Marketing is a key element of success for any insurance agency. Everything from your outreach to how you’re presenting yourself to the public affects how you recruit, talk to clients and interact with your community. To that end, navigating the social sphere is both important and multilayered. There are a lot of aspects to balance when creating a successful marketing campaign for your agency.
Here we will discuss the where, how, and when of marketing your agency on social media. By demystifying this process we’ll offer exclusive tips and tricks to help brand your agency with Symmetry Financial Group.
Why social?
Using social media as a marketing tactic is essential in today’s tech-driven world. Agencies that aren’t taking advantage of online platforms are missing opportunities to generate leads, extend client outreach and boost visibility.
More importantly, by establishing a social media presence, agencies can strengthen their reputation and brand as a Symmetry Financial Group agency. Whether that’s creating an online culture to help with recruiting or tailoring a trust factor for potential prospects, social media is a valuable marketing tool for introducing yourself. Having an established digital presence is critical in inspiring confidence and trust in your agency.
Organic v Paid
When it comes to marketing on social media, there are two categories of content that agencies can use: organic or paid. Organic marketing consists of posts that occur naturally. This could be posting photos of your office and staff or posting details of events your agency is hosting. The point of organic posts is to naturally build your digital presence by actively creating content through your chosen platform.
Paid marketing consists of ads and posts that you are paying for on a given platform. You might buy banner ads on Facebook or pay to have a particular post boosted on Instagram. So long as there is a monetary transaction with the given platform, it’s considered paid marketing.
A healthy balance of both categories works best when marketing your agency. The important thing to keep in mind is which platforms work best with which tactic. For instance, on Facebook and Instagram, you might have more luck paying for recruiting ads or banner ads that generate leads, while LinkedIn and Twitter are better platforms for organic posts that boost engagement.
By using both organic and paid marketing, your agency can widen the net of recruiting, client engagement and lead generation.
Choosing the right social media platforms for your agency
Another important aspect to consider for social marketing is that you’re utilizing as many online channels as possible. There is a growing list of platforms to choose from, and you must take advantage of the ones that can provide you with the most traffic. For starters, you’ll want to dedicate focus to Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.
Each of these platforms offer a different outlet for your digital presence, and it’s important that you understand how each can influence your agency’s brand. Facebook, for instance, is primarily used to drive traffic. Your agency can benefit from Facebook with organic and paid ads that link to your website and get your name out there.
LinkedIn can be used to build your agency’s network, whether that be recruiting agents or staff for your office. This platform is meant to help your agency with professional connections.
Instagram, unlike other platforms, has a user interface composed of only images and videos. To that end, it’s a medium intended for visually appealing content. Your agency can post infographics and short quotes that provide useful information to your clients or potential recruits, bolstering the credibility of your brand.
Twitter can be used to effectively create engagement with your agency. Organic posts can build discussions about you and your team or highlight community involvement. Twitter is also a great platform for keeping your audience up to date with news of your agency.
You can use YouTube to post videos that help grow your agency’s audience. YouTube is also a great medium for educating that same audience. You might use a series of videos to discuss how certain products work or create videos that highlight your agency’s culture.
Each of these platforms are an important piece of your social marketing puzzle, but all of them together will help you reach your intended audience and boost your brand.
Choose the right platform
Once you have your channels set up, you’ll want to make sure you are presenting the right content on the right platform.
How to post on Facebook
Facebook, as the driver of most traffic, is a catch-all of content. Here you can post text, images, videos and links for your agency. Instead of not worrying about your content and throwing everything at this platform to see what sticks, you’ll want to draft a healthy balance of each type of content, to ensure your agency is putting out an equal amount of each medium. You can also harness the power of Facebook live, where you might share weekly updates in real time on how and what your agency is doing. Having scheduled broadcasts like this will nurture a regular group of viewers that can help with recruiting and lead generation. You can follow our Facebook account here.
How to post on LinkedIn
LinkedIn is uniquely positioned for building your agency’s network of agents and staff. With that in mind, you’ll want to take advantage of text-heavy posts. Content that delivers a more in-depth look at your agency’s culture will help with recruiting efforts. You can also take advantage of LinkedIn by showcasing any community efforts you and your agency have taken part in. Posts that discuss volunteer work or charities will be appealing to recruits while helping create connections with future partnerships. You’ll want to be sure you’re maintaining your presence on LinkedIn as you would any other social media outlet, as it is a wonderful tool for building a reputation for your agency. Check out Symmetry’s LinkedIn account to get an idea of what building a reputation looks like.
How to post on Instagram
The content you post to Instagram should be image based. This is the platform you’ll want to showcase charts, hashtags and stories that illustrate the culture of your agency. Avoid posting lengthy content that can get lost in the scroll. Focus on eye-popping graphics that draw your audience in and get right to the point. You’ll want to take advantage of Instagram’s story feature to highlight important happenings at your agency or life insurance updates for clients. Follow us on Instagram for examples of company highlights.
How to post on Twitter
When creating content for Twitter you’ll want to focus on text and image posts. More importantly, you’ll want to keep in mind the strategies used for marketing on Twitter. Twitter is designed for bite-sized pieces of content that can easily be consumed by your audience. You’ll want to be sure you’re regularly tweeting and that your posts are engaging and informative. With Twitter, you can give your agency’s audience timely updates for how your organization is performing and advertise events you’re taking part in. If you wanted to make an update about a key member of your sales force or celebrate a win for that day, Twitter is the ideal platform for that content. For examples of updates and company wins, check out Symmetry’s Twitter account.
