Busting 3 Facebook Myths

Social media is surrounded by many myths. Facebook, the largest social network with more than 1 billion users, is no exception. Here are a few of the biggest Facebook myths.

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The Evolution of Marketing

Here at ITC we are constantly researching ways to improve the services that we offer. In order to market effectively you have to continuously measure and tweak your plan due to the change in consumer needs and changing technology. A few weeks ago we went over the difference between inbound marketing vs outbound marketing. Today we’ll look at how marketing has evolved and how marketing automation is the next big step in the marketing evolution.

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Marketing Tips for LinkedIn

The third social network of what many consider to be the big three, LinkedIn may not be as popular as Facebook or Twitter, but it has its own niche as the social network for business.
Because it is for business, how you use LinkedIn will differ slightly from how you might use Facebook or Twitter. If you're looking for ways to use LinkedIn to market your agency, there are several things you should be doing that will impact your marketing results from LinkedIn.

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4 Areas to Audit on Your Insurance Website

Your website is your agency online. For some visitors it will be their first impression of your agency. For others it will be their only impression. If your website doesn't function the way it should, that first impression could be one you wish you could do over. A regular audit of your website will help you identify what areas need to be updated as well as what areas may no longer be functioning the way it should.
Here are the four areas you should review on an annual (or as often as quarterly if you can) basis to make sure your website is updated and working for you the way it should.

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A Hit Parade of Twitter Mistakes

If you're new to using social media for business and still trying to figure out how Twitter works, you can easily end up spending too much time on the social network. It's also easy to make mistakes that could cost you followers.
To help you avoid the awkward learning phase and start building a Twitter following, I've put together this hit parade of Twitter mistakes to avoid.

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9 Mistakes to Avoid Making on Facebook

 You've decided to use Facebook as a way to connect and engage with your customers online. There are many great things you can do on Facebook: share a side of your agency your customers don't normally get to see, connect with your business partners in a new way by liking their pages, share your insurance knowledge and expertise.
However, there are some things to avoid doing as you might actually drive followers away.

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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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Why Do-It-Yourself Marketing Doesn't Always Work

Agency owners often have to wear many hats relying on their do-it-yourself entrepreneurial spirit to accomplish the tasks required of running an agency. That spirit can help agencies in many ways, but there is one area to be cautious of doing it all yourself... marketing.

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5 Simple Steps to Effective Digital Agency Marketing

Why is online marketing so important? Because consumers rely on the Internet to research anything and everything, including insurance. Not sure you believe it? Check out what the direct writers are spending on PPC advertising. And that's only a portion of their budgets.

If the direct writers are spending that much money to market to consumers online, you know it's not only important, it's effective.

But there are certainly things to avoid.

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Generating Insurance Leads Through Your Chamber of Commerce Membership

There are perks to being a member of your local chamber of commerce. For one, research has shown that a majority of consumers prefer to work with businesses who are chamber members.

Besides the prestige of being a chamber member, many small business owners, including insurance agents, join their local chamber of commerce to network and get leads.

Want to make the most out of your membership? Here's how you can generate leads by being a member of your chamber of commerce:

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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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16 Questions Your Insurance Website Must Answer

You only have three seconds to convince website visitors to stay on your website. If you don't make a good first impression, they will not hesitate to leave and never come back.

When consumers come to your insurance website for the first time, they have questions. Questions you should answer. We look for subconscious clues on a new website to determine if that website is going to give us what we want. Prove your website is trustworthy and that it has the answers consumers seek, and they'll stick around longer.

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8 Reasons Why Social Media Isn't Working For You

Social media has been talked about a lot these past few years as the marketing strategy you must be using. If you're not seeing the results you would like, you're not alone.

Here are 8 reasons why social media may not be working for you.

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5 Tips to Turn Your Insurance Website Into a Favorite Online Destination

What makes your website great? If you don’t know, you have some work to do. Consumers have an incredible amount of choices for where to research and buy their insurance policies online. You need to give them a reason to visit you over all those other websites. Your website needs to be the place people love to go for insurance information.

But how do you do that? We’ve got five ways you can turn your website into a favorite insurance destination.

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