Why In the World Does Social Media Matter To the Insurance Industry?
October 15, 2009 by Charles Wasilewski · 5 Comments
Charles Wasilewski
At 11 am on Wednesday, September 30, Aartrijk Brand Camp was officially over. I said “goodbye” and “thank you” to a few Campers in the lobby of the Hotel Sax, and headed out for a jog into the pleasant late-September day in downtown Chicago.
We, the Aartrijk team, had just finished a two-day conference, after about nine months of preparation. The 90-plus attendees at Brand Camp, it seemed, sought to understand the sociological, business, and brand impacts of social networking in the insurance world. I felt a buzz of awareness and learning going on throughout the Brand Camp sessions. The very idea of a first-ever conference about social networking in the insurance industry seemed to create a strong awareness that something worthwhile was happening. Mitch Dunford, CEO of Wells Publishing, commented in response to one of the sessions: “History will remember us as the people who made the change” to social networking.
It’s easy to overstate what a industry confab can do (especially the ones we work on ourselves). I’ve been to a bunch and I know that great ideas and good intentions can fade once I get back to the workaday world. As I jogged, I wondered if that would happen this time. I crossed Michigan Avenue and headed for Millenium Park and a glimpse of the awesome Lake Michigan.
Amidst the city sounds of traffic and people, hundreds of people were heading to and fro for lunch and the rest of their work day. But two people caught my notice as I crossed their path: a man using crutches and a woman limping with a cast on her foot. Customers, certainly, of some insurance carrier and broker who provided health insurance or resolved the accident claim.
It hit me: The insurance industry needs to use social media because there are millions of people who need the products and services that the insurance industry provides. They will only find out what the industry can do if insurance people are part of the social network conversations that are going on every minute of every day.
Many people I know in the insurance industry are passionate—they truly believe in, and want to spread the word about, the insurance products (whether property-casualty or life/health/benefits) they sell and service. I admire many for their skills in sales, leadership, analytics, branding, and other areas. They’ve put those skills to work to benefit individuals, families, and businesses.
But the industry needs social networking skills to help it tell the story about what insurance does. In a big, noisy world, social networking is an amazing phenomenon that lets people carry on quiet conversations about important things. That’s why social media matters to the insurance industry.
—Charles Wasilewski
Follow Aartrijk on Twitter: @Aartrijk. Follow Brand Camp conversation on Twitter using hashtag #ABC09.
“Can We Get to Business?!”
September 14, 2009 by Charles Wasilewski · 3 Comments
“Can we get to business?!”
That partly-excited, partly-frustrated-sounding question popped out at me from among several dozen when I was moderating a Webinar (“Social Media 101: Get Your Agency on Facebook and Twitter” presented by Insurance Journal) in early September.
The Webinar was presented by Nibby Priest of Vaughn Insurance Agency Co., who is among the most-active insurance producers I know in using social networking.
The question came while Nibby was showing how to get a personal Facebook page started. This is one of the most-popular things to do on the Internet. After all, Facebook has 200 million-plus members and is among the top 5 most-visited Web sites in the world.
When I read the question, I sensed that the agent asking the question was impatient with all the “personal” Facebook material, and wanted to get to the important stuff: how to use Facebook to market and sell.
I’ve felt the same frustration in the past — until I realized that the personal nature of Facebook is what makes it popular and captivating for millions. Facebook isn’t like advertising or direct mail or an e-mail newsletter or a Yellow Pages ad. It’s not really a marketing tool or tactic to be pulled out of the marketing plan and executed.
It’s something very different: It’s a technological way to carry out social relationships online.
Facebook is popular because it allows people to:
– connect person-to-person
– choose people, brands, organizations, causes, and advertisers they want to connect with online … and shun or ignore those they don’t
– easily search and find people from their past and present to build relationships going forward into the future
So, for me, a lesson of “Social Media 101: Get Your Agency on Facebook and Twitter” was a reminder that social networking is about talking with people, not merely sending out business messages via advertising or marketing. I’m as big a fan as anyone of advertising and marketing, but Facebook requires a different approach. It requires a commitment to joining a community, providing value, presenting information and perspective, and building relationships.
The great hope of social networking for marketers is that when members of the community are ready to buy, they will find you — even seek you out — because they know you and know what you know.
