Many insurance agents treat social media marketing like dieting:They know they should do it. About once a year they get motivatedto try it (again).

When they don't see results, they're quick to give it up.Without seeing progress, it's right back to the donuts.

But unlike dieting, the results for successful social marketing are harderto define than a number on a scale. If you want to sustain along-term social strategy, you need to figure out how to tell whenyou're winning.

Even though 93% of agencies report they have some sort of socialmarketing effort in place, 64% of them don't measure the return onthe investment (ROI) they're receiving from social media. If youaren't considering the full scope of your effort's achievement, youmight not see how much benefit you're actually receiving from yourstrategy.

Related: 6 takeaways for marketing insurance tomillennials

When evaluating your social media strategy, identify your ROI inthe following four areas:

According to the Pew Research Center, three out of fourAmerican men and 83% of American women use Facebook. (Photo:iStock)

No. 4: Relationship building

There was a time when agents and brokers kept in touch with theirclientele through organic interactions in the community, forexample, running into a client at the supermarket. It was the wayagents established relationships of trust and how their reputationswere cemented in the mind of the community. Now, socialinteractions happen online — specifically, on social networks.

Related: Opportunity creation: 5 ways to grow your insurancebusiness

Your interactions and reputation online are crucial to thesuccess of your prospecting efforts. Forty-eight percent ofconsumers say they take online reviews into account whenconsidering engaging a new service professional. Once it's outthere, the reputation you're fostering online is difficult tochange. Without serious consideration and care, you might bedeveloping a reputation that won't serve you or your business.

The term "social commerce" has emerged to explain therelationship between social media marketing on digital commerce.(Photo: iStock)

No. 3: Brand strengthening

When setting up your social profiles, first identify what valuesyou want to represent, then pick the brand markers (your logo, yourcolors, your motto and your headshot) that best communicate thosevalues. As you set up your website, your profiles and anyadditional online assets, make sure you're presenting a unifiedfront. This is especially important to younger consumers, as 60% ofmillennials say they expect a consistent brand experience thatspans from online to offline communication fronts.

Related: 4 ways insurance agents can keep communicationsgoing with clients

One of the most crucial pages on your website is your "About Us"page. Studies show that this is the most visited page of a siteafter the home page. Not only does it need to display the membersof your team and present their qualifications, but it must alsocapture a larger picture of the goal toward which your team isworking. This goal could be called your unique service proposition, thedifferentiating factor that sets you apart.

It's important to connect with your prospects and clientsonline, but it can seem time-consuming and overwhelming. That's whyI recommend supplementing your organic efforts with tools that helpautomate a social strategy. Consumer-facing products like Hootsuiteand Buffer are popular for that very reason.

Our company recently released an automated social campaign thatcan help agents "turn on" their social networking like a faucet. Bycombining personalized networking efforts with an automatedprogram, an agent can experience the best of both worlds when itcomes to social marketing.

Social media and content marketing go hand in hand. (Photo:iStock)

No. 2: Content amplification

Too often, social is used as a bulletin board where new blogposts are tacked up for interested parties to come and find.When Facebook has two billion monthly visitors,yet content reaches only 6% of a page's followers, you need astrategy to help your content stand out and reach the largestnumber of interested readers as possible.

If you were to take a college communications course, one of thefirst concepts they would talk about would be the three types ofmedia: owned, earned and paid. Traditionally, owned media refers tothe content your brand publishes itself, earned media refers tothings said about your brand from other sources, and paid mediarefers to advertising. Social media covers all three of these.

When you create a post and send it out over social it acts likeowned media, but once it's found, consumed and shared by others, itbecomes a type of earned media, increasing your reach andamplifying its effect.

When you've produced media that has crossed from owned toearned, you can then amplify it further by boosting posts andcreating ads that will reach larger audiences than you could haveever accessed organically.

Related: How to find high-quality prospects with Facebookand LinkedIn ads

Identifying which of your owned media most easily translated toearned media is a great indicator of which pieces of contentdeserve the boost of becoming paid media.

Of course, the holy grail of marketing is generating newleads. (Photo: iStock)

No. 1: New lead generation

Social marketing is a cost-effective way for lead generation. Ofall businesses engaging in social marketing, 45% report that it hasdecreased their lead generation costs and 24% of them say thattheir revenue has increased specifically from using social mediafor this purpose.

What's the secret to bringing new leads into your sales funnelthrough social channels? It's a culmination of the first threemetrics. By building relationships, you'll encourage referrals andattract new prospects through your followers. By strengthening yourbrand, you'll attract your ideal clients by speaking to their painpoints and demonstrating your expertise on the subjects for whichthey need guidance. By amplifying your content, you'll providevalue to a larger audience who will then have your brand top ofmind when they require your services.

It's important to have a clear path for acquisition when itcomes to your social traffic. As you drive prospects from yoursocial channels onto your content hub (your website's resourcesection or blog), you must have optimized forms and lead magnets tocapture prospects' details and bring them officially into yoursales funnel.

Social marketing takes effort. The only way that your agencywill sustain its social efforts is to focus on the gains youreceive from a well-executed strategy. Without doing so, you might find yourself giving upon your social media marketing faster than a New Year'sresolution diet.

Rick Fox is the president of Agency Revolution, a softwarecompany that provides an AMS-compatible automated communicationplatform for insurance agents. He can be reached by sending emailto [email protected].

See also:

8 ways social networks help identifyfraud

Don't ignore social media as a risk informationsource