According to the 2010 Independent Brokerage Study, 57 percent of agents use at least one social media tool to interact with other professionals, and 59 percent use social media to network with clients and prospects.
While you will hear the most buzz about Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, there is a world of social networking tools beyond these most popular of sites. StumbleUpon, Digg, and YouTube are gaining traction among marketers looking to spread the message about their brand and provide useful content to loyal followers, and member communities such as discussion forums can be a great way to connect with other insurance professionals — and even potential and current clients.
Here, then, is a guide to seven social media sites to start looking into. Don't think that just because you're running a business, you can't dip your toe into the world you previously thought was overrun by teenagers and hipsters. This is far from the truth — so start exploring today, with this guide in hand.
Users: 145 million
Activity: There are 90 million tweets per day on Twitter; 25 percent of all tweets contain links to other sites.
Description: A microblogging service that allows users to follow other users and to share information or provide updates in 140-character "tweets." You can also "retweet" other users' content and message, or "DM" other users privately. There is no limit to the number of users you can follow or who can follow you, and no limit to the number of tweets you can send in a day (though there are several opinions on how much activity you should commit to, depending on your goals).
User profile: Average age: 39.1; percentage of users with a bachelor's degree: 23 percent; percentage of users earning more than $50,000 per year: 55 percent.
How agents use it: 4 percent to network with other insurance professionals; 5 percent to network with clients and prospects.
Pros: You can follow as many people as you like; it offers an easy way to establish a rapport by distributing news about the industry, your practice, and content you've written or find interesting and helpful; if your followers retweet your content, you can expand your reach and gain new followers; there are more third-party applications than for any other site, helping to make Twitter easier to use and more flexible.
Cons: Can be overwhelming and time-consuming if not managed properly; many business-oriented users fall prey to the pitfall of using the site to promote rather than inform, educate, and interact; with so much information being shared on the service, your message may be lost in the din.
Users: 600 million
Activity: Facebook estimates that 50 percent of its active users are logged onto the site in any given day; the average user has 130 friends; people spend more than 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook; users interact with more than 900 million objects (pages, groups, events, community pages).
Description: A social networking service and web site where users can create a personal profile, add other users as friends, exchange messages with others, and receive automatic notifications when friends update their profile. Users can also follow pages for businesses, celebrities, other public entities, and more by "liking" the pages. Some of the site's more useful features include event planning tools and the ability to share links, videos, and photos with friends.
User profile: Average age: 38.4; percentage of users with a bachelor's degree: 17 percent; percentage of users earning more than $50,000 per year: 67 percent.
How agents use it: 30 percent to network with other insurance professionals; 20 percent to network with clients and prospects.
Pros: Users tend to spend more time browsing and interacting here than on Twitter; nature of network allows your friends to serve as referral sources to their friends; flexible interface allows you to build a personal profile, a business page, or a group, depending on your goals; chat functionality could be leveraged for customer service if you don't want to get involved in building your own chat module.
Cons: Many users hop on Facebook for personal social networking rather than business networking; could become dicey if your personal profile is linked to your business page and/or group; privacy settings can change frequently, making it difficult to separate your personal business profiles; can easily be sidetracked if you don't manage your productivity.
Users: 75 million
Activity: 80 percent of companies use, or are planning to use, LinkedIn as their primary tool to find employees during the course of this year; of all the social media sites, LinkedIn has the highest percentage of international users, with 57 percent of users residing outside the United States; roughly one percent of LinkedIn users are responsible for 34 percent of all visits.
Description: A business-oriented social networking site, primarily used for professional networking. The site allows registered users to maintain a list of contact details of people they know and trust in business called "connections." Through connections, users build a multi-level contact network that they can use to gain introductions to others and to find jobs, people, and business opportunities recommended by people in their contact network. Advanced features provide added functionality.
User profile: Average age: 44.3; percentage of users with a bachelor's degree: 23 percent; percentage of users earning more than $50,000 per year: 55 percent.
How agents use it: 30 percent to network with other insurance professionals; 20 percent to network with clients and prospects
Pros: Because it's designed for business use, it is the one social networking tool that's most well-suited to connecting with colleagues and peers; access to second and third-degree connections allows you to expand your prospect network; there are a number of insurance-related groups on LinkedIn where you can post content and join and begin discussions.
Cons: Consumers may be less likely to turn to LinkedIn to find service providers or for information about a topic such as finances or insurance; it is more difficult to quickly distribute information to a large number of people on LinkedIn; many will accept connection requests only from those they know and/or with whom they have an existing business relationships; some of the site's best features require a paid membership.
Other Social Media Sites
Digg
Description: A social news web site that allows people to submit content and vote for (or "digg") their favorite or most useful stories.
Number of users: 5 million
How you can use it: If enough users vote for your content, it could make it to the Digg homepage and generate traffic to your web site.
Delicious
Description: A social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks. Users can tag each of their bookmarks with terms of their choice, and a combined view of everyone's bookmarks with a given tag is available, making it possible to view bookmarks added by other users.
Number of users: 5 million
How you can use it: Delicious has gained the most favor of any social bookmarking site among marketers, who use it for research, data mining, and driving web site traffic through articles that make it to the Delicious hotlist.
StumbleUpon
Description: A discovery engine that finds the best of the Web, recommended to each unique user. It allows its users to discover and rate web pages, photos, and videos that are personalized to their tastes and interests.
Number of users: 8 million
How to use it: StumbleUpon is the site least suited for self-promotion — if you are caught promoting yourself or messaging too many people at once, you will be flagged and banned — but you can still build a profile and rate other sites to make yourself known as a purveyor of useful and relevant content.
YouTube
Description: A web site on which users can upload, share, and view videos. Most of the content has been uploaded by individuals; some media corporations offer material on the site as part of a partnership program.
Number of users: Monthly user base around 375 million.
How to use it: Create your own channel and upload videos where you talk about industry trends, interview movers and shakers, or offer tutorials. Just be careful and make sure whatever you're posting is compliant with your company and federal regulations and doesn't make outrageous claims or recommend specific products.
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