If you’re an independent insurance agent who struggles with attracting qualified leads and being remembered by your name rather than by the name of the carriers whose policies you sold, then social media presents a tremendous opportunity to affect both. Effective use of social media can improve both the quality of the customer experience you provide and the level of trust you create between yourself and your prospects.

Insurance agents can use social media to enhance the customer experience and elevate levels of trust.

Being in a highly regulated industry like insurance can be tough when you’re trying to advertise on social media. Still, there are plenty of opportunities to use social media to:

• Put a face to your brand.
• Improve brand recognition.
• Demonstrate that you give attention to your clients.
• Post status updates.
• Entice leads.
• Educate and provide useful links.
• Drive traffic to your website.

But the real challenge in a business like insurance sales is trying to be a Froot Loop in a world of Cheerios. For most, there is very little that  differentiates one agent or broker from another.

Insurance is insurance.

Price is price.

Brands are trusted . . . or they’re not.

The only things that are truly unique to you are how clients feel about their experience with you and how much they know, like, and trust you.

What truly differentiates you from other insurance agents is you. Your personality and how comfortable you make your clients feel about doing business with you IS a differentiator.

Fortunately, I’ve got 11 proven insurance advertising ideas for social media (plus a bonus idea) that will not only help you stand out but also solve some of the biggest problems insurance agents face:

• Getting in front of qualified clients
• Enabling clients to make referrals
• Being remembered by your name and not a carrier’s name
• Convincing prospects that they need what you have
• Competition from online carriers and quotes

Personal content

Savvy social media marketers know that the secret to social media is to remember that, first and foremost, it’s a social forum. So, while it’s okay to include posts about your business now and then, the majority of your posts, photos, stories, Tweets, and Reels should be about your personal life.

This isn’t rocket science—people simply prefer to do business with people they know rather than with strangers. Today, using social media is how people get to know others who aren’t in their immediate circle.

Social media has made it possible for businesses to form relationships with people from around the globe.

Sharing aspects of your life gives your audience a chance to get to know you, feel like they have a relationship with you, and believe they can trust you. Instead of being “what’s his name,” posting aspects of your personal life to social media allows you to become “Andy with the funny dog” or “Melissa whose daughter just graduated.”

Share what feels comfortable, but these ideas for posting to social media are effective starting points.

1. Community events

These could be your participation or attendance at volunteer opportunities, youth sports events, local parades, grand openings, organized pet adoptions, and scouts’ car washes. There’s a long list of opportunities if you keep your eyes and ears open.

2. Family fun

Show your audience your life outside of work. Consider posts about birthdays, vacations, holiday get-togethers, backyard barbecues, game nights, date nights, graduations, a new car, and garage or yard sales.

Posting aspects of your personal life outside of your work allows people the opportunity to connect and relate to you and the common ground you share.

3. Business spotlights

We’ve had guests on our podcast who post a regular series of business spotlights as a way to build partnerships in the community and provide mutual referrals. One guest, Candace Decker, moved her business to a new state, hired a videographer, interviewed restaurant owners and their staffs, and featured their businesses on her social media platforms. She was landing clients within a few days and now has a strong following. Tom Toole, another guest, does a weekly post where he reviews sandwich shops and experiences similar success.

4. Client testimonials

Record video testimonials from newly signed clients talking about their experience with you and your staff. You should also consider contacting clients and asking if they would record a video on their phones and send it to you. (Just be sure you’ve been in consistent contact with them. Asking for something when they haven’t heard from you since they bought their policy a year or more ago isn’t a good move.) Give these clients a few ideas of what you would like them to talk about. They’ll appreciate not having to come up with ideas on their own.

5. Office profiles and updates

Why not introduce the members of your office by featuring them in a video? Have you hired someone new? Are you offering new policies? Have you partnered with a new carrier? All of these are appropriate for a social media post.

It’s important to be authentic when posting to social media because you want the person who your followers think you are to be the same person they eventually meet when they come to buy a policy. “Playing a part” circumvents the whole point of allowing people to know, like, and trust you.

When using social media to market your insurance business, let the real you shine through. Be the person they see on social media the same person they meet in your office.

Additionally, it’s vital to the success of your social media marketing efforts that you post consistently to your platforms. You want to grow an audience of followers, and, for that, you need to create a presence on social media. No one is going to follow someone who only shows up occasionally.

Ideally, you want to be on all platforms, but if you can’t, then pick the one or two you feel the most comfortable with and post regularly according to a schedule you can stick with realizing that the more you post, the more productive you are assumed to be.

Educational content

One of the reasons why educational content is worth producing is you can repurpose it in an almost endless variety of ways.

