtime to capture Denver’s first playoff victory in six years — spawning a record 9,420 tweets per second, according to Twitter.

But the two Tim Tebows are totally different brands, even though both have been successful.

So, what would one of the most-successful college quarterbacks of all time even need or want to change?

The answer: Because.

Tebow’s lifelong ambition was to play in the NFL as a quarterback. Not so easy, despite all the accolades: Many pro scouts considered his throwing motion (where he drew the ball back to his waist, rather than his shoulder, before throwing) to be unsuited for the NFL. Mel Kiper Jr., an ESPN pro football scouting analyst, was quoted as saying: “I don’t think he can be a full-time quarterback.” Given his relatively large size for a QB and his ability to run the football out of the shotgun formation, Tebow was labeled a running quarterback — faint praise and to many a way of saying he didn’t have what it took to succeed in an NFL offense.

Tim Tebow had a track record to think he was good enough. But he took it on himself to change. In a recent documentary about his preparation for the 2010 NFL draft, Tebow said:

“What we wanted to work on with my throwing motion was, really, get the loop out of it. Make it as quick as possible.”

Tebow’s goal became to change his muscle memory (a specific motor task put into memory through repetition) in order to show professional scouts that he was ready for the NFL. He needed to get his body to routinely make a different throwing motion, after four highly successful years in college. It took this elite athlete several coaches and about three weeks of 12-hour training days to change. Noted one of his coaches: “It’s going to take … 2,000 to 3,000 times doing something before you start to ingrain it in your muscles.”

Evidently, he changed enough: Tebow was selected by the Denver Broncos with the 25th pick in the first round in the 2010 NFL draft, and led his team to the NFL playoffs after the most recent 2011 season while leading fourth-quarter rallies for his team.

What lessons does Tim Tebow provide for you and your insurance brand?

1. Sometimes you need to change your brand because somebody else thinks so.
2. What you do well and what you need to improve both feed your brand.
3. Even the best at one level have to change to get to the next level. (A brand’s muscle memory might be doing something because it’s successful, but that doesn’t mean it will be effective in the future.)
4. Forgetting what you did before, and changing to something new, is difficult. It takes time and toil.
5. It can take a purposeful and sustained effort to create a new routine and a different environment.

Question: What do you think needs changing in good insurance brands?

UPDATE: See a story in American Agent and Broker about insurance industry spokespersons.

– 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?

“It’s like a gift card in a big store.”

Recently a client made that statement at the conclusion of a discussion about a new branding initiative for his insurance firm. The client was delighted about having a range of choices in the creative materials we had developed. But he also was a bit torn and forlorn about having to only choose one approach from more than one choice.

Ah, there’s the rub, as Shakespeare once said.

With a marketing budget, or any budget for that matter, insurance brands need to make choices. Examples of some of the age-old choices are:

• Should I develop an email campaign to put my brand back in touch with those new contacts that stopped by the trade show booth recently? Or should I spend the budget to reach out to make a follow-up phone call to prospects we met last year?
• Is it a better idea to write up and design a case study or white paper to send to prospects, or to create a new ad campaign?
• And so on.

In 1960 (around about the time of the setting of the current TV hit MadMen) Jerome McCarthey presented the idea of the “4 Ps” to the marketing world: product, price, place, promotion. Philip Kotler later talked about making marketing decisions in the context of the “4 Cs” of the marketing mix:

• Product = Customer Benefits
• Price = Cost to Customer
• Place = Convenience
• Promotion = Communications

Insurance brands today have another wrinkle in their marketing decision-making. Whether you want to call it a “P” (for personalization or personal contact) or “C” (contact or customer contact or customization), the social Web gives marketers a chance to interact more personally, one-on-one, with prospects and clients. The social web is a new “place” (in McCarthey’s terminology) or a new “convenient” location to meet (in Kotler’s terminology). It’s in the mix.

