Insights From Our Experts
5 Ways Insurers Can Immediately See More Social Media Engagement
Sep 23, 2024
Does posting on your insurance company’s social media accounts ever make you feel like you’re just chatting online all day to yourself? Then you need to increase engagement. Likes, comments, shares, mentions, and followers are also forms of social media engagement. When people engage with your social media posts, your insurance company looks more trustworthy and authentic. Through audience engagement, you can get feedback from followers who can tell you what the company’s doing right or wrong. Ready to increase social media engagement? With these five tips, you’ll gain mad social media engagement skills.
Post To Suit Your Audience, Not You
First things first: Your social media account is not all about you. Gosh! It might be convenient to post at 9 a.m. when you get to the office, but people won’t engage with your account if they’re stuck in meetings. Is that when they’re thinking about their insurance needs? Of course not! You need to figure out when insurance is on their minds because that’s when you’ll get the best response. Scheduling your posts lets you try a whole bunch of options outside your usual workday.
Studies show the best times to post are between midday and 1 p.m. on weekends, 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. on Wednesdays, and 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays. Every company’s audience is different, so you’ll need to test what works best. You can just try posting on different days at different times and see when people engage with your content. Online social media tools can analyze your accounts and suggest the best posting times. Isn’t technology great?
Create Engaging Content
Put yourself in your audience’s shoes. Would you engage with your own posts or would you scroll on by? If you wouldn’t want to interact with your posts, you need to do better with your insurance marketing. Asking your audience questions in your posts is a great way to encourage engagement. But just any question won’t fly. For example, asking your audience who they’d buy life insurance for is a snooze-fest. They’re probably not going to comment, and they definitely won’t share your post. Here are some examples that might boost engagement:
- Ask your followers how they would react in situations where insurance might be helpful.
- Post some relevant personality types, such as the planner or the risk taker, and ask your audience to ID themselves.
- Ask people for their tips for running a business, improving their home, preparing for storms, or taking care of their car.
- Run competitions that encourage followers to like, comment on, and share your posts, such as choosing a customer of the month who submits the best testimonial about your business.
- If you sell pet insurance, you might ask for pet photos from your followers because people love sharing them, even if they’ve got a fat lard of a llama!
- Post polls asking questions, such as who you called when you had your first car accident and who you could ask for insurance advice.
- Promote the business’ involvement in community events and invite followers to attend and share their experiences and photos.
Go Live
Live videos aren’t just for hot babes or people who can do sweet jumps. If people are following your company, it’s probably because they think you’ve got your own mad skills that are worth showcasing. So why not show them off with a live video? Live insurance Q&A sessions encourage engagement because people can interact with you in real-time. They’re a killer way to get people talking and promote the business’ insurance products at the same time. Win-win!
Social media platforms place live videos prominently, which naturally leads to more engagement. For example, Forbes says people interact with the average live video on Facebook six times more than prerecorded clips. Forbes also adds that 80% of people say they’d rather watch a live video than read a blog post. You’ve got to give the people what they want! A live video might not be perfect (although you can come close with practice) but don’t stress about goofing it up. It can make your insurance business more human and likable, so just go with the flow.
Don’t Spread Yourself Too Thin
Think of the social media ecosystem as an enormous office complex. You can try to meet someone from every department, but it’s time-consuming and your relationships will probably be pretty superficial. Resist the temptation to spread yourself too thin and be present on every social media platform. Focus on just one at first. Master it, get people engaging, and then think about adding another social media account.
Facebook is awesome for insurance marketing because it attracts an older crowd and suits sharing articles and blog posts. If you want to engage younger consumers, think about one of the other social media platforms. Instagram is all about photos while TikTok is the place for short vids. Then there’s LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and more. You don’t need to be everywhere, and there are probably places you shouldn’t be because you won’t fit in. That’s OK. It’s better to be yourself and do whatever you feel like you want to , rather than using a platform because you think you should.
Connect With Groups
You probably wouldn’t have many friends if you waited for people to knock on your door. The same is true for social media. While you’ll get some followers posting on your own news feed, you can take your engagement to the next level by moving into groups. Several social media platforms, including Facebook and LinkedIn, have groups that let like-minded people come together. Find a group that’s relevant to your business, strike up a conversation, and make yourself at home.
For example, you might search for car lovers in a particular city to find a group of people who may care about your company’s car insurance policies. Read the group rules carefully, as some may have rules about posting links or posting from a corporate account. You may like to join from a personal account to ensure you don’t seem too salesy. For example, you might share a positive experience with your business if someone asks for insurance recommendations. You can also learn what topics these people care about, which could inspire your content.For more killer advice about social media and other digital marketing platforms, speak to the team at Liger Partners. Lucky for you, our marketing nerds have the information you need to crush your competition. Let’s start chatting about how we can help you take your insurance company’s marketing efforts to the next level.