Is social media becoming passé in the insurance industry? Itseems odd to some observers that the perpetually-late-to-the-partyinsurance industry has already got a handle on things. After all,most insurers have marketing departments on Twitter and, other thanmy wife, who doesn’t have a Facebook account?

The subject of social media was part of the keynote address hereat the ACORD LOMA Insurance Systems Forum today. Vivek Kundra, whoserved briefly as the first and, so far, only Chief InformationOfficer of the United States (now there’s a title for your résumé)brought up the issue of the “social revolution,” pointing out thatother issues such as cloud computing and mobile technology are“subservient” to what is going on in social media.

Kundra cited examples such as the angry responses from customersover Netflix raising its rates and Bank of America charging higherdebit fees, and the Occupy Wall Street movement.

He might as well have brought up the Boston Tea Party or—asCelent’s Mike Fitzgerald joked—Martin Luther posting his 95 theseson the door of the German cathedral to let the Pope know he wasn’tfooling around.

The way we communicate changes all the time. Certainly socialmedia as we know it today is a big break from how most of uscommunicated less than a decade ago, but as with any technologicalrevolution the key to success is how well you adapt to changes.

For me, this goes back to the debate of style vs. substance.Adopting a social media presence, in many ways, is just styling.What you do with your Facebook and Twitter accounts—and blogs—isthe substance that we all should seek.

The problem for some, though, is getting that substantive voiceheard in a crowded marketplace. Insurers have adopted a socialmedia presence to keep up with the competition as much as to gettheir message heard.

Competition is always important, particularly in an industrylike insurance, but what is said or written is always going to bemore important for most of us than how we say it. Using your socialmedia presence wisely will be an important factor as we moveforward it this content-heavy world of ours.