How do you see insurance brands spending their gift cards, in light of the new choices the social Web provides?

Today more than ever brand is being defined by consumers and what they think is more important or has more influence than your brand messaging. Interestingly enough, even if you are not engaged in social networking it is having an impact on your brand. In fact, not engaging in social networking may be doing great harm to your brand.

When you search for a business on Google are you more likely to click on and follow-up if the business has a website link? What impression are you leaving with potential customers if they can’t find you on Linkedin or if your profile is poorly done and incomplete? If Facebook and other social sites have replaced the yellow pages, what damage to your brand is taking place if you can’t be found? How do you think consumers feel about an inactive Twitter account or a Facebook page that has not been updated for several months?

Social networking is not a project. Rather, it is about being a social business and has a great deal to say about who you are and what you do.

Are you using the new tools of social networking to help position your brand in a positive way?

Rooster has “grit” (Ross’s word), even if he’s time-beaten, weather-worn and (in actor Jeff Bridges’s take) has a muffled, mouth-chewing way of speech.

The girl heroine insists on coming along, so Rooster and Ross ride out on the range, encountering dead bodies, outlaws, rattlesnakes and other hazards. [Plot spoiler: Rooster tracks and kills his quarry (with help from a Matt Damon-acted Texas Ranger who has his own reasons for hunting down the villianous Tom Chaney). Mattie Ross gets her justice.]

I’m not a movie buff nor a Western fan, but this well-done movie led me to reflect on naming and insurance brand tagline projects we’ve been working on here at Aartrijk:

While not as hazardous nor as heroic as bounty hunting in the Old West, naming something has its own risks and rewards. And the processes have similarities.

Names, whether insurance product names or company names, are a key element of a brand. They can evoke and/or describe what an insurance firm has to offer. They can create an association or understanding of an insurance solution in the mind of a prospect or client. They can give rise to pride and inspiration among employees. They can be a shortcut that helps people find a brand again when they need it.

And seeking out a new product or brand name requires doing things that are out of the ordinary. It also requires (as does a movie plot) the suspension of disbelief and the willingness to wait out the twists and turns.

When insurance decision-makers hire Aartrijk for a naming project, like the young and strong Mattie Ross they are almost always looking for something they can’t find on their own. They’re looking for someone who is distinctly different from themselves but trustworthy. They want someone who’s been into the territory before. And when they ride along they’ll face a scare or two, and things won’t always seem to be working out.

Finding or creating a new name for an insurance product or brand has elements of a Western novel or movie: There’s a relentless quest. There’s adventure. And the journey gets dicey.

But finding the right name can be one of the most satisfying and inspiring things a brand decision-maker can ever do. To the Mattie Ross-like heroes and heroines who trust us: Thanks. We did it together.

But it wasn’t a joke. Though CARFAX indeed has “fax” in its name, the company today distributes its used-vehicle reports only through online access. But that gap between identity and reality doesn’t seem to have hurt the company, which, with more than 8 billion records in its database, is one of the top Web sites for vehicle research.

But that disparity got me thinking about other brand identities that no longer deliver on their name, logo or tagline, and whether or not it matters.

Immediately I thought of AARP, which a few years ago formally adopted its acronym and dropped American Association of Retired Persons because, among other reasons, its members are not all retired. That change was controversial, mainly because A-A-R-P isn’t the easiest moniker to roll off the tongue. But this over-50 lobbying operation remains a dominant force on Capitol Hill, and it is a major source for products and services coveted by aging Boomers.

And then there’s the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which hasn’t changed its name, even though most African Americans today recoil at the phrase “colored people.” While the organization remains a civil rights leader, its name does hinder its ability to position itself as truly contemporary, as if its best days are behind it.

On a lighter note, there’s UPS, which for much of its 103-year history used a logo with a package wrapped in paper and string. But by the 21st century the delivery service had expanded its business model considerably, so in 2003 it changed its logo, losing the package icon. And not a moment too soon: UPS no longer accepts packages wrapped in string, because they get caught in its machinery.

