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November 27, 2013 at 08:42 AM
From Silicon Valley to Wall Street and all around the world, Twitter is the word. The popular online social network recently went public, proving once and for all that tweets, trends and hashtags are here to stay.
Nevertheless, many insurance advisors are still trying to figure how best to use Twitter for business. Is it a sales channel, marketing channel, or customer service channel? The answer: All three!
Here are four steps to supercharge your Twitter strategy:
1. Be there.
More than 200 million people use Twitter. In the United States, nearly a quarter of all Internet users are on Twitter, according to Forrester Research. That’s a sizeable audience no business can afford to ignore; it means every business with at least a handful of customers has some customers who use Twitter. Creating a professional Twitter presence for your business allows you to provide another key touchpoint for customers to “follow” you and engage with you. As a result, you’ll be able to provide faster and more personalized service that will remind them why they’re happy to do business with you.
2. Grow your network.
After engaging with and “following” your customers on Twitter, focus on growing your network. This could mean directly letting your followers know that they can pass your name along to their friends and family. You can also use Twitter to connect with new contacts. Have a meeting next week with an executive? Find their Twitter account, follow them and retweet them to show that you’re paying attention and support what they are saying. Now you have something in common when you meet, and they might even follow you back. Engaging with people is one of the best ways to build followers and ultimately expand your network of business opportunities.
3. Discover opportunities.
Follow people you know, and then pay attention to “social signals” they share, like interest in buying a new car or photos of new babies. People are quite likely to share updates over Twitter about what they’re up to, and it’s pretty non-intrusive for an agent to follow them, learn this info, connect online and then reach out over phone or email at the appropriate time.
