Twitter 101: A Quick Guide for Insurance Agents

By | September 5, 2014
Twitter for small businesses and agencies

Connecting with your customers via newspaper ads or a good old-fashioned handshake certainly isn’t enough anymore nor is it very effective in this digital era. Successful insurance agents need an effective digital advertising campaign to round out a worth marketing effort. Social media is an ideal solution because it’s free and your messages can be shared over and over again by your connections without any extra effort from you. As you may already know, on the social media platform Twitter, these connections come in the form of followers, and these followers choose to follow your messages (tweets) just as they would subscribe to a newsletter.

So how do you make sure your followers get the most out of your tweets and see you as a thought leader worthy of their attention? Make sure your Twitter account follows these rules.

  1. Mind your tweets and retweets

    Every message that comes from your Twitter account reflects on you and your business, so make sure it’s a message you’re proud to share. If you wouldn’t say such a thing to a new client upon meeting them for the first time, you shouldn’t say it on Twitter. The same goes for retweets. If you wouldn’t repeat something you heard to a new client you are meeting for the first time, then you shouldn’t retweet it.

  2. Cross pollinate and use #hashtags

    Social media is a great tool for connecting with current and potential clients in the digital age. Another is a writing a blog. If you’re already writing a blog, use your Twitter account to highlight the content there. People who follow you on Twitter may be unaware that you write a blog, and tweeting about your blog is a great way to introduce them to the content.

    Hashtags are a power tool that can help you spread your content even further. Think of hashtags as categorizing your content so that more people connected to those categories see your posts. The simplest way is to add one or two hashtags to "some" of your content. For example:
    New insurance report from (BizName)...Insurance costs for newly licensed drivers - (Shortened-Link-Here) - #TeenDriver #DrivingSchool
    Using the hashtags #TeenDriver and #DrivingSchool will help you connect with other people interested in those topics. Consider also that all of this information was shared in less than 140 characters (133 to be exact).

    Here is an example of a typical tweet:




  3. Think before you tweet

    Don’t tweet just for tweet’s sake. If your followers feel like you are wasting their time, they will quit following you. Look at each tweet before you send it and ask yourself, will the piece inform or entertain your audience? If it will, then send it. If it won’t, then delete it.

  4. Don’t drown your audience in tweets

    You can have too much of a good thing. If you tweet more than 3-5 times a day, you cease becoming a thought leader and may become simply annoying. Even informative tweets will lose their appeal if there are too many.

  5. Explore networking options

    Not all of your Twitter focus should be placed solely on your clients. Twitter is a great way to network with other insurance agents. You can share experiences and learn new tips or strategies to grow your business by following other agents you respect.

  6. Stay up to date

    The insurance industry changes almost every week and Twitter provides an easy way to stay up to date on the latest news. Become a follower of respected industry publications, magazines and trade journals to stay one step ahead of your competition.

  7. Be positive

    We all have difficult days or hard times in our life, but your Twitter account is no place to express those frustrations. Keep your tweets positive and you won’t discourage people from following you.

  8. Smile for the camera

    Your Twitter account can communicate through more than just text. Adding pictures of yourself or team can add a human touch to your business.

  9. Mix it up

    Yes, you’re an insurance agent and yes, this is your Twitter account, but that doesn’t mean every tweet you send has to discuss insurance. Inserting quotations, recommendations for local recreation or relevant news updates will help your account appeal to a wider audience and help it gain more followers.

  10. Share the fun

    Insurance agents have a reputation for being stiff. Show your followers that you and your staff aren’t cut from that mold by sharing fun facts about your team or fun events your agency is taking part in. This will help humanize your office and make you more interesting to potential followers.

Looking for more information on using Twitter? Check out Getting Started with Twitter direct from the company that started it all.

Category: Marketing

4 Comments

  • Gravatar Image
    A. Long September 2, 2014 Reply

    Thanks for the tips, Justin.

    • Gravatar Image
      Justin September 5, 2014 Reply

      Anytime! See my response to Syed's comment below. I'll follow this up with a post about metrics to bring together form and function. Thx for your interest.

  • Gravatar Image
    Syed September 4, 2014 Reply

    i always wonder how do we measure our effort on the twitter or any social media site marketing. because these are very vague parameters at times to really have any concreate results for the business.

    • Gravatar Image
      Justin September 5, 2014 Reply

      That's a great point Syed. Rather than explain it here, I will write up a post on how to look at and leverage social metrics in a small business sense. You're certainly not isolated in wondering how to analyze results but there are a few tricks which can make it more tangible and pragmatic.