You probably don’t need to read a “how to” article to get up and running on any of the major social media platforms. Any individual, including any life insurance agent, can start an account on a popular social media site in under 3 minutes and create posts directly from their smartphone. There’s no special equipment or experience required. 

However, posting on social media and social media marketing are slightly different. Anybody can post a random selection of photos, videos, and reflections. But if you’re a professional service provider, specifically a life insurance agent, you have to be strategic in how you leverage social media to promote your services and grow your business. Let’s start with the basics.

Know the difference: Organic versus paid social media advertising

In this article, we’ll mostly focus on organic social media marketing, which are the updates you post to any social media feed. When you post “organically,” you do so for free. However, you’re also at the whim of algorithms that can help or hinder your content from being seen by the people you’re trying to reach.

To counteract this, many business owners on social media also use paid social media marketing. This can include social ads and boosting posts. The types of paid social media marketing will vary slightly from platform to platform, and they can certainly be an effective way to reach target demographics and expand your network.

However, if you’re getting started on a social media platform, you should also have some organic content to lay a foundation. After all, you’ll want to be findable and compelling to followers on social media, and this will also reduce your dependence on paid social.

Getting started with social media marketing for insurance agents

Whether you’re a relative newcomer to social media marketing or you’ve had accounts for a while and watched them stagnate to the point where you need to take some radical steps, here are some tips for you.

Don’t just jump in and start posting

Because the barriers to entry are low and the risk is relatively low too (especially when you have no/few followers), it might be tempting to adopt a “learn-on-the-go” attitude and just jump in with both feet and start posting. If you have a bias for action, this will certainly feel like a good approach.

However, the odds are you’ll run out of steam quickly with this approach. It takes time to build up a following for insurance agents, and you’ll soon find yourself wondering about some of the best practices, like:

• Is this the right platform to talk about life insurance?
• How often should a life insurance agent post, anyway?
• What should insurance agents post about (and what should I not post about?)
• What does success in social media marketing look like?

And the worst-case scenario is you could post something that hurts your business in ways you didn’t consider. Making bad choices on social media has real consequences, so being hasty can lead to permanent damage in some (albeit extreme) cases.

To be cautious, take a beat and slow down to consider these things (read on, we’ll help!) before you just start tweeting away.

Use a “goal, objective, strategy, tactic” framework

It’s always good to understand what you’re trying to accomplish before you invest time and energy in any marketing program, and social media is no different. Maybe you just feel like you need to be on social media because everybody else is, but then it can be hard to measure success or understand how much time you want to dedicate to it. 

A quick breakdown of goal > objective > strategy > tactic can help focus your social media activity. If you’re unfamiliar with this model, it works simply:

Goal

A high-level articulation of what you want to achieve, e.g., “Grow my life insurance agency by attracting new potential clients” or “Be the go-to life insurance agent in my town/city”

Objective

A specific and timely metric of success that ladders back to that goal, e.g., “Attract X followers by year-end,” or “Outpace follower count of [rival life insurance agent] by Q4”

Strategy

A strategy is how you’re going to go about achieving that objective. It could involve developing a plan for which channels to focus on, researching best practices for posting, even reading articles like this, doing competitive analysis, and so forth. Usually, strategies are documented, and this can be helpful if you have trouble sticking to a plan and are easily distracted.

Tactic

Tactics are your what, i.e., the task-like things you’ll do. This could involve things like:

• “Post to Facebook 3x per week and LinkedIn 2x a week,”
• “Post a minimum of one video per week,”
• “Develop and track follower count week over week”

You don’t need to get very grandiose with this thinking — no fancy PowerPoints or anything like this. But many people find it helpful it more achievable to tackle their goal-setting by breaking it down into practical steps to follow.

Choose your social media channels

You should spend some time thinking about the right social media platforms for your life insurance brokerage. The most common social media platforms for insurance agents are:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• YouTube
• TikTok

To answer the question of the right social media networks, first look at where your competitor insurance agents are when it comes to social media marketing. And look at some of the companies and brokerages you look up to. Don’t just check their websites for social media buttons; look at the accounts and see if they’re actively posting and getting engagement, and how high their follower count is. Cumulatively, they’ll paint a picture of the platforms that are right for your industry.

But, second, think about your ideal customer or target audience and the platform they’re likely to be on. If you’re trying to reach young people, Tiktok might be worth experimenting with. There will be lots of research out there about what the demographic profile and mix of each platform looks like.

Be realistic about your time commitment to social media marketing

Social media marketing can be a bit of a rabbit hole: We’ve all experienced it to some extent; how you can pick up your phone and realize an hour later you’re still scrolling through silly filters and pet videos.

