Social media has become for companies one of the most effective, fast and simple ways to communicate with their ever-growing audience. According to experts from digital media management company Hootsuite, there are more than 2 billion active social media users worldwide and nearly 80% of companies have a dedicated social media team.
More than a half of these companies said that their efforts on the web are increasing their exposure and boosting sales.
What are the real benefits of a social media strategy for insurance sector?
A survey made by Accenture revealed that almost half of internet consumers consider online comments before making their insurance buying decisions. Millenials in particular, are paying a lot of attention to social media comments and recommendations.
According to millenialmarketing.com, this generation would be more willing to pay for a product or service in order to share a common cause and have some feedback with companies about their experiences with products or services and the insurance sector does not escape from these trends.
Social Media could become a great channel to increase customer’s engagement
Having a social strategy for your insurance company can also help your business to reach a real engagement with your clients and turn them into ambassadors of your brand, so you can get good reviews from satisfied clients and potential clients get attracted without spending one dollar in advertising.
Social Channels also provides you with the opportunity of hearing what your clients think and say about your products and services, in order to identify negative issues before anyone else.
So, how do I create an effective social media strategy for my insurance business?
By taking time to define a social media strategy for your insurance company, you will have the chance to see the reaction of your audience to different type of contents in diverse channels and decide what works best for you.
Here you have a 5-step guide to develop your social media strategy:
- Define your company’s vision: Before starting to tweet, sit down and define what you want to achieve for your insurance company in a short, medium and long term. Decide who is going to be your target audience,
- Investigate: Knowing whom you are talking with will help you to get deeper on which are their concerns and how can you help them to solve this issues. Investigate which social media channel do your customers prefer and the best practices for each of them.
All this information should be hand-to-hand with your company’s objectives.
- Measure your performance: To track your progress is important to set from the beginning how are you going to track the success of your actions. Set the Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) for the effectiveness of your campaigns and do not forget to keep an eye on your competitor’s progress.
TIP: Nowadays there are many online software companies that help you plan your social media content and get reports and analytics about the response you are getting from the audience.
- Create a team: Now you must decide who is going to be in charge of feeding these social channels with interesting content. Depending of company’s size and the amount of money you want to invest, you can develop your strategy in-house or hire an agency with social media management expertise.
- Set some parameters: Now that you have a team, it is necessary to settle some principles of how do you want to show your company, the technology you are going to use and choose an integrated media solution. It is a good idea to create a manual with the company’s social media company policies, in order to set some parameters. You can get some inspiration with
Hubspot’s 5 Noteworthy Examples of Corporate Social Media Policies
Implementing this few steps carefully will guarantee you a great start on social media. However, do not expect overnight results, it takes time to build a base of loyal customers that will stay with you for a long time. Social media marketers say you must wait between a year or two to see results of your efforts.
In case you need some more advice, watch the next video from Accenture about how social media applies on different stages of insurance value chain:
Sources:
http://www.slideshare.net/simplify360/5-social-media-needs-for-the-insurance-sector
http://www.millennialmarketing.com/who-are-millennials/
