Standing Out and Finding Your Brand Voice
There are many, many voices on social media. How can you cut through the noise to reach people?
There's not a secret formula or a skeleton key strategy that will work for everyone. Finding success on social media is different depending on who you are, your target audience and your agency's goals.
To develop a content marketing strategy that will help you connect with consumers, first think about these questions and your agency:
- What are your values and passions?
- What are your agency's goals?
- How can you help make customers' lives better?
- How do you want consumers to perceive your agency's brand?
- In what ways do you want your agency to participate in or represent your local community?
Reflect on these questions. The answers to questions like these are the foundation of your agency's brand identity. Lean into your strengths and focus on the area(s) you serve. Investing in quality connections with people in your community is more important than amassing a large quantity of unengaged followers.
Being confident in your strengths, grounded in your community and committed to telling your agency's brand story can help you create excellent content that brings value to customers and keeps them coming back for more.
In the next few sections, we'll share tools that can help you find content online and help you create compelling content with your unique brand voice.
Finding Content in the Social Media Suitcase®
If you're completely new to social media marketing or just not sure what to share on your agency pages, the Social Media Suitcase site is a fantastic place to find fresh content.
We recommend exploring our Grab-and-Go Content library. It's filled with ready-made posts that you can quickly share on Facebook and Twitter with a couple clicks. You'll find an array of helpful articles that cover topics customers may find relevant and interesting.
Our goal is to help simplify your content marketing process and save you time. Instead of searching the internet for useful articles, you can find them quickly in the Social Media Suitcase. New content is added frequently, and all the posts are categorized by product.
Our Social Media Calendars are also extremely useful tools. Here, you'll find easy-to-share ideas for every day of the month! Our calendar content highlights popular products and seasonally relevant activities. You can share a couple of our posts or schedule an entire month's worth of content in advance — it's all up to you!
Brainstorm Boldly
Crafting content is important work — but it can also be fun! Once you're confident in your agency's brand voice, start brainstorming and create a list of content ideas. It's time to boldly go where only your agency can go — in terms of creating exciting social media content, that is!
If you don't know where to start, consider these ideas:
Talk about what's seasonally relevant. If it's June, consider creating content with tips for motorcycle rides, boating and RV road trips. In December, it may make more sense to discuss winter home maintenance and tips for driving in snowy conditions.
It's also a great idea to highlight holidays. Of course, major national holidays are good to cover, but you can also use websites like NationalToday.com to find other fun days to celebrate — like International Dog Day and National Doughnut Day!
Think local. What's going on in your community? If there are exciting local events that you're attending, try sharing photos and videos from your experience. This will show locals that you're an active community member and a go-to for learning more about what's happening around town.
You can also try shouting out local businesses, restaurants and other organizations that you enjoy supporting. This can help you attract attention from other community staples and build your agency's local network.
Celebrate your team. Share photos of fun moments from your office, highlight birthdays, note volunteer outings and illustrate why your agency is a great place to work. Show your followers that there are real, awesome people at your agency. It will be humanizing for your brand and help customers get to know you and your staff.
Bonus idea: You may have noticed that people love sharing pet photos on social media. If your team members have pets, consider sharing photos from office events like Bring Your Pet to Work Day … it can lead to engaging content and be a good time for everyone involved!
Experiment with video. All you really need to create an effective social media video is a good idea and a camera (which can be a smart phone). Check out the next chapter to learn more.
Look for inspiration. Visit social media pages of other insurance agencies and brands you like outside of the industry. Take note of what they're sharing and see if it sparks new ideas.
Create a list of go-to sources. If there are blogs and other informative websites that consistently produce content you find value in sharing, save them to your favorites and check back often. Some insurance groups have blogs with easy-to-share content (like Foremost.com/Learning-Center).
Review what's already worked. Take a look at what you've posted so far and see which types of content have generated the most likes, comments and shares. See what's making an impact and try producing additional content that's similar.
Open the Social Media Suitcase. You know the drill! Check back often for new social media calendars, fresh content and exciting ideas.
