Social Media in the Insurance Industry (2023)

22 January 2024
Staff Boom Blog - Social Media in the Insurance Industry

Social media is a powerful tool for insurance companies to connect with their customers, prospects, and communities. It can help them build awareness, trust, credibility, and loyalty, as well as generate leads and sales. However, social media marketing for insurance also comes with some challenges, such as compliance, content creation, and engagement.

Some of the best examples of social media usage in the insurance industry are:

  • Lemonade: This is an online insurance company that uses social media to showcase its innovative and transparent business model. It claims to be the world’s first peer-to-peer insurance platform, where customers pay a flat fee and the rest goes to a pool that covers claims. Any leftover money is donated to causes chosen by the customers. Lemonade uses social media to share stories of its customers, its social impact, and its customer service. It also uses video content to explain how its insurance works and to answer frequently asked questions. Lemonade has over 200k followers on Instagram and over 100k followers on Twitter.

 

  • State Farm: This is one of the largest insurance companies in the US, with a strong presence on social media. It uses social media to provide helpful tips, advice, and resources for its customers and prospects. It also showcases its community involvement, sponsorships, and partnerships. State Farm uses humor, emotion, and storytelling to create engaging content that resonates with its audience. It also leverages user-generated content, such as reviews, testimonials, and photos from its customers. State Farm has over 2 million followers on Facebook and over 800k followers on Twitter.

  • AXA: This is a global insurance company that uses social media to highlight its expertise, innovation, and sustainability. It uses social media to share insights, research, and trends on various topics related to insurance, such as health, climate change, cyber security, and mobility. It also showcases its initiatives, projects, and awards that demonstrate its commitment to creating a better world. AXA uses infographics, videos, podcasts, and live events to create informative and interactive content for its audience. AXA has over 1 million followers on LinkedIn and over 85k followers on Twitter.

The insurance industry is already hectic, so you don’t want to be spinning your wheels on social media. When it comes down to it, using social media for community building may not cost money, but it does cost time. We’ll look at some of the ways you can optimize your use of social media to help reach your insurance company’s goals.

Optimizing your social media presence as an Insurance Agency or Provider

Define Your Target Audience

You can’t market blindly; you have to know who you’re talking to. It’s also wise to reevaluate your strategy on a regular basis. Your overall market may not be the same one you target with social media. If your book is mostly commercial, but your social media performs best when you post about personal lines products, it may be more useful to you as a tool for building your personal lines. Social media is also constantly changing, so you’ll need to revisit your strategy from time to time to ensure you’re not wasting your time on an outdated strategy.

What is Your Goal? – Create and Implement a Strategy

You might want to use social media to generate more leads and sales, or to create a community and showcase culture. Your goal will influence how you use social media and the resources you devote to it. A strong first step is to determine which platforms you’ll work on. Social media marketing use to focus on “the big 4,” but the addition of new platforms and maturing audiences has altered how businesses approach social media.

Here are the six most prevalent social media platforms

Facebook

According to 2022 studies, there are 2.91 billion active users on Facebook. The largest age group on the platform is between 25 and 34, spending an average of 33 minutes a day on the app. Contrary to popular belief, Facebook is still the largest platform, but their time spent on the app has decreased from 38 minutes per day, and their growth rate has slowed in recent years. The most engaging Facebook content combines text and images, with video content driving more engagement than static images alone.

LinkedIn

According to 2022 studies, there are 810 million active users on LinkedIn. The largest age group on the platform is between 25 and 34. While this has historically been a platform for older generations, it is starting to move toward millennials, likely following the demographic as they grow to take on a larger portion of the job market. This is a great platform for B2B and has the ability to find highly targeted audiences when working with paid ads.

Instagram

This platform is catching up without making much of a splash in the media, keeping a firm hold on Gen Z and Millennials. Platform changes are leaning more heavily towards video to combat the number of users flocking to TikTok, and the platform is holding strong. 2022 studies show that there are 2 billion active users on Facebook. The largest age group on the platform is between 25 and 34 and the next largest being 18-24, only lower than the largest age group by .2 percent. Instagram is a smart choice for insurance brokers wishing to engage with their clients because it uses image and video-based material, both of which are strong contenders for audience attention.

Twitter

Twitter has experienced some good growth recently, but studies indicate that this platform is in for a big dip over the next couple of years. Advertising on this platform isn’t always the pinnacle of ad performance, but rather makes for a great platform to have discussions and even provide customer service. 2022 studies show 211 million active users with the largest age group being between 18 and 29 with a highly male identifying audience, and average time spent at 31 minutes per day. Being current is essential for using this platform because it has a quick turnover.

YouTube

This platform is trending younger showing the push for video content on the rise, with an average time spent per session of about 30 minutes. This makes sense with the trend of longer videos taking hold of audience attention. With the rise of streaming, this is a prime place to put your ad dollars if you are looking to budget for some ad spend. Studies show over 2 billion active users with the largest age group between 15 and 35 in 2022. Although it is still largely entertainment based instead of brand based, depending on your strategy this can be used to your advantage. A powerful video-based platform worth investing in is YouTube. Your videos can be connected to other social media sites, where they frequently perform better than other types of material, which is a fantastic feature of using YouTube.

