I recently commented in the “Social Media Study Group” of the InsuranceCampus.org social site when someone asked what were some best practices that people had found for using social media in the insurance industry. There were some great comments on his question and I felt like I could add some value and so I posted my comment below.

I wanted to add to the discussion a little. Social Media is a medium where, if you get involved, your company becomes very transparent. Let me explain.

If you use it merely as an extension to your marketing then those you connect with will see that you are only interest in pushing marketing messages to them and not socializing with them. That is what marketing is, a message pushed out to an audience in hopes of influencing their behavior. People are instantly turned off by this and it can be very harmful to your business.

If you use social media to just connect and chat with people, it might help you to build those relationships with your clients and prospects but it will be a huge time suck. You will get caught up in conversations that will last for days and there will not be any business value added whatsoever.

What I have found to be the best use of social media so far is to do a hybrid of the two approaches. Provide relevant content to those you connect with and show them the social, or human side or your company. Relevant content includes new rates to help them save money, industry news that might affect their policies or added products and services that will enhance their security. Showing your connections the human side of your agency involves talking to them by asking questions or listening to what they have to say and providing insights and answers to their questions and conversations.

I am by no means an expert, just some of the things I have seen that work and don’t work.

What have you have you found that works in social media?

I recently joined a team to do a deep dive into creating buzz about our company and specifically looking into social media. I love what I’ve found. I’ve been able to connect with so many people that have actually helped me to learn and think. That’s when I started this blog. I wanted to get my thoughts down about those things that I am working on and thinking about. I have recommended blogs and other social sites to many of my colleague and friends. Now I know what everyone is doing all of the time. I know what one of my old college buddies is working on through LinkedIn. An ex-girlfriend found me on Facebook that I haven’t talked to in ages and I reconnected with some friends that I had in Junior High.

In trying to push social media to my coworkers and even incorporate it into some of our projects, I have had people say, “We don’t want them to know that about us!” Social media is something that is pretty new to a lot of people and companies. It creates a type of corporate transparency. If you have  a corporate blog then you are able to tell people what you are working on and they have the ability to talk back to you. They also have an avenue to tell you what they truly think about your company, good or bad.

Some people quiver at this. Why? If you don’t have somewhere that your customer base can go to and give you feedback, they will give it to you anyways and probably in places you may or may not know about. They’ll jump on Twitter and tweet to all of their followers just what they think of you. Most of the time it won’t be pretty and you will have just fueled the fire. You are telling your customers that you don’t care enough to let them tell you what they think.

It’s easy to create a blog, just check our WordPress or Blogger. It’s a piece of cake to put up a form that your customers can submit their questions and comments to you. You really have no reason not to do it, unless that is, you are worried what people will say. If that’s the case, maybe you outta rethink things. If you aren’t transparent then you are opaque. You have to be one or the other. If you don’t have the transparent mediums in place for your customers then, by default, you’re opaque.

Give it a try, put up a blog or a Facebook fan page and see what people say. Come on back and let me know what your experience was.

Photo by urbanshoregirl

That’s why I like social media, you get to know what people are saying about everything. Last night was a perfect example of my obsession with needing to know what people are saying.

On my 2 hour commute home I was on Twitter helping out a friend with Google Analytics. Then I got home, jumped back on Twitterand I got invited to a Skype chat room where I met some great, like-minded people. We talked about Facebook and FriendFeed and why we use both. My wife ripped me off of the computer to watch a movie and then I went to bed. I woke up with my son in the middle of the night to feed him and decided to jumped back on Twitter since I was awake. I spent a good hour and a half talking with my friends in the UK and Australia. I finally knocked out and when I woke up it had snowed, which is unheard of here in the Seattle area. Then I remembered, I forgot to watch the news, but hey, I knew what my friends in the UK were up to!

I find it quite refreshing to connect with people all over the world and get their point of view on anything from the latest movies to the most effective marketing techniques. But I have learned, like many others – Robert Scoble for one, that it isn’t the size of your following but who you follow. Whether it is on Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, LinkedIn or any of the other social sites and blogs, you choose who you follow and that determines the kind of knowledge you will acquire and share with others. Right now, I can tell you how all my Twitter buddies are doing but I have no idea what the weather is going to be like tomorrow.

You are only as informed as those you associate with.

If you like to know what people are saying, make sure you are following the right people. They should add value to your conversations and make you think. I’m going to take a closer look at the people I follow on Twitter, because who knows, I might have some random Twitter Stalker!

Who do you follow that has really helped you take your thinking to the next level?