– Charles Wasilewski
New Wine in New Bottles
July 5, 2009 by Rick Morgan · 1 Comment
Photo Credit - Flickr heardsy
Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved. (Matthew 9:17)
The world of marketing, PR, branding and communication is being transformed. Consumers have rebelled against “push” marketing. They want to be heard when it comes to how you do business. Trusted relationships are more important than ever and control of your brand is in the hands of your customers.
Clearly “old” marketing and media strategy is failing. Social networking to the rescue, right? Not so fast. When it comes to social media it is not enough to engage the tools, build strategy and implement. Rather, success requires a change in culture and in the way in which business is done. Success with social media requires a culture that is customer centric, comfortable with transparency and understands that message and opinion lie primarily outside of their control. That is, success happens when the “new wine” of social media is put in the “new bottle” of a transformed company culture.
Rick Morgan
Are You Saying This?
June 8, 2009 by Rick Morgan · 1 Comment
It’s a fad
I don’t have time for this
It’s not appropriate for business
Show me the ROI
I don’t want my staff wasting company time on this
I am concerned about the E&O exposure
Objections or perhaps more accurately excuses to avoid having to deal with the social networking? Yes, but we have heard it all before.
Earlier today, I was just talking to a friend about the history associated with the use of technology in the insurance agency business. I reminded him that back in the early ’80s when the push was on for agents go become “automated” there was huge resistance. He then recalled how when e-mail was first introduced many agency owners adamantly objected to their staff using it and the objections were even stronger about “surfing ” the web at work.
Yes, there needs to be a corporate strategy. Yes, there needs to be a policy. Yes, there needs to be management and monitoring. Yes, there shoud be best practices guidelines. Yes, Yes, Yes. But lets get past the excuses and begin to reap the rewards that come with smart implementation social networking. The hoola hoop was a fad. The societal and business trends being fueled by the social web are not.
– Rick Morgan
Photo Credit: Flickr DarynBarryWhy Social Networking? “Credibility and Awareness”
May 27, 2009 by Peter van Aartrijk · Leave a Comment
Peter van Aartrijk
I attended a Chamber of Commerce “lunch and learn” in here in Springfield, Virginia recently. The topic was “Social Networking.” They expected 40 to register, which is about what they normally get for these affairs. Surprise! More than 110 showed up—most of whom were Baby Boomers seemingly uncomfortable not knowing what they didn’t know.
A panel included a trade association exec, a bike shop owner, and a local PR guy. One exasperated audience member asked, “How do we live in a world where we don’t do meetings like this anymore? It’s all online—no more face-to-face.” The answer was—and I agree—that people who are most social online also are the most social in person. Nothing has changed there—that’s been going on since we walked the Earth.
In fact, I’m reminded of our parents’ (or was it our grandparents’?) saying that “TV will ruin your eyesight and you’ll never go out anymore.”
The bike shop owner said she walks a fine line when selling her stuff in the social space. She called it “quiet marketing.” The online biker community is huge around the country, and here in Virginia is no exception. She resists the temptation to leverage that community and turn it into a one-way sales barrage. “I don’t say in my posts, ‘We’re having a sale this week’ and remind people every day,” she said. “I post up something to do with biking and at the very end I’ll say something like, ‘…and we just hung up our sale banners here at the bike shop.’
The Chamber event was filled with lawyers, CPAs, local retail shops, consultants—all sorts of folks. “How does this make me money?” one guy asked. The panel’s answer: “Credibility and awareness.” You may not see a direct return, but over time you will build your brand and drive referrals. Let your customers talk about you—it’s more powerful than you talking about you.
I recommended to the Chamber staff leader that she book more of these events, as members clearly need help.
What does online social networking mean for insurance folks? Well, let me take a page from the bike-shop owner and be as understated as I can be: “We at Aartrijk intend to explore these exciting issues ourselves for our friends and clients in the insurance world at Aartrijk Brand Camp Sept. 28-30 2009 in Chicago (www.Aartrijk.com/brandcamp).
You see? In-person events are alive and well…although they’re changing for the better. Come and find out!
- Peter van Aartrijk
ProgramBusiness.com: “Social Studies: New Media Involves Strategy, Management”
May 6, 2009 by Charles Wasilewski · Leave a Comment
The social Web is “changing the way we communicate to clients and market products and services,” according to a May 6, 2009 article on insurance industry Web site ProgramBusiness. In a Q&A with Annie George, Rick Morgan of Aartrijk notes about the social Web: “The way we want to reach out, buy products, find out about products, services, has changed forever. It only makes sense that the insurance industry be a part of that dynamic.”
Read the interview here.