This article originally appeared on InsNerds.com
Why You Need to Personally Be On Social Media To Fuel Your Career
By: Kelly Donahue-Piro
Owner Agency Performance Partners
Co-Founder Agency Appeal
These past 2 weeks, I have had some eye-opening experiences. I have recently realized that I get stuck on what our clients are doing and haven’t been as in touch with all the other agencies in the country. What do I mean by this? At a recent speech, I asked a room of 100 agents how many of their agencies are using email marketing to stay in contact with current customers, about 10 hands went up. When I asked how many agencies had a Company Facebook Page, 5 hands went up. I then went to another event where 3 agents really challenged me with their belief that connecting with leads, clients, and influencers on personal social media was absolutely out of bounds. It got me thinking: how many more agencies are out there that are significantly out of touch with what are now considered extremely basic business components?
Email marketing has been around for over 20 years now; Facebook is a publicly-traded company with over 1 billion users, and both are almost free. How, in 2017, can agencies not be knee-deep in using these basic tools. We hear it all from, “I don’t want to be that guy sending out emails that people don’t open, and I’m just bothering them” to “No one in my town is on LinkedIn.” Really? To me, it sounds like you haven’t even tried to find out if your hypothesis is true. The truth is that if you haven’t embraced these tools (remember there is Snapchat, Instagram, behavioral targeting that are more advanced) it’s because you are scared of how it works and not being 100% proficient in it. Great news, social media moves so fast that no one is proficient, and we are all just figuring it out as we go. But the point is: if you’re not using these mediums what mediums are you using? Many aren’t using anything.
I am going to make this next statement without any apologies. You and your agency 100% must be using social media to survive and thrive in the modern world. Now, you won’t feel it tomorrow if you’re not connecting with clients on Facebook, but you will feel it in 5 or 10 years. Your agency will be like a frog in boiling water slowly becoming irrelevant.
Let’s refute email marketing first. You 100% need to be in front of your client. The carrier bills and renewals don’t display you or your logo boldly enough. Selling to someone and then not using email marketing to say “Happy Halloween” or send out Hurricane Update means you sell a client and leave them. If they want to send a referral, you are difficult to contact, and you have no nurturing of your client. Email is the most efficient and cost-effective way to stay in touch. Don’t want to be the over-emailer? I get it, but 0 emails is not emailing at all. Instead, think about a quarterly email. With today’s email tools, you can even send a template. What is the worst that happens by emailing your client 12 times per year? You get better retention, referrals, interaction and cross-sells? What’s the downside? You have to figure out how to use it, do it, and get emails? I think the juice is worth the squeeze.
So why aren’t agents using social media? It’s like there is a complete aversion to agents using their personal channels for business use. We need to use social media to share our authentic selves with our networks. People still buy from people. Social media makes us all humans quickly and efficiently. No doubt you need to keep it clean from politics or anything controversial, but a picture of you picking up Fall Mums will make you likeable.
My personal facebook is an open invite. We post daily on personal items and business items. I can tell you that a recent post I made opened my eyes. I had a 5-day-long business trip bender in 4 different locations across the country. On Wednesday morning, on a 5:30 am flight from San Francisco to Milwaukee I posted a picture of me on an airplane with my pants on inside out. Not my proudest moment, but it did get engagement from agency owners, producers, and people in the carrier world. What I found is that when I made myself more human, I got farther by being authentic rather than only putting out perfect positivity.
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You may be reading this thinking “This is silly.” That’s the point! It’s all about connecting with people who are also humans. People want to buy from people, so use social media to be your authentic self!
All images in this article licensed from Pexels.
About Kelly Donahue-Piro
As a dynamic public speaker and consultant I have spent the last decade focusing on how small business owners can capitalize on opportunities within their reach. With over 5 years experience in the local insurance agent sector I can bring training, marketing and technology to your agency that helps you effective and efficiently grow your agency. My specialties include consulting and coaching on upselling, account rounding, agency culture change, sales scripting, executive level coaching and benchmarking as well as agency retention skills. Contact me today to learn more about how I can help your agency grow!
As a dynamic public speaker and consultant I have spent the last decade focusing on how small business owners can capitalize on opportunities within their reach. With over 5 years experience in the local insurance agent sector I can bring training, marketing and technology to your agency that helps you effective and efficiently grow your agency. My specialties include consulting and coaching on upselling, account rounding, agency culture change, sales scripting, executive level coaching and benchmarking as well as agency retention skills.
Contact me today to learn more about how I can help your agency grow!
