4 Tips for Building Relationships on Social Media

Social media has many uses: driving traffic to your website, promoting your agency and services, sharing insurance information and knowledge, and increasing your online visibility. However, my favorite use for social media is building relationships.

Getting more followers can be exciting. But if you're not having meaningful conversations with your followers and building relationships, your posts will be seen by very few followers. Try these four tips to make your social media efforts meaningful and start building relationships.

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Tips for Jump-Starting Your Website

Most of the time, success of a website is focused on Search Engine Optimization efforts. There’s plenty of tips and tricks for SEO that are constantly changing and being updated. But every once in a while, you should feel free to switch gears and just focus on having a website. Consider it your responsibility to the loyal visitor who has found your site by way of a search engine. Here’s a few tips to remember have absolutely nothing to do with SEO.

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How Social Media Can Hurt Your Agency's Brand

The insurance industry has begun to embrace social media. It's even become the norm to have more than one social media account. (Heck, we have five Twitter accounts, four Facebook Pages, two Google+ accounts and one LinkedIn business page.)

Social media moves quickly. Poorly managed social media accounts could backfire and instead of building relationships and raising your awareness online you could be hurting your agency. How? Here are six things to watch for and take care of immediately.

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9 Ways to Destroy Your Agency's Brand

Many insurance agencies don't have an employee dedicated to their agency's marketing. Those employees who do their agency's marketing often have other duties and responsibilities that take time and focus away from the agency's brand. And that's fine.

However, there are things that could hurt or destroy your brand if you're not careful. Here are 9 marketing moves to avoid.

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7 Tips for Marketing an Insurance Agency Online on a Limited Budget

There are many reasons to focus on online marketing. For one, consumers are relying more and more on the Internet and use it to get the majority of information about products and services before they buy, including insurance. It’s easier to monitor your online marketing campaigns and determine their success.

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Timeline Is Coming To Your Agency's Facebook Page: What to Expect

Last fall Facebook introduced a big change to personal profiles... a new profile layout called Timeline. This morning Facebook officially announced that Timeline will now be available to brand pages. All brand pages will be automatically updated with Timeline on March 30, 2012.

What you can expect:

• Though the layout of your page will change, Facebook will remain a channel of two-way communication.
• Like Timeline for personal pages, you will now get to add a cover photo to your agency's Facebook page. This large photo at the top of your profile is a great opportunity for showcasing some creative designs and reinforcing your agency's brand.
• New admin capabilities will include the ability to pin your most important content so it remains at the top of your profile for seven days.
• You can also star different milestones in your agency's history - like opening a new location, adding a line of business, etc - so it appears twice the size of other items in your profile thereby drawing attention to those important periods of your history.
• A simpler, easier-to-use admin panel that expands and hides on the same page you're editing. You will no longer have to go to a separate page to change the content.

What to do:

• If you have a social media plan, review it and look for what works, what doesn't and what Timeline can help improve. If you don't have a social media plan, now is a great time to consider putting one together.
• Start working on your cover photo. Since it is a large photo, there is a lot of space to feature something captivating and reinforce your brand. You can update your cover photo weekly so it's always fresh. The dimensions for cover photos are 851 pixels wide and 315 pixels tall.
• Go through your agency history and star the milestones you want to highlight.
• Update your information and look at who has access to your page. Do you need all of those admins? Get rid of anything that isn't necessary or is out-dated. 

If you have an insurance website from Insurance Website Builder, please note that Timeline will not affect our Facebook social media plugin, which puts a mini-version of your website on Facebook.

Changes to Facebook tend to cause a bit of a panic. Take a deep breath. This change is not going to happen overnight. You have until March 30.

Today is the Day

Most content is shared on Wednesday mornings.

This infographic from AddThis displays just how 1.2 billion users
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The next idea someone shares should be yours.

5 Reasons Why Your Business Should Have a Facebook Page

Many people start using Facebook to connect with old friends, but business owners have wondered why they should create a Facebook Page and many times they don’t realize that Facebook gives them access to millions of people on a daily basis in one place.

Many researchers have shown how influential Facebook has become in our lives. Having a personal profile is great and it helps you to keep connected with different people, but a Facebook Page has also tremendous benefits. Below you will find 5 vital reasons why your business needs to be involved with Facebook: 

1. Online Visibility

With more than 150 million active users in the U.S. alone, having a Facebook Page provides you with a platform to engage with an increasingly social audience.  

2. Engagement

Facebook allows you to share news, comments, videos, and photos, but also allows you to create contest, surveys and more. These functionalities are visible to users in their newsfeed, right on their Facebook homepage. You can also engage with the users by answering questions and comments they have, or showing your appreciation for being a part of your Facebook Page. 

3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Facebook Pages have a great SEO benefit as they show up very high in search results. Facebook has a page rank of #2 according to Alexa and its profiles and pages are indexed really quickly for optimal search engine positioning.   

4. Drive Traffic to Your Website

Sharing you blogs, news, information and products on your Facebook page will help you increase visits as it is essentially an extension of your website. With many links back to your website, your Facebook Page becomes another route through which potential customers can find your website. 

5. Online Reputation & Branding

Facebook, similar to Twitter, can be used as a customer service platform. You can show publicly that you care about your audience or customers. You can provide solutions and show that your business is not behind in the digital world. 

Are you or your business taking advantage of Facebook? Our SEO team at Insurance Website Builder can help you optimize your insurance websites as well as your Facebook Page. Call us today at 1-800-383-3482 for more information.




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