Creating an effective Twitter marketing strategy
Insurance agencies that follow these steps can grow their online presence to help generate more business in this new year.
Twitter is the wild west of social media. Equal parts tumultuous, rambunctious, and powerful. It offers a variety of information, conversations, and media to its users. Some come for news, others for the inherent comedy or trends. Some come to follow their idols, peers, businesses, or influencers. As a result, Twitter has become a part of the national conversation.
Users can follow and comment on worldwide trends. Everything from politics and sports, Game of Thrones, “IHOB,” and the Popeyes Chicken Sandwich. There’s Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn viral. Then, there’s Twitter viral.
It’s important to understand your primary goal when developing a marketing strategy on a unique platform like Twitter. And, let me tell you something right out of the gate — it’s not just to sell insurance.
Twitter is ultimately not about goods or services in the short term. It’s about people, what they have to say, and what’s important to them. So, your primary goal on Twitter is to grow your brand. You do this by participating in the conversation, creating new ones, and becoming important to your followers.
So here are several tips on how to create a content plan to market effectively on Twitter.
1. Develop an expert reputation
Two words: Thought leadership.
Think about this when you’re writing your next blog. Thought leadership content is a tool that builds trust. If people trust your expertise, they are more likely to believe you can help them with their insurance needs.
Here are some thought leadership content ideas:
- Summarize and comment on industry updates and news, especially if the news is local. This will show that you’re informed about the industry.
- Share important industry information from reputable accounts. This is a great opportunity to quote, retweet, and share your opinion on the article or blog post.
- Write your own thought leadership content for your blog. Use trending or local topics that your followers may want your opinion on. Your posts could be about insurance or related to insurance. Aim to share at least one of these a month.
2. Make your content plan a content calendar
A social media strategy is a concept until it’s laid out.
If you haven’t already, put your content plan on a calendar. You can use a social media scheduler like Sprout Social, Hootsuite, or even Microsoft Excel to create a calendar. Whatever you use, visualizing your social media calendar is advantageous for many reasons.
Here’s why:
- Scheduling your high-interest content for high-engagement windows increases visibility and engagement rates. At ITC, we have a schedule for every blog post, video, promotion, ad, webinar, etc., that we share on social. It’s also to ensure that we are always posting.
- Planning helps produce better content. For example, say you are planning to tweet a thought leadership blog post in two weeks. You should have time to write that post, revise and optimize it for SEO, and create necessary assets before your scheduled tweet. Bonus tip: If you’re in a bind on creating graphics, we recommend getting a Getty license or working in Canva.
- Visualizing your content schedule on a calendar helps identify gaps in content. If your goal is to post at least once a day on Twitter, you’ll quickly see when you don’t have content to share.
- Revisiting your content plan is easier when you have an accurate idea of when and where you posted in the past. Every month take a look at your engagement numbers on Twitter and identify what worked and what didn’t. Move your content around or revisit the content type as a whole to improve engagement.
You don’t need Hootsuite, Sprout Social, or a social media scheduler (although they are helpful). Twitter, like Facebook, offers a free scheduling tool on its platform.
Scheduling tweets is a great way to save time and manage your Twitter posting schedule. Be careful not to schedule too far out that you may miss opportunities to share in trending conversations. Also, be aware of scheduled content that could fall flat if a disaster is dominating the conversation. You may want to cancel your scheduled tweets, depending on the situation.
Once you have a plan for your content, it’s time to start getting followers.
3. Attract new followers
Regardless of whether you’ve had a Twitter account for five years or five minutes, you should always try to attract new followers. Growing your Twitter following results in a growth in prospects. Content that targets new Twitter followers should make up about 15% of your monthly content on Twitter.
Here are some ideas to attract new followers on Twitter:
- Use local hashtags. The name of your community, events near you, and local businesses that you work with.
- Engage with posts that your target audience is interested in.
- Promote new carrier options or any new lines of business. Make it a big push and promote your tweet.
- Follow first. Many people will follow back, especially if they see you’re active and engaging with other people on the platform.
These are some great ideas; however, there are some more foundational best practices. These best practices will help you grow your profile, increase engagement with your tweets, and be a resource for your following.
4. Just keep tweeting
I recommend posting on Twitter at least once a day and up to three times daily. You can optimize engagement with each tweet by carefully selecting when you post.
Highest engagement posting times:
- 9 a.m. – 10 a.m.
- 12 p.m. – 1 p.m.
- 4 p.m. – 5 p.m.
According to Sprout Social, the best days to post are Wednesday and Friday. The worst day is Saturday. Plan accordingly. This chart should help. But also look at your own analytics to see when you get more impressions and engagement.
5. Promote your agency profile everywhere
Make sure to display a link to your Twitter profile prominently on your website and in your agency newsletters. If you have any hard copy assets, include your social media account names on them. Offer an option on each blog post to follow you on social media. Plug your social media handles on any webinars or other events you do.
The more places you display your social media, the more likely you are to gain followers.
6. Include hashtags in tweets