Let’s imagine, for example, that you wrote a comprehensive blog for your website that answered your clients’ top 10 most frequently asked questions. You can then break that blog up into smaller pieces to use in any of the following ways:

6. Infographics

Review your list of FAQs you’ve answered in your blog, and see if you can turn some of your answers (or parts of answers) into one or more infographics.

Infographics are illustrations, charts, diagrams, and other graphics used to communicate information visually and with a minimal amount of words. They work well to capture attention and increase understanding because they are simple, colorful, engaging, and informative.

Infographics (like this one) are eye-catching and engaging graphics that can convey information in easy-to-understand ways.

You can use an infographic to explain statistics, processes, timelines, relationships, lists, and comparisons. For example, you could use an infographic to explain:

• The differences between whole and term life insurance
• The payment process to a beneficiary
• What to do and not do if you’re in an accident
• How a carrier determines a benefit amount
• The claims payment process
• What steps to take to save on house insurance costs
• The pros and cons of hiring a public adjuster

And while you could hire someone to create an infographic, there are infographics makers available—some free, some not—such as Canva, Visme, Infogram, and Venngage. If you are going to create your own infographics, then be sure to check out this blog for some useful tips. (Don’t let the title dissuade you. The tips are equally applicable to insurance agents.)

7. Short-form videos

With nothing but a smartphone, you can create a series of videos in which you answer one FAQ in each video. Even better, have each agent in your office record one video. This will allow you to introduce your team while enhancing each agent’s credibility. If you take this approach, it’s a good idea to use a consistent template so that your brand identity doesn’t become diluted.

Consider introducing your team to your audience with short-form videos. You can record a team greeting at your next meeting, or have each agent record an FAQ.

You can use the video editor on your smartphone or any of these online tools to edit your video for social media:

• Biteable
• Animaker
• Vimeo

Few people in your targeted audience will know more about insurance than you do. That means there are abundant opportunities for you to post the educational information they need to make informed decisions. And each time you provide that information, you’re perceived as more credible and trustworthy.

Engaging and entertaining content

When implementing the ideas listed below, remember that the best outcome is to collect information that will help you better target your marketing. Simple fun for your audience is fine, but fun that also provides you with usable information is better.

8. Opinions

Select a topic that is trending in the industry, and ask followers their opinions about it. You can make your request an open-ended question, a multiple-choice question that limits the type of responses, or a poll.

9. Photo caption

You and your audience can have a ton of fun with this idea. Post your picture, and encourage people to submit their captions. You might ask followers to vote on the one they like best and then give a prize to the winner. (A gift card or a free assessment of their insurance needs would work!)

Among the most popular social media marketing ideas for insurance agents (or any business for that matter) is to ask people to submit captions for photos.

10. Short quizzes

You could create a quiz that allows people to test their insurance knowledge, assess their risk tolerance, or pick the kind of car that best suits their personality.

Content that checks all the boxes

If you’re looking for something to post that’s really different and engaging, then you need to check out our Digital Marketing Platform.  It’s five tools in one and provides a wide variety of people-pleasing content to share and tools to track engagement. One of these five products is specially designed to alleviate the woes of creating and consistently posting new content to your social media platforms.

11. Social Media Automation

There are lots of companies that will automate your posts, but you often still need to write the content. Imagine how much easier your life would be if there was a social media tool that not only allowed you to set up a social media calendar and schedule your posts but also wrote all your posts for you and made it possible for you to set your social media on autopilot for an entire year or more!

Welcome to Social Media Automation—the newest addition to ReminderMedia’s Digital Marketing Platform and the premier, next generation social media tool for busy entrepreneurs, including independent insurance agents.

We’ve got thousands of engaging, prewritten posts, including short articles, memes, images, quotes, and more, representing a huge array of topics that social media fans love. There’s food and travel, home and garden, life and culture, beauty and health, motivation and inspiration . . . the list goes on and includes a special library of compliance-friendly, industry-specific topics.

How Social Media Automation works

You select the content categories, and we’ll pull time content from our massive library, brand it to you, and automatically post it to your Facebook and/or Instagram accounts. You have the freedom to post up to three times a day, seven days a week, for as long as you like—whether it be days, months, or even years. At any time, you can switch a piece of content for another, change or pause your preferred schedule, and even use the same platform to schedule and post your own custom content. 

Most importantly, Social Media Automation is a true set-it-and-forget-it tool that guarantees you maintain the consistent social media presence crucial to your long-term success. You owe it to yourself and your success to check out this free, no obligation demo.

Be where your clients are

Even if you don’t select our social media solution, the marketplace demands that you have a digital marketing strategy. Your current and prospective clients are online, and a consistent social media presence that delivers value will keep them coming back so that when they do need insurance, you’ll be the trusted resource they’ll call.