Joanna Belbey is social media and compliance specialist withActiance.

Insurance agents and carriers have long relied on in-personrelationships and word of mouth to build awareness and trust withtheir audience, which in many cases, leads to new customers.However, when harnessed effectively, social media provides agentswith an opportunity to develop and deepen personal relationships byengaging with those they may never meet face-to-face.

Over the past few years, the corporate marketing departments ofinsurance companies have used social media in an attempt to buildawareness, trust, and find new customers. According to a reportfrom the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (The Useof Social Media in Insurance), one common approach is toincentivize consumers to “like” them by donating a dollar to aworthy cause. The rationale is that by clicking the “like” buttonon a company Facebook page, that “like” is broadcast to theirsocial network, and their online friends of the “liker” may beinclined to do the same. Although this may build corporateawareness, and please senior management with large numbers of“likes”, it's hard to believe that this generates any significantrevenues that can be measured.

On the other hand, agents can effectively leverage social mediain personal ways to engage with their existing clients whilebuilding their list of prospects and personal brand. After all,people are most interested and willing to buy insurance during amajor life event, such as an engagement, wedding, new baby,etc.

For example, June is traditionally graduation and wedding month,a time when people are planning for their financial future andsecurity. Social networks allow agents to recognize, congratulate,and engage with people at just the right time, when they arethinking about their financial future. However, tone is important;an agent should be helpful, listen, and engage in a conversationrather than just 'sell.'

Before diving into social media, agents must realize thatadhering to industry and state recordkeeping regulations is just asimportant with social as it is with other communications. Eachelectronic communication is a 'business record' and needs to belogged as such.

Underscoring this is the NAIC statement, “When an insurer orproducer is responsible for the content of a specific social mediacommunication, then the insurer or producer is also responsible forcomplying with state record-retention regulations relative to thesubject communication.”

For this reason, many insurance firms, are opting towardthird-party software solutions that allow them to leverage socialnetworks (Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter) with governance andmanagement tools to remain compliant with state and industryregulatory requirements.

In developing a social media strategy for yourinsurance agents, consider variables such as who will use socialmedia, various channels, the goal of social media for yourbusiness, and how to integrate social with other sales andmarketing programs. Here are some tips for insurance companies totake to heart:

• Social media is best when integrated with other marketingprograms. It is really another communications channel, albeit onewith some unique capabilities that allow for deeper engagement withothers. It can reveal life events, personal milestones,goals, likes and dislikes, that help you understand your clientbase on a deeper, more personal level.
• According to Forrester Research, 70 percent of US onlineadults trust brand or product recommendations from friends andfamily and 46 percent trust consumer-written online reviews, whilejust 10 percent trust ads on websites and 9 percent trust textmessages from companies or brands. This is the essence of socialmedia—trust through connection. That's why it is critical for theindividual to connect to you, and for you to connect to theindividual in order to carry the brand message. In the social mediauniverse, you, your colleague, teammate and client are all 'thebrand.'
• Converting customers to evangelists is the highest achievementof social media. We have all heard stories about how buyingdecisions are influenced by online reviews and interactions. Aspeople connected on social media are members of the same tribe, wetend to trust each other's opinions, over marketing materialspresented by a company. Let your followers, friends or connections,sell for you.
• Compelling content that is compliant with institutional andindustry regulations is key. Start with a library of pre-approvedcontent that agents may access and share with their contacts. This library may contain articles on the importance of protectingyour assets, providing for your family, the security of guaranteedincome or similar topics. Avoid equipping all your agents with thesame content at the same time. That misses the opportunity to allowfor their personal voice to develop.
• Social media has redefined marketing, and as such, requires adifferent approach to measurement. Your number of followers onTwitter is an important metric, only if you are attracting theright followers. If they are the wrong type of follower yourcontent is off base and needs to be refined. A hundredfollowers on LinkedIn may be all you need if they are they rightfollowers and they are willing to share what you are saying withtheir followers. This could be more important than 1,000Facebook friends. To identify those contacts that matter, you needto see who is saying what and who is doing what. One of thegreatest lessons you can learn about social media is that activelistening leads to active engagement. Listen to your contacts inreal-time, assess their content and respond accordingly.

In summary, social media now empowers individual agents toenhance personal relationships with existing customers, and developnew prospects unfettered by geographic location. Agents caninteract with their prospects during those special life events whenpeople are willing to talk about their financial futures and mostlikely to buy. Social media even offers the opportunity for othersto sell on your behalf.

However, like any new business tool, social media needsplanning. Social media should be woven into your existing marketingstrategy to be most effective, your corporate communications ormarketing department needs to create compelling content for theagents to share, and legal, compliance, and other risks need to bemitigated. Training is essential. And finally, whatever strategyyou pursue needs to be analyzed so it can be fine-tuned andimproved on an ongoing basis.