So you’re an independent agency owner who thinks you’re prettyprogressive when it comes to social media. You’re blogging, postingvideos on YouTube, and doing everything right when it comes toengaging clients and prospects on the Internet.

Don’t get too complacent. Establishing a presence on socialmedia platforms can be like building an elegant sand castle on theshore – when the tide shifts, you may need to start fromscratch.

That’s the takeaway from a recent study compiled by BusinessInsider Intelligence, which finds that there are no fixed points incyberspace. Unlike bulk mailings, newsletters and all the othertried-and-true engagement techniques handed down by generations ofindependent agents, social media platforms are constantly evolving,and what’s hot with one demographic today can cool off prettyquickly.

Examining more than a dozen sources, the report finds that oldersocial networks are reaching maturity, while newer social messagingapps are gaining younger users fast.

Here are the findings in a nutshell:

Facebook is big with the ladies. Women in theU.S. are more likely to use Facebook than men by about 10percentage points, according to a 2013 survey of social networkadoption.

Facebook is still tops with teens. Despitereports suggesting that Facebook is becoming your grandma’s socialnetwork, the BI study finds that Facebook is still the No. 1 socialnetwork for U.S. teenagers, with nearly half of teen users sayingthey're using the site more than last year. Facebook has more dailyteen users than any other social network.

Instagram is the new “it” platform. U.S. teensconsider Instagram the "most important" social media platform,while Facebook and Twitter lost ground on this measure, accordingto Piper Jaffray's twice-yearly teen survey. The survey also foundthat 83% of U.S. teens in wealthy households were on Instagram.

LinkedIn tops Twitter with U.S. adults. With acore user demographic of adults between 30 and 49, LinkedIn is theplatform of choice for users at the peak of their careers. Notsurprisingly, LinkedIn users are generally well educated.

Twitter: Where the boys are. Although itstarted life as a more gender-balanced social network, Twitter istrending toward more male users: Pew found that 22% of men useTwitter, compared with only 15% of women.

YouTube is bigger than TV. Nearly half of thedesirable 18-to-34 demographic visited YouTube between December2013 and February 2014, according to Nielsen. Millennials rate itas the top place to watch content, ahead of digital and TVproperties like Facebook and ESPN.

Snapchat is the young, hot kid on the block.More than six out of 10 Snapchat users are in the 18-to-24 agegroup, compared to 28% of Instagram users, according to a survey byInformate.

Tough sell for insurers?

None of this comes as a surprise to Ryan Hanley, CIC, digitalmarketing lead at TrustedChoice.com, and a long-time observer ofhow agencies engage consumers on social media.

What surprised me, though, was Ryan’s observation that socialmedia is still a hard sell in the industry – even for younginsurance professionals. Ryan said he had just spoken to a group ofyoung insurance agents in Virginia, most of who admitted that theydon’t do much marketing on social media.

Why? Ryan says it comes to a lack of support from older agencyowners, and the fact that producers don’t need to engage on socialmedia. The compensation structure of insurance, which attractsyoung people in the first place, means most producers can whip upenough business the old-fashioned way to make a comfy living. Thefact that the independent agency system’s retention rates are sohigh – in the mid 80%, compared with GEICO’s, which is somethinglike 40%--means when it comes to marketing, we’re a victim of ourown success.

The problem is, direct writers and captives are slicing anddicing the sort of information hinted at in the BusinessIntelligence study and using it to go after specific demographicson social networks, while independent agents are not.

This may change drastically once today’s crop of young producersstarts becoming agency principals, Ryan says. With 65% of theindustry being within five years of retirement, this could happenpretty quickly – “But I don’t know if we should wait that long,” hesays.

In the here-today, gone-tomorrow world of social media, thatsounds like a smart strategy to me.