Benchmarking Group Rates Allstate at the Top of Insurers Using Social Media

Unmetric, the socialmedia benchmarking company, releases the results of its a newreport detailing which insurance companies have done the best jobestablishing a meaningful presence on Facebook, Twitter andYouTube. The report: "Who's Covered? Insurance Social MediaShowdown," assesses more than just raw number of fans. It breaksdown how insurance carriers across the U.S. are building, updating,and engaging their communities through social media.

Unmetric examines the activity of the 13 most active Americaninsurance companies on social media over a two-month period, fromSept. 1 to Oct. 31, 2012. Unmetric gave each insurance company ascore based on a blend of quantitative and qualitative metrics,weighted and averaged to produce a single number ranging from zeroto 100 for each social network—one score for Facebook, one forTwitter, and one for YouTube. These scores are based onmetrics such as content strategy, engagement, growth, timing, andfrequency of posts, tweets and videos on Facebook, Twitter andYouTube.

"Today, social media is a natural extension of physicalcommunities into the online world," says Unmetric CEO, Lux Narayan."Insurance agents have always been skilled at building andmaintaining long-lasting relationships, so it's no surprise thesecompanies have taken to social media like a fish to water."

Farmers Insurance leads the competition with over 2.3 millionfans on Facebook. Second place goes to MetLife, which claims554,438 fans. Enthusiasm for Farmers on Facebook doesn't translateto Twitter or YouTube. This may be due to the fact that Farmerssponsored Facebook's Farmville in 2011 and saw extreme fan growth;millions of people 'liked' the page in return for free digitalgoods. The company pales in comparison to USAA and GEICO, whichlead on Twitter and YouTube with over 35,000 followers and 17,000subscribers respectively.

Although Farmers, USAA and GEICO boast the most socialrelationships overall, Liberty Mutual has had the most success ingrowing its fan base, according to Unmetric. The company hasexperienced a 170 percent growth in Facebook fans and 84 percentgrowth in Twitter followers over the time period measured.

While earning fans is certainly a step towardasserting popularity, engaging with them is what sets one companyapart from the next. Unmetric weighted all the likes, comments,shares, and estimated impressions generated by each company onFacebook to determine which insurance companies see the mostengagement with their fans. Despite having the smallest followingof any company measured, Travelers Insurance led the way with anaverage engagement score of 303. By comparison, the next closestcompany, USAA, earns only 124, followed by MetLife, which roundsout the top three with a score of 105. The average U.S. insurancepage earns an average engagement score of 61.

As far as what content is grabbing the attention of fans, forthe insurance industry, posts focusing on corporate socialresponsibility are not only the most popular, but also earn thehighest average engagement scores. For example, a post from American Family Insurance offered50,000 meals for the hungry in exchange for 20,000 Likes.

Engagement on social media is just as much reactive as it isproactive. To determine the most reactive brands on social media,Unmetric broke down reply metrics for each company on Facebook andTwitter. Esurance is the most responsive brand on Facebook,responding to a whopping 76.5 percent of incoming posts. Thecompany takes four hours and ten minutes on average to respond,second only to State Farm, which replies in just under fourhours.

Looking at Twitter, Farmers is quickest to reply, in an averageof two hours and 28 minutes, followed by American Family with anaverage of just over three and a half hours. While Farmers is quickto reply, State Farm actually replies to tweets twice as often.Interestingly, State Farm publicly apologized 41 times during thetime period measured. By comparison, Allstate and GEICO posted thesecond most apologies, each with six.

The insurance industry has long honed the art of theTV commercial to make their products and services relatable.Despite strong showings from Progressive and Allstate, GEICO is theleader on YouTube. The company garnered nearly 50 million videoviews and over 17,000 subscribers in the time period measured.

Unmetric also took a look at the popular mascots that havepopped up in more recent years to humanize the insurance industry.Flo from Progressive, Mayhem from Allstate and the GEICO Gecko eachmaintain separate Facebook pages from their parent companies. Flodominates in terms of popularity and growth, with nearly fivemillion fans and a steady growth rate of 4.9 percent. Mayhem fromAllstate has the most engagement with fans, earning an averageengagement score of 219.

