Happy Wednesday and International Women's Day! In this week's Big I Buzz, we are discussing trends insurance professionals should know about Gen Z and best practices to build or boost your social media marketing. 

As Gen Z customers move into the insurance marketplace, it's important to know how to properly engage with them. 

The first thing to know is that Gen Z has low insurance confident. To boost their insurance confidence, the author of this article, Deb Franklin, recommends that you prioritize educations before attempting to sell more policies, lead with the basics such as the ins and outs of premiums and deductibles, and finally, check in regularly. Give your clients the opportunity to ask questions and offer a few examples to get them going. 

Next, everyone and everything want Gen Z's attention. They prefer communicating via text, communications should be kept simple and gamify your insurance education. 

Third, social media is king. They start roughly 40% of searches on TikTok or Instagram. Luckily, the next thing we are discussing in this week's Big I Buzz is how to improve or build on your social media marketing! 

6 Best Practices to Build or Boost Agency Social Media Marketing

As we mentioned with the previous article from Property Casualty 360, Gen Z's searches start on social media. However, they're not the only target market that turn to social media to shop and conduct business. According to the 2021 Big I and Reagan Consulting Best Practices Study, "88.9% of agencies with revenues under $1.25 million are on Facebook and 77.8% are on LinkedIn. As for larger agencies, 79.5% of agencies with revenues of more than $25 million are on Facebook and 97.4% are on LinkedIn." 

1. The first step to building or boosting your social media marketing is to build a plan. Determine your posting frequency by creating a content calendar for the next few weeks or months ahead. If you're not already aware, IIAW members receive access to Trusted Choice! They have a variety of ready-to share content PLUS you also receive access to their monthly marketing calendar. Their calendar saves you the time it takes to put content together and decide which day it should be posted on. 

2. Posting consistency and balance are important! If you're just starting out with your social media, start by posting a few times a week and testing out different time slots to see which consistency will impact your social media success. Or, take the testing out of your social media schedule by reading this recent post from HubSpot where they outline the best times to post on social media in 2023. 

3. Use quality content. Demonstrate your knowledge of the industry and issues that impact your clients by posting well thought out social media posts. While you're promoting your agency through your social media posts, the objective is NOT to take a hard-sell approach. You want your followers to recognize you as a valuable resource on the topics at hand. Posts including graphics, visuals and video perform better than those without, so try incorporating those in your agency's social media. 

4. Mind your tone. Property Casualty 360 recommends that your posts should be an authentic mirror of your agency culture. Stay clear of inflammatory topics, or anything others might find offensive as it could reflect poorly and alienate potential clients. People want to connect with individuals, not just a business. Occasionally, sprinkle in personal information to make your agency and employees more relatable. 

5. Build engagement. 

Social media engagement helps spread awareness of your business and increases the likelihood that new followers see your pages too! When you post, tag relevant parties and use hashtags (on appropriate channels) to increase visibility. Once your posting schedule is consistent and you want to build your engagement even more, consider adding your social media handles on marketing materials, in email signatures and on your website. 

6. Track Your Progress.

From the time you start to post on your social media, you should be using the built-in features to track your progress. Understanding which posts receive the most interactions will help you to create similar content so your pages continue to grow. 2023 can be the. year that you commit to a social media strategy or improve the strategy you already have. 

Read the full article here.

For more news, check out the Actions News section of our weekly e-newsletter, Big I Buzz. Additionally, we send out monthly newsletters with content curated for you and your role. Make sure you're on the list to receive these monthly communications by heading to bit.ly/industrynewsforyou.