The expression is true: time is money. Especially the time you spend working to improve your agency’s reach and generate revenue.
The time you are pouring into cultivating your social media channels is meant to capture leads. Is it working?
Whether you’re not so sure or are just looking to improve on the good thing you’ve got going, we’ve outlined a few tips to help you use your social media channels to their full potential.
Know What Your Clients Want
Don’t get on social just to push your brand. Instead, align your brand with what your readers need.
Take time to get to know the interests of your audience by asking yourself a few basic questions:
- What does your audience find interesting?
- What pain points does your audience have?
- How can you help you audience address/ solve their pain points?
Knowing what your followers hope to gain from your business is the key to curating content that appeals to them.
Add Value to the Conversation
Once you figure out what it is that your followers need, give it to them.
You can add value to your audience in a number of ways:
- Share useful content that your agency generates (such as blog posts).
- Give props to other businesses and people, when appropriate.
- Share interesting content that other businesses post.
- Participate in group conversations.
- Be quick to answer questions posed by followers/ customers.
Don’t Rely on Organic Reach
In January 2018, Facebook began to "shift ranking to make News Feed more about connecting with people and less about consuming media in isolation."
Facebook’s most recent update is all about serving up more content from users’ friends and family, and less content from brands. That means your business page posts are being seen by less and less people. But don’t worry - you can overcome this algorithm change by following the next two tips:
Post Less Often, But Offer More Quality
Instead of over-posting, pour that time and effort into creating high-quality content that offers something to your audience.
According to Facebook, content will get prioritized in the newsfeed if:
- The content is shared over Facebook Messenger
- The content is liked and commented on
- The content receives multiple replies
- The content inspires “meaningful interactions” between users
Whether you’re posting to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or any other social media channel, focusing on meaningful content will always be a winning strategy.
It’s better to post one, high-quality piece of content a week than to spend your time posting multiple low-quality posts per day.
So what does that look like?
Take the time to create a video where you answer some of your client’s biggest questions about life insurance, health insurance, or homeowner’s insurance, for example. Post it on your Facebook page, and then send a link to that post to a segment of your client list that you know will benefit from the tips and information you provide. As they view, like, comment, and share your video on Facebook, your organic reach for that post will increase.
Promote Your Content
If you really want to reach a broad audience on social media today, you’ve got to pay to play. As organic reach declines for business page posts, you can easily reach your target audience on Facebook using paid advertising.
Luckily, Facebook’s targeting capabilities allow you to really reach your ideal audience. You can target a persona based on demographics, interests, buying behaviors, and more.
You can boost content to a custom audience (your existing prospect or client lists), create a lookalike audience that targets an audience similar to your existing clients, or even people who have visited your website before.
This is even more reason to spend your social media marketing efforts producing meaningful content. Create content that’s meaningful to your audience and that you would feel comfortable backing with your dollars to promote. If you wouldn’t pay to boost a post to your ideal audience, then don’t post it in the first place.
Engage, Engage, Engage
What today’s social media followers want, more than ever, is to be engaged – both with the content they’re consuming and the pages they’re following.
Here are some tips to cultivate engagement with those who follow your agency:
Keep It Casual
Remember that your followers are just people, like you. Probably checking their newsfeed while they’re standing in line to get coffee or wasting time at work, nobody is looking for formality on social media.
In fact, get too stuffy and people might lose interest. Try to keep your feed approachable and friendly.
Ask Questions
It is a natural, human response to want to contribute to a conversation. One great way to engage your followers is simple: ask them a question.
Everybody has an opinion and most of us are quick to share it.
Reach out to followers for their opinions on your agency, products, current events… anything that engages them while helping you provide value.
Adding a question to the end of a post invites your readers to pause, contemplate, and respond. What could be more engaging?
Be sure to respond quickly when someone engages with you or your brand, whether they’ve @ you in a conversation, left you a direct message, or posted on your page. Your social media pages are an extension of your business and many people see your business page as an arm of your customer service department. Don’t leave them waiting for an answer or reply.
Social media marketing your insurance business can be a good use of your time and resources, as long as you’re focusing on the right efforts. Be sure to engage regularly with your followers, bring value to their newsfeed, and position your agency as a knowledgeable resource.
Keep your social feeds conversational and informative, responding to questions and comments as they come. Provide meaningful content and be sure to promote it to your ideal audience. If you do it right, your social media accounts can be one more lead source that helps you grow your insurance business.