Facebook for Insurance 101

 Email Article  

Tweet  

  

With more than 845 million monthly active Facebook users, it’s no wonder that some insurers are turning to Facebook to market insurance every day. 

Check out these statistics:

• The number of marketers who say Facebook is “critical” or “important” to their business has increased 83% in just two years. (Hubspot State of Inbound Marketing Report 2011)
• 67% of B2C and 41% of B2B companies that use Facebook for marketing have acquired customers through this channel. (HubSpot State of Inbound Marketing Report 2011)

What is Facebook?

Facebook is a social networking website intended to connect friends, family, and business associates. You may already have a personal profile page and know how effective it is to connect with old friends and new friends but Facebook is also a powerful (and free) way for insurance companies to create connections with customers, market products, generate feedback and increase your Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Why should you market insurance with Facebook?

Facebook can help insurance businesses get in touch with their local communities. While the numbers above are compelling, my personal experience suggests that for lead generation, Facebook works best for local insurance agencies who sell to consumers.

I personally have not seen any huge Facebook lead generation successes involving business to business (B2B) insurance organizations and particularly not on a national scale. Still, B2B insurers may see some SEO and branding benefits from having a Facebook page.

In general, Facebook can help your insurance business:

• Connect and engage with current and potential customers.
• Share information about business, including webinars, blog articles, and resources.
• Generate leads – Facebook is viral - every time a fan engages with your page –that activity is published to their News Feed which can be seen by their friends on Facebook giving your business more visibility.
• Get found by people who are searching for your products or services.
• Improve SEO ranking.  A Facebook Page is a public page (unlike a personal profile which is private), and because it is regularly updated with fresh, new content/posts - Google loves it. In addition, SEO value improves every time someone likes you.
• Drive traffic to your insurance website.

Thinking about using Facebook to market insurance? Here’s what you need to know before you set up your Facebook Page:

Key information: You must be logged in to your personal profile to create a business Page and become the administrator for the page.  Your name and profile will not show up anywhere on your Page - you are the behind-the-scenes manager. When you post information or comment on a discussion, it will appear to be posted by your company rather than you personally.

Profiles vs. Pages: Profiles are meant for people and you “friend” each other.  Pages are meant for businesses and people become fans of your business page by “liking you.  A Page is similar to a Profile except that it is public and users can like it and become a fan of your Page without first requiring approval from the Page’s administrators.

Pages vs. Groups:  In most cases, an insurance organization should create a Page to represent its company on Facebook. The key distinction between Groups and Pages is that a Group is for a community of people with common interests, while a Page represents a brand or entity for which there are fans.

Administrators: You can designate multiple administrators to help with the maintenance of your Page.

Establish goals: "In order to build a compelling Facebook page that yields measurable results, business owners first need to identify their main objectives," says Mari Smith, relationship marketing expert and co-author of Facebook Marketing: An Hour A Day. "So many small businesses fail to fully benefit from all that Facebook offers quite simply due to a lack of clear goals and a strategy to achieve those goals."*

Next Tuesday’s post will cover part 2 of Facebook for Insurance, including how to:

• Build your Facebook page
• Like and be liked
• Know what to post
• Use the extra features
• Use Facebook to promote your blog

Make sure to subscribe to our blog, using the subscription box to the left, so you don’t miss out on part two of Facebook for insurance.

Also, make sure to read our great insurance blogging articles from the past week, and if you haven't already done so, get the "10-Step, Sure-Success Blogging Checklist."