Don’t forget: You’re a life insurance agent with a business to run. So be very clear and crisp about how much time you’re willing and able (and can justify) to dedicate to social media. If it’s getting in the way of “real work” you need to strike a better balance.

Developing content for your life insurance social media accounts

Survey what other life insurance agents are doing on social media 

As part of the “strategy” part, we definitely recommend doing a survey of what other life insurance agents are posting on their social media accounts. This could include:

• How often they post (per day/per week)
• Content type, whether it’s promotional, thought leadership, or seasonal
• Where that content drives to (i.e., does it always link to their website, or is some of it standalone)

If you do this for your core competitors as well as some life insurance accounts you really admire, you’ll establish some guidelines you can follow.

Stay on brand

When you start creating content, it’s essential to stay on brand with your business. Your voice, tone, and design sensibility should match your main website and other signage or marketing collateral. 

It can be tempting to fudge the personal and the professional on social media and “reveal” a bit more of yourself. And that can be awesome; showing a little more personality and making yourself real and relatable. But that doesn’t mean you should forget you’re a life insurance agent and start posting a photo of your food or pet. Always ask yourself: ”Is this right for my insurance agency?”

Have strong but substantiated opinions

Social media loves a strong opinion, especially if it bucks the norms of prevailing wisdom. But that doesn’t mean you should just shoot from the hip with random disinformation. Think about those things you really believe in, and don’t be shy to state them strongly.

It could be something as seemingly strange as saying: “Some people DON’T need life insurance” and then following it up with a substantial explanation (“if you’re single with no dependents or debt, you may not need it.”)

So much of social media is about capturing and holding the attention of your target audience. So don’t be afraid to go there (within reason) on your social media accounts.

Be topical, timely, and seasonal

Given the nature of life insurance, some delicacy is required when discussing it on social media. But if there’s an opportunity to connect life insurance or your insurance agency with the season or current news events, that’s always a way of connecting with people in your target audience. 

Life insurance can be one of those things people put off until “someday.” So if you’re able to make it more relevant and actionable to them by connecting it with what’s going on in the world, then do so. Just make sure you don’t come off as jumping on a news bandwagon in a sales-y way.

Don’t “always be selling,” but do drive action

If your goal is to grow your business, it can be tempting to make every post about your  insurance agency business and services. But social media is about having an exchange with people, not about yelling at them to buy. 

Remember, not every action is a sale. Actions that aren’t sales include:

• Getting people to follow you on social
• Growing subscribers to a newsletter
• Driving traffic to your website
• Getting people to like or share your content
• Getting prospects to research insurance agencies

So think about actions more than sales. And even then, have a few posts in the mix that aren’t asking followers for anything at all.

Posting & following best practices on social media

Start your following with existing contacts

The best way to get followers is to start by following people. It’s always easiest to start with people you know. See if your existing clients, friends, and family are on social and follow them (stick to public accounts, people may not appreciate their life insurance agent following a private social account.) Also, follow other local businesses and even your competition too! 

Share and reply 

It will be hard to grow a following on social if you’re just a broadcaster, i.e., the kind of person who posts but never follows or interacts with anybody else. Social media marketing is about dialogue. So share other people’s posts (with the filter of what’s right for your life insurance business) and like and comment on people’s posts, too (yes, even other insurance agencies._ Again, do this within the time allotted so social doesn’t become a complete time suck.

Post regularly

Taking a well-earned social media break has become a norm and a healthy practice. But that isn’t the same as haphazard posting. For the most part, you should maintain a regular posting schedule and social media presence. It is better to post 3 times per week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) than 20 times one day and then not again for another week.

Potential clients, customers, and the public at large want to feel you’re reliable, trustworthy and reachable, so set a cadence you can maintain and stick to it.

Follow back

As you immerse yourself in social media, you’ll come across more accounts that are interesting and relevant to your business. Follow them, but always take care with what you’re following. Social media is a hotbed of strong political and social opinions, and -  for better or worse - who you follow reflects on you.

So, keep an eye on what your followers are posting, and if they share or post content that runs contrary to your values and those of your business, consider discreetly unfollowing them (even if they are potential clients).

Consider outsourcing social media for your insurance agency as you scale

I’m sure you realize now just how much work social media marketing can be! If you’re a life insurance agent who would much prefer focusing on life insurance, here’s some good news: Social media can be outsourced.

In fact, it’s one of the many tasks (like bookkeeping and other areas of marketing) a business owner like an insurance broker might consider outsourcing. That said, it is worth getting a little more involved at the beginning so you can hold any agency or contractor accountable for what you want from them.

You can also invest in social media management tools to centralize and automate various steps in the process of insurance social media marketing. Whatever you decide when it comes to insurance social media marketing, you should feel good that you’re pursuing a cost-effective, relevant growth strategy that can lead to a loyal client base.