As you brainstorm, you may find it helpful to keep an organized list of your ideas for articles, images and videos. This practice may be helpful for arranging your ideas into a content calendar (which we will cover in more detail shortly). Here are a few examples:
When concocting content, be open to experimentation!
If you come up with a great idea, try creating several different types of content with it. For example, let's say you wrote down tips for creating a home inventory list to help when filing a claim. Use those tips to write a blog article, design an image (or a series of images) and film a short video. Then, experiment with posting each one on your social media platforms to see what resonates with your audience. If you find the article performs notably well on Twitter and the video scores excellent engagement on Instagram, adjust your strategy to begin sharing more articles on Twitter and more videos on Instagram!
Tools of the Trade: Creating Content
Looking for free or inexpensive tools to help you create next-level content? Consider these options:
Canva: This platform offers user-friendly design tools and templates for all social channels. There are also templates for videos and printed materials. You can access free resources or pay a monthly fee for tons of extra stock photos and graphics.
Stock Photos: Find free stock photos to use on Pexels, Pixabay and Unsplash.
Movavi: An easy-to-use video editing tool. Get started with basic features for free. (See the next chapter for more video resources).
Linktree: Share multiple links from one link in your Instagram bio and anywhere else you want. Get started for free or upgrade to custom branding and analytics for a small monthly fee.
Creating a Content Calendar
One way to keep your social media marketing strategy organized, intentional and effective is to create a content calendar!
Content calendars are an outline of your planned posts throughout each month or the year. They're an excellent tool for staying on track and connecting your social media endeavors to your overall marketing strategy. There are many ways to craft a quality content calendar, so experiment and find what works best for you. Here are a few suggestions to help you get started:
- Note holidays. Posting about holidays can be an easy way to connect and celebrate with customers. You can cover mainstream holidays (like Thanksgiving), safety observance holidays (like Distracted Driving Awareness Month — visit NSC.org/Events/Safety-Observance-Calendar for more ideas), insurance-related holidays (like Insurance Awareness Day) and other fun highlights (like International Coffee Day — visit websites like NationalToday.com to find more.)
- Highlight seasonally relevant insurance products. From winter driving to autumn RV road trips, the seasons impact which products customers are focused on. Think of the trends and popular activities in each month and plan to post about them a few times a week.
- Plan for local events. Volunteer outings, parades, car or boat shows, conferences, tradeshows … keep your audience up to date with what you're doing in the community!
- Think ahead for video. Sometimes video takes more effort than other types of content. Create a posting cadence and stick to it — like deciding to share three videos a month or planning a weekly video series that will run throughout the first quarter of the year.
- Show off your passions. Which insurance products excite you the most? Are you a motorcycle enthusiast, an avid boater, a rambling road trip lover, or a home DIY project extraordinaire? Think about how your hobbies and interests — and your customers' — connect to products you help insure and brainstorm content you can create about it. Short videos or photos displaying your summer motorcycle adventures can go a long way in showing bikers why they should come to you for insurance coverage for their ride.
- Open the Social Media Suitcase. Even if you create a content calendar, sometimes you may find yourself out of ideas, which is why we keep the Suitcase packed with fresh content to help make posting much easier. Check our social media calendars frequently for easy-to-share content and consider sharing several of our posts per week.