How to post on YouTube
With video being the sole source of content on YouTube, you’ll want to focus your visual content here. YouTube is a wonderful tool for growing your audience, but it is also an exceptional outlet for educating that same audience. Your content on YouTube should take advantage of this. Craft content like interviews with your agents or testimonials from your clients. This is an opportunity to make engaging pieces that give your audience a look inside your agency. Beyond that, you should consider building a series that breaks down your products for your potential clients. This can later be used when helping clients find their best-fit policy. Likewise, you might have a series of videos that describe the culture of your agency for recruiting efforts. Symmetry’s YouTube page has plenty of videos that educate and engage.
Track what works
An important step for any marketing strategy is keeping track of how each campaign is doing. If you’re only putting out content without checking on what’s working and what’s not, then you’re missing opportunities for growth. By keeping a list of metrics for your social marketing strategies, you can pinpoint what’s succeeding with desired demographics or where more work needs to be done.
There are several websites and apps that will help you track how your posts are doing on any given platform. The site Friends+Me will help you track and analyze content on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Apps like Awario are considered social listening tools that help you track keywords and conversations happening on social media related to any topic, including insurance. What’s more, each platform also includes its own analytic tracking if you’d rather not use a third-party app.
Tracking engagement on each of your platforms will help you make informed decisions when it’s time to optimize your posts. If you’re noticing that on Twitter 75% of your most engaging pieces of content are image-based posts, you might want to work on replicating that success on your other platforms. Likewise, if you’re noticing that your LinkedIn profile is getting fewer views than you’d like, you might want to evaluate what isn’t working and focus on solving for a more successful posting schedule.
Learn from your competitors
One of the more valuable resources to advance your digital marketing might not be all that intuitive. By watching your competitors, you can keep a finger on the pulse of what is trending in the insurance industry. Be sure to spend time evaluating the strategies behind your marketing.
You might discover patterns in the ways your competitors are presenting themselves in recruiting efforts on LinkedIn, or you might notice that they have a consistent schedule of updates on Twitter that discuss local volunteer work. You can gauge the success of these posts by looking at the number of retweets on Twitter or shares on LinkedIn. Realize what the common traits of their successful posts are and try to replicate that recipe for posting.
By paying attention to the social media presence of your competitors you can maintain relevancy for your agency. What’s more, by paying attention to what’s working for these other agencies you can also establish what is not working and avoid making the same mistakes.
Avoid pitfalls
There is a lot to navigate when starting to build your agency’s social media presence. With that in mind, there are pitfalls you’ll want to avoid as you get started.
Build a posting schedule that works for you
First, make sure that you have goals and a schedule for your marketing efforts. Creating content and posting without a schedule can be difficult to track and keep up with. By creating a clear-cut list of goals, you can focus on the next steps after evaluating how your campaigns are doing. What’s more, when you establish a schedule for posting on each platform you can have a better grasp on metrics and the best times to post your content. Always be willing to switch things up, whether that be experimenting with different types of posts or times to post.
Be consistent
Next, you’ll want to make sure that you’re consistently creating content for your agency. Keep consistency in mind when you begin posting on Instagram and Twitter; if you start strong, you’ll want to keep that rhythm of content going forward. Choose a pace that you can reasonably keep up with: The last thing you want is to spread your marketing efforts too thin and appear burnt out to your audience. An easy way of ensuring you keep to a consistent schedule is to start with one platform before adding a second platform to your social media presence. In the first few months, you might focus on Facebook posts. As you progress and get in a nice flow for uploading content you can begin adding additional platforms until you have a posting schedule that works for you. You might also consider having individual staff in your agency who handle each platform to ensure you’re keeping to that schedule.
Be engaging
Be sure to keep your content engaging. Publish content that your audience cares about without feeling like they’re looking at a sales pitch. Let your content sell your brand without forcing a product onto your followers. This balancing act can be tricky at first, but once you have a catalog of content and metrics for what works it will be easier to see the trends of what amounts to conversions and recruiting success without coming across as a funnel for your sales.
Don’t isolate your brand
Last, don’t isolate your agency’s brand. Be sure to engage with the rest of the social media communities. If there’s a popular hashtag you can add to an existing piece of content you have planned, be sure to do so. Also, find other accounts that you can engage with within your given platform. Doing so will add trust to your agency’s brand and inspire confidence.
Symmetry branded tools
Here at Symmetry, we give our agents the tools to successfully brand their social media marketing. Our parent company, Quility, created a one-stop website called HQ where you’ll find a comprehensive list of social media assets, customizable templates and presentations that will support all your marketing needs.
On HQ you’ll find Facebook cover photos, agent badge templates, social card templates and much more. Marketing your agency is made easy with HQ’s social media best practices document and a library of icons you can plug into your posts. Your agency can also hit the ground running with a series of shareable agent videos.
The Builder’s Corner section of HQ offers assets for your recruiting efforts. There you’ll have access to ad templates, recruiting infographics and several corporate overview documents that you can present to new agents.
This valuable hub of resources will guide you towards successful marketing for your agency. Everything from branded email signatures to Symmetry Financial Group logos will help promote your agency and boost your social media presence.
Experience the Symmetry Difference
Here at Symmetry, we have the tools and guidance to make sure that all your marketing efforts are a success. Whether it’s brand assets to boost agency awareness or guides of best practices on social media, we have you covered! Expand your brand and build the best social media presence for your agency – we make it easy.
