WASHINGTON–Social networking through technology offers producers and carriers new marketing opportunities to a new base of clients, but there are challenges agencies and companies face as the line between social and business networking blurs, a panel of users said.
Demonstrating the strength of networking, a "secret session" on "Twitter and Social Networking" was held late on the final day of the 33rd AMS User Group National Conference held here last week. The session was not listed on the agenda of meetings, though hints about it were dropped occasionally throughout the conference. The only way attendees found out about the meeting was either through word of mouth or an online social network such as MyFace.com or Twitter.
That fact that so many attended the session, said April Feldt, education specialist for AMS Users Group, only underscored the strength of social networking.
The discussion, led by Steve Anderson, an independent agency technology consultant, touched on two main points: one, the benefits of online social networking for generating business and providing information to customers; two, the challenges in controlling the message and potential security issues.
On the benefit side, Nibby Priest, vice president of Vaughan Insurance Agency Company in Henderson, Ken., spoke about how important an agency blog was in putting out information for clients seeking contractors to make repairs after the winter ice storms that hit the region. The electronic networking, he noted, serves two purposes, getting information out to customers who need it, and at the same time reinforcing the relationship between client and agency.
Reinforcing that relationship, Mr. Anderson noted, also means smartly being honest with your customers. He noted in answer to a question from one of Vaughan Insurance Agency's customers, that the agency honestly answered in its blog that the ice storms would increase premiums, but the agency also added that while increases can't be avoided the agency "can help you find more affordable coverage."
Katie Herbst, senior marketing communications specialist, property-casualty marketing for Westfield Center, Ohio-based Westfield Insurance, said it asked some of its experts to begin writing a blog on topics that agents would be interested in. Once they got started, she said, they found it easy to expand and continue the blog and have come to love it.
She also noted how easy it was for the carrier experts to write the blogs because it is a conversation that is being carried on with agents anyway.
When it comes to writing blogs, Cindy Adams, vice president of information technology for the independent broker Holmes Murphy & Associates in Des Moines, Iowa, said that few writers of blogs start off good, but they expand the blogs and become better at them as they gain experience.
As far as controlling the message, Ms. Herbst said anything negative written about the company by an employee is treated the same way it is written in any public forum. Taking out the technology element, she said, the disciplinary issues were already in the employee handbook. She added that whatever the rules they need to promote, not discourage web social networking access.
A newer form of social networking, Twitter, is a quick micro blog of 140 characters, noted Mr. Priest. The benefit, said Mr. Anderson, is that people can quickly learn about topics that might interest them, such as the "secret session" did.
On the security side, one thing Ms. Adams recommended was to avoid putting links into the text of blogs that could lead to questionable sites and to keep virus software current. The main protection, she said, is using common sense.
"The line is blurring between the business and the personal," Ms. Herbst pointed out, recommending that companies need to "go slow" when starting these programs.
The panelists recommended that companies need to monitor the postings and know what is being said about them. Google and Twitter have feeds that allow users to keep informed of what is being said about them.
"It is worse not to know," said Ms. Herbst.
For posters, Mr. Priest recommended that "before you say something, make it positive."
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