TikTok

With a booming user base that is continually growing within older age groups and a highly direct influence on those users to buy into a product or service, this platform should not be discounted, but it does require a different approach to social media strategy. According to studies from 2022, there are 1 billion active users with the largest age group being between 10 and 19, with a higher percentage of female identifying users. TikTok is a brand-new, rapidly expanding social media network that enables you to regularly post brief video content for your customers. To create material, you don’t need to be a computer expert thanks to integrated video editing tools.

How can you benefit your company through Social Media

Social Media Can Increase Brand Awareness

When it comes to producing engaging and high-quality content, insurance businesses need to have a solid understanding of their target demographic on social media. If you don’t know your audience, how can you generate material that will appeal to them? In fact, given the variety of highly individualized products offered by insurance firms, the idea of knowing everything there is to know about your target client may be even more crucial.

You can start creating your highly targeted social media posts once you’ve decided who you want to target, i.e., gender, a particular age range, geography, lifestyle, social media platforms of choice, etc. If you want to stand out from the crowd, you’ll need to be creative with your strategy.

A strong digital strategy changes with the times. Why not try out some video? Use live feeds to capture the moment and publish attention-grabbing articles that educate potential consumers about your niche. Don’t lose the chance for your insurance firm to differentiate itself from the competition on social media.

Social Media Makes Creative Digital Content Possible

Insurance firms on social media should think creatively when it comes to their material, regardless of the kind of service you provide to your clients. The most important thing is to create content that will resonate with your target audience. You want to make an impression on both current and potential clients, lasting long after they leave the page.

The hard sell on social media is typically a turn off, so keep in mind that it’s not just necessary for your material to be interesting but also personable. Social media is just that, social! Anything overly sales-driven presented to your target audience on social media is likely to be ignored. Instead, publish fascinating, entertaining, and useful content, striking the appropriate mix between posts that promote yourself and postings that are merely friendly. Examples of innovative material on social media for insurance companies employing them range from sharing links to blog entries to engaging social media advertising to team focused Instagram posts.

When dealing with social media for your business, consistency and quality are key. It’s crucial to choose your content gathering strategy. It can give the wrong impression to have platforms set up and seldom used. If you believe you can only manage being consistent on two platforms, then being on 5 can be a detriment.

It is important to monitor your platforms. Twitter for example has a history being used as a customer service tool and would require a shorter response time. You can learn a lot from being present with your audience and use this data to determine changes in your strategy.

You Can Create Advertisements for your Clients

It’s critical to precisely target your audience when you use social media to represent an insurance firm, largely because you’re likely to provide extremely particular and individualized services. Your best buddy will now be social media advertisements. Because social media allows them to precisely target their client personas, some of the finest insurance businesses on social media use it to produce engaging commercials.

You can easily create different ads, using carefully developed content, that will work to promote your page to different target audiences. For example, if you’re targeting different demographics, such as renters insurance for new college students or for small businesses looking to find coverage for growth, you’ll want to advertise for that group specifically.

Social media advertisements are useful for insurance firms because they may target a certain audience based on a variety of different factors. You can really drill down into exactly who you want to see your advertising, including region, age, gender, and even interests and behaviors, truly maximizing your ad budget. By using this kind of ad targeting, your business can avoid spending money on well-executed, creative ads that are then shown to the wrong audiences.

You’ll see a decline in the population you’ll reach as you further hone your demographics. Don’t be deterred by this; it simply means that your advertisement is aimed at a more pertinent audience. In this case, the adage “quality over quantity” actually applies. It’s important to consider precisely who you want to see your advertisements and what you want them to do as a direct result of seeing them before you start creating them. This will, of course, depend on the product you’re advertising.

When coming up with the content for your advertising, it’s crucial to consider how you’re going to stop someone from scrolling past on all their social media news feeds, persuade them to click on your ad and visit your website, and ultimately convert them. One way to do this is to offer them something in exchange for their attention, such as a brief description of a product discount that will encourage target customers to click through and read more. If they are targeted by your social media ad, they are probably also being targeted by other insurance companies, so standing out is essential.

Kelly Wade

Business Development Manager

Kelly Wade is a Business Development Manager at Staff Boom. With a bachelor’s degree in business from Azusa Pacific University and a cosmetology license, Kelly brings a unique blend of expertise to her role. Since joining in 2018, Kelly has played a vital role in the company’s growth by bringing in new clients and fostering strong, lasting relationships with them. She takes great pride in her ability to find innovative solutions that truly benefit customers, and her genuine care for people shines through in every interaction. While she decided to leave her cosmetology practice behind to pursue a career in sales, she still finds joy in occasionally using her hair styling skills on a smaller scale.

Outside of work, Kelly embraces her role as a proud wife and mother. Her daughter keeps her busy with a wide range of activities, and Kelly strives to balance her professional and personal life to ensure quality time with her family. As a passionate sports fan, particularly when it comes to football (Go Saints!), she knows how to bring that same enthusiasm and dedication to her work and personal interests.

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