Then there’s 7-11, the name of which originally indicated the hours of operation, though most stores are now open all the time.

Creating a brand identity is a fun, creative endeavor, but also a lot of work. There are seemingly endless criteria involved (trademark and URL availability just to start), and there usually are personal preferences thrown into the mix as as well. But, unless your organization has money to burn, pay careful attention to the shelf life of any name, logo or tagline you develop. Think through not only who you are today—your offering, your customer or member, your geographic reach, the manner in which you distribute your products and services—and consider where you might want to go tomorrow, or 25 years from now.

After all, a great identity should help define you, not limit you.

I still remember the radio ad jingle. Growing up in central New Jersey and raised on AM radio, I repeatedly heard this commercial for a Philadelphia newspaper, which featured a consumer hotline dubbed “Call For Action!” (Using a word like “GReenwood” in the phone number followed by the numbers was a trick for making telephone numbers memorable.)

In those days of the 1960s and 1970s, lemon laws were not yet on the books, malls were just being invented, and the “vigilante consumer” (more on that term later) was a slumbering giant. So the local newspaper had a consumer action helpline where people could call if they had a problem with a consumer product or service. The Star-Ledger, a newspaper in New Jersey, recently reintroduced a similar column.The way it worked was: The reader called to describe their problem. The newspaper would then contact the business/professional with which the consumer was having a problem and ask for a better resolution for the consumer. The motivating factor often was that the newspaper would state that it was going to cover the situation in its “Action Line” weekly newspaper column.

Guess what happened? Results.

I recalled this catchy jingle the other week when I was disappointed in the performance of a consumer product (replacement windows) in my home. I called the store where we bought the windows, was told to phone a service number, and was informed that parts were still under warranty after seven years but labor was not. To replace the warranted parts on the window would cost $120 per hour in labor. (This is after we paid more than twice that per window.)

At that moment, recalling the thousands of dollars spent for the windows, I was irritated that I would have to spend $120 minimum (prepaid by credit card, of course, before the window manufacturer would schedule a technician’s service call) to fix a few window gaskets.

This consumer wanted to lash out and let a few people know not to buy this brand of windows.

I’m not proud of that. But I’m guessing many people have felt this surge of consumer-ish anger at some point or another. Faith Popcorn, futurist, called people exhibiting this type of reaction the “vigilante consumer” (Popcorn’s definition: “The consumer manipulates marketers and the marketplace through pressure, protest and politics.”)

Today, unlike my childhood 1970s, I can lash out on Facebook or LinkedIn or Twitter or a blog or a replacement windows review site.

The question for insurance brands is: How will you handle this type of situation the next time it happens?

One of the people I admire most in social networking is insurance professional Nibby Priest, who from a Kentucky riverfront town Tweets and Yammers, gives us peeks into life, and mentions insurance now and again. When Nibby and I did an Insurance Journal Webcast for independent agents a couple years ago, an interesting question came up on this very topic. Here’s what we talked about:

“Question: In opening up your business to a Facebook fan page, you are obviously opening up your business to negative feedback. How do handle negative comments?

Nibby Priest: That’s a great question. Sometimes people don’t want to be a part of social media because they don’t want somebody to say something negative. You know bad things are not always bad; sometimes you need to know about them. So many times a client will leave you and you don’t even know what you did wrong. So, at least this gives an avenue and gives you, as business owners, the opportunity to go in there and correct it.

Social media is all about transparency. An example: Yesterday, Google messed up with Gmail. And what have they done today and late last night? They put out exactly what went wrong, what they learned from the experience, and they were transparent.

We need to listen to what clients have to say about us. So have I had any negative feedback? No. Can I get some? Yes. And whenever I do, I want to respond back positively and make a correction to it. That’s how I would handle it.”

When people call for action, how do you respond?