To kick-start your brainstorming and calendar-crafting session, here are monthly content examples to draw ideas from:
January
- Product Focus: Auto
- Notable Dates: News Year's Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day
- Other Ideas: Winter maintenance and safety tips for vehicles, snowmobile safety tips
February
- Product Focus: Landlord and Vacant Homes
- Notable Dates: Chinese New Year, Valentine's Day, Black History Month, Heart Health Month
- Other Ideas: Securing vacant homes, tips for insuring jewelry and other personal property, creating a personal property inventory list
March
- Product Focus: Motorcycle
- Notable Dates: St. Patrick's Day, First Day of Spring, Daylight Saving Time Begins
- Other Ideas: De-winterizing motorcycles, tornado safety tips
April
- Product Focus: Marine
- Notable Dates: Distracted Driving Awareness Month, National Window Safety Week, Tax Day
- Other Ideas: De-winterizing boats, spring cleaning tips
May
- Product Focus: Flood
- Notable Dates: Mother's Day, Memorial Day, Graduation Season
- Other Ideas: Flood safety and awareness tips, DIY home project ideas
June
- Product Focus: Mobile Home
- Notable Dates: First Day of Summer, Father's Day, Juneteenth, Insurance Awareness Day
- Other Ideas: Mobile home maintenance tips, home pool safety, hurricane preparation
July
- Product Focus: RV
- Notable Dates: Independence Day, Vehicle Theft Prevention Month
- Other Ideas: RV road trip ideas, summer boating safety tips
August
- Product Focus: Off-Road Vehicle
- Notable Dates: Back to School, Stop on Red Week
- Other Ideas: Off-road vehicle safety tips, motorcycle road trip ideas
September
- Product Focus: Property
- Notable Dates: Labor Day, First Day of Fall, National Preparedness Month
- Other Ideas: Fall home maintenance tips, tips for new drivers, severe weather safety tips
October
- Product Focus: Recreational Casualty
- Notable Dates: Halloween, Small Business Month, National Crime Prevention Month, Fire Prevention Week
- Other Ideas: Winterizing motorcycles, winterizing boats
November
- Product Focus: Snowmobile
- Notable Dates: Thanksgiving, Día de los Muertos, Giving Tuesday, Small Business Saturday, Daylight Saving Time Ends
- Other Ideas: Snowmobile safety gear ideas, kitchen safety tips
December
- Product Focus: Homeowners
- Notable Dates: Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, First Day of Winter, New Year's Eve
- Other Ideas: Tips for holiday get-togethers, winter home maintenance
Content Marketing Case Studies
Content marketing is a creative practice through which your agency can identify unique opportunities to shine and connect with consumers online. To help you in your quest to discover top-notch marketing ideas, here are a couple case studies from other folks in the insurance industry to learn from:
Thank You, Firefighters: Engaging Your Community with Thoughtful Campaigns
On November 20, 2019, Agency Revolution released an episode of The Connected Insurance Podcast titled, “How I Got 20,000 Social Media Followers.” It details the story of an independent insurance agency in a small, rural town that created a highly successful campaign that earned them thousands of new, engaged followers — all while supporting their community!
How did they do it? By working with their local volunteer fire department. Tactics in the campaign included using social media to:
- Spotlight each firefighter and thank them for protecting their community.
- Organize donations and other opportunities to support the fire department.
- Utilize the firefighters' expertise by sharing home fire safety tips.
This is a stellar example of focusing on the community to build a local network of engaged followers. It also illustrates that there are many unique ways to talk about insurance online. One might not immediately associate supporting firefighters with an insurance agency, but when it comes to content marketing and brand storytelling, it fits exceptionally well. Both the fire department and the insurance agency are active community members that value keeping their town safe.
Learn more and listen to the Connected Insurance Podcast.
Motorcycle Madness: Creating Engaging Online Experiences
For over a decade now, the Foremost Marketing Team has attended motorcycle rallies throughout the country — Sturgis, South Dakota; Daytona Beach, Florida; Laconia, New Hampshire; and more!
We go on these extraordinary adventures to raise awareness for the Foremost brand. We love meeting bikers and connecting them with local independent agents like you! But these events provide value beyond in-person interactions. It gives us the opportunity to share exciting event coverage on our social media channels!
By sharing action-packed videos and photos from motorcycle rallies, we've cultivated a large audience of motorcycle enthusiasts on social media. These bikers engage with our content and share it with their friends. For many, it's a great way to experience the rallies and meet new people online if they can't attend in person. And it helps make Foremost the first brand they think of when it's time to get motorcycle insurance!
Here's the takeaway: Events in your community that people are passionate about can help you connect with customers in powerful ways. Look for local motorcycle events, boat shows, RV expos and other activities that you can connect to the insurance products you sell.