On Thursday, March 17th at 2pm CST, join us for the first in a series of presentations about leveraging social media for your insurance business.

In this presentation, Krista Dial (who is the personality behind HometownQuotes’ PR and social media) will walk you through setting up a Facebook fan page, explain the differences between Facebook profiles and pages and share strategies for building a strong base of raving fans for your insurance business.

Make sure you stick around for our popular Q&A session after the webinar. Insurance industry veteran Hunter Ingram will be on hand to answer questions and offer insight as an insurance agent and former agency owner.

We hope you won’t miss this opportunity to learn how social media offers valuable tactics for prospecting and retaining insurance clients.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Best Regards,
The HometownQuotes Team

We spent quite a bit of time in 2010 talking about the things you should be doing to market your insurance business online. According to the Harvard Business Review, 2011 will be the year that shapes the future of our lives online…so we still have more social media recommendations/insight for you.

Take a moment to consider these viewpoints from the folks at HBR:

1) Determine your purpose for every interaction. What are your goals? It’s so easy to get distracted each time we get online. Having a clear purpose for online interactions will keep you on track with your goals.

2) What is your online persona? How are you perceived by your online prospects/peers? Are you maintaining an identity that is consistent with your offline persona? It’s important that your online persona is parallel with your offline personality. You don’t want your clients to think you have an offline/online identity crisis.

3) Are you leveraging technology to address issues and/or rally around important events? The Internet offers many opportunities to positively impact your community. 2011 can be the year you help a local non-profit organization increase funding, or perhaps you use your insurance blog to answer important financial questions from your clients or prospects.

Head over to the Harvard Business Review blog to read the full article titled – “Social Media in 2011: Six Choices You Need To Make”.

As technology evolves and the world continues to get smaller and smaller, more people are relying on the speed and instant gratification of the Internet. Although we may feel more connected with each other, are we really?

I bookmarked an article in Agent’ Sales Journal a few months back that confronts this question. In the “Prospecting Corner” column of ASJ, writer and business consultant Joanne Black discusses how insurance professionals are relying on online mediums such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc. to build rapport with prospects and customers and some are focusing on social media alone to generate quality leads. She explains that many insurance agents are decreasing face time with prospects and solely focusing  on online social mediums.

Although I don’t know I agree that insurance professionals are reducing personal interactions, I do agree that more and more agents are leveraging social media for their insurance businesses. Black points out three key points that emphasize how social media can boost business and increase your brand recognition:

Improved SEO – Social media helps you to hone in on specific search terms which, in turn, bring more traffic to your website.
Researching prospects and customers - Social media allows you to see what activities prospects/customers enjoy. You learn details you otherwise may never learn about.
Expand your network – Social media gives you the opportunity to see who your networks are connected with and deepen your networks as well.

Many insurance agents are using social media to their advantage. While it’s not wise to solely focus on social media for your insurance business, it’s certainly not wise to ignore it all together. Maintain a healthy balance between online and offline communication.

To get ahead in today’s marketplace as an insurance professional, you can’t ignore technology, but you CAN take a step toward success by focusing on connecting with people and finding ways to serve them.

How are you serving your customers? What is the most effective way you’ve found to connect with more prospects? Please share here. We’d love to hear about it!

If you are a regular follower of our blog, you know how much we appreciate social media. Why? Because it’s a great way to connect with people and build relationships – and that’s what business is all about.

Thanks to Agent’s Sales Journal, you can read the true story of Evelyn Jackson – an insurance agent in Georgia who is using social media to her advantage. Click here to read the full story.

If social media works for her, why shouldn’t it work for you and your insurance business? Here are some key pointers to take away from Evelyn’s story:

1) Evelyn genuinely cares about helping people make educated decisions. She listens carefully to her clients’ needs before recommending solutions.

2) Evelyn’s social media presence is non-promotional. When you visit her blog, Twitter page, etc., it’s clear she makes an effort to educate and help people – not sell, sell, sell.

3) Evelyn thinks outside the box. Insurance professionals who realize the marketplace has expanded beyond the storefront and the YellowPages will build sustainable insurance businesses.

Evelyn’s Twitter page – http://twitter.com/evelynajackson
Evelyn’s insurance blog – http://prescribemeinsurance.wordpress.com/

How are you using social media for your insurance business?