In the shifting sands of social networks, you're never done staking your claim

So you’re an independent agency owner who thinks you’re pretty progressive when it comes to social media. You’re blogging, posting videos on YouTube, and doing everything right when it comes to engaging clients and prospects on the Internet.

Don’t get too complacent. Establishing a presence on social media platforms can be like building an elegant sand castle on the shore – when the tide shifts, you may need to start from scratch.

That’s the takeaway from a recent study compiled by Business Insider Intelligence, which finds that there are no fixed points in cyberspace. Unlike bulk mailings, newsletters and all the other tried-and-true engagement techniques handed down by generations of independent agents, social media platforms are constantly evolving, and what’s hot with one demographic today can cool off pretty quickly.

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

Here are the findings in a nutshell:

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

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

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

LinkedIn tops Twitter with U.S. adults. With a core user demographic of adults between 30 and 49, LinkedIn is the platform of choice for users at the peak of their careers. Not surprisingly, LinkedIn users are generally well educated.

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

YouTube is bigger than TV. Nearly half of the desirable 18-to-34 demographic visited YouTube between December 2013 and February 2014, according to Nielsen. Millennials rate it as the top place to watch content, ahead of digital and TV properties 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 age group, compared to 28% of Instagram users, according to a survey by Informate.

Tough sell for insurers?

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

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

Why? Ryan says it comes to a lack of support from older agency owners, and the fact that producers don’t need to engage on social media. The compensation structure of insurance, which attracts young people in the first place, means most producers can whip up enough business the old-fashioned way to make a comfy living. The fact that the independent agency system’s retention rates are so high – in the mid 80%, compared with GEICO’s, which is something like 40%--means when it comes to marketing, we’re a victim of our own success.

The problem is, direct writers and captives are slicing and dicing the sort of information hinted at in the Business Intelligence study and using it to go after specific demographics on social networks, while independent agents are not.

This may change drastically once today’s crop of young producers starts becoming agency principals, Ryan says. With 65% of the industry being within five years of retirement, this could happen pretty quickly – “But I don’t know if we should wait that long,” he says.

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