Here's a breakdown of some gathered during thesample period:

Facebook

Unmetric Score

1. MetLife – 58

2. Farmers – 56

3. Liberty Mutual – 48

4. USAA – 41

5. Allstate – 37

Total Fans

1. Farmers – 2,312,884

2. MetLife – 554, 438

3. USAA –287,723

4. GEICO – 278,214

5. State Farm – 270,606

Growth

1. Liberty Mutual – 169.9%

2. Allstate – 67.4%

3. American Family – 34.6%

4. Esurance – 15.2%

5. Travelers – 7%

Highest Engagement (Calculation of Likes, Comments,Shares, and Impressions that each FB post receives)

1. Travelers – 303

2. USAA – 124

3. MetLife – 105

4. AmericanFamily – 89

5. Nationwide – 69

Response Rate

1. Esurance – 76.5%

2. MetLife – 61.5%

3. Allstate –48.9%

4. State Farm – 45.1%

5. USAA – 41.2%

Average Reply Time (HH:MM:SS)

1. State Farm – 3:53:00

2. Esurance – 4:09:00

3. American Family Insurance – 5:17:00

4. Nationwide Insurance – 7:02:00

5. MetLife – 7:34:00

Twitter

Unmetric Score

1. @Allstate – 64

2. @StateFarm – 63

3. @WeAreFarmers – 56

4. @Nationwide – 48

5. @amfam – 47

Total Followers

1. @USAA – 35,904

2. @Allstate – 29,730

3. @StateFarm – 28,576

4. @Nationwide – 15,959

5. @Progressive– 15,394

Growth

1. @esurance – 11.1%

2. @StateFarm – 10.2%

3. @USAA – 8.6%

4. @WeAreFarmers – 8%

5. @GEICO_Service – 7.9%

Average Reply Time (HH:MM:SS)

1. @WeAreFarmers – 2:28:00

2. @amfam – 3:33:00

3. @Nationwide – 3:47:00

4. @TRV_Insurance – 3:51:00

5. @StateFarm – 4:17:00

YouTube

Unmetric Score

1. GEICO – 76

2. Allstate – 65

3. MetLife –59

4. State Farm – 54

5. Progressive – 49

Total Video Views

1. GEICO – 48,828,698

2. Allstate – 26,738,065

3. State Farm – 22,569,700

4. Progressive – 14,161,451

5. Nationwide – 3,122,372

YouTube Viewership Growth

1. Liberty Mutual – 84.1%

2. American Family – 54.5%

3. Progressive – 13.3%

4. Nationwide – 12.9%

5. USAA – 9.7%

Total Channel Subscribers

1. GEICO – 17,576

2. Allstate – 8,541

3. State Farm – 7,064

4. Progressive – 3,835

5. USAA – 1,187

Channel Subscriber Growth

1. USAA – 17.4%

2. American Family – 17.3%

3. Nationwide – 14.9%

4. Liberty Mutual – 12.4%

5. MetLife – 11.7%

Mascot Facebook Showdown

Unmetric Score

1. Flo from Progressive – 74

2. Mayhem from Allstate– 41

3. GEICO Gecko – 30

Facebook Fans

1. Flo from Progressive – 4,699,955

2. Mayhem from Allstate– 1,407,479

3. GEICO Gecko – 292,705

Facebook Growth

1. Flo from Progressive – 4.9%

2. Mayhem from Allstate– 2.6%

3. GEICO Gecko – 1.7%

Highest Engagement (Calculation of Likes, Comments,Shares, and Impressions that each FB post receives)

1. Mayhem from Allstate – 219

2. GEICO Gecko – 46

3. Flo from Progressive – 21

Overall

Combined Unmetric Score

1. Allstate – 166

2. State Farm – 148

3. GEICO – 145

4. Farmers Insurance – 130

5. MetLife – 129

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