It’s so much more than just posting ‘stuff’

But in many cases, it still feels as if social posting is an action without an intent. An approach which says, ‘Let’s look active but not worry too much about being effective’.

Is this true of your business? If so, we believe you are missing an enormous opportunity.

Social media is an active marketing channel, so use it as such. We all know the mantra about regular content being a pre-requisite of building engagement, but it actually goes further than that. To be successful using social marketing you have to

• Constantly build and develop your audience.

• Get personal to engage that audience.

Too many companies use social media with the vague intent of keep clients ’warm’. What this often means is they do not really know why they are posting but it is probably better than not posting.

In our experience making social marketing a reality means adopting a creative approach to posts. Make your posts calls to action rather than information bulletins. The awkward truth is that if you are currently busy posting regularly on Twitter, Facebook etc. and you are not getting any measurable response from your audience then your social activity is just a quiet failure. Ouch!

Maybe it’s time to up your game and make the time you devote to social media pay its way?

As a starter have a look at the following basic actions of successful social marketers and challenge yourself on how well you are doing.

Build your Social Marketing Audience

Hoping customers and potential customers will find you does not work. Set a challenge every day to actively build your followers on all channels;

• Be on the key platforms - LinkedIn, Facebook , Twitter & YouTube

• Actively follow your clients and potential clients and encourage them to follow you ‘I notice you are on Facebook, why not follow us as we post helpful information for our clients on there’

• Like and comment on their activity

• Identify influencers in chosen target markets – see who is active and work with them.

The result is that you have an active base of potential customer to engage with. The bigger the base the bigger the opportunity for sales

Use the Audience

Do not just tell them things that you do or sell – tell them things that mean something to them e.g., how to save money.

But make it real, not something dull like “the average company who switches to us saves £150 per annum”. Make it come alive, make it human. Have photos, have a story behind the saving, have videos, get the customer to talk about it.

I am sure you have stories about how your claims service helped a business in trouble, how your consultant’s advice ensured a client got the right cover etc. etc. There are a million ways a business transaction can be translated into a story of human engagement and support.

In our work with clients, we are guided by the approach which says that people will forget what you say, even what you do, but they never forget how you made them feel. Use these stories to help them to feel what it is like to be one of your customers.

Use Social Marketing Platforms to cross sell

You cannot sell a commercial lines policy to someone who already has one, but you can sell them other products. Using the above approach show how multiple product purchases attract discounts, tell the story of one such customer who enjoyed this benefit and your products.

Measure, Learn, Adapt

There is no point in just being busy. Actions should focus on what is working and eliminating the less successful. Put metrics in place to measure the growth in followers and the impact of different types of posts (comments, re-posts etc.). Critically examine these metrics on a weekly basis and based on the learning look to re-visit your approach on a monthly basis. Do not let things drift, be active and bold in eliminating the banal and emphasising what people want.

Crucially, measuring impact is far more important than measuring activity.

Make it Personal

An inescapable fact is that certain generations instinctively engage and use digital channels more than others. What is the profile of your front-line team?  If it is digitally savvy and socially savvy use their expertise. Now of course I am not suggesting unsupervised activity, social can be a bear trap for the unwary but if you do have expertise do not waste it. Alongside the value it can bring to your marketing it creates a positive vibe for hiring the best young staff.

So social marketing is about being creative and proactive not just active. But the benefits of such an approach go beyond brand building and lead generation, it has the potential to solve one of the major conundrums facing insurance brokers – the more digital their business becomes the more they fear they will lose the personal relationships they believe are the backbone of their business.

Social marketing addresses these contradictory forces – social allows you to put the human back into the sales process whilst still enjoying the financial benefits of digital fulfilment.

For the team at Threekey the opportunities for active social marketing are myriad and the benefits tangible. For the past 3 years we have worked with a Tier 1 UK broker to establish social marketing as an established and robust channel for business generation. We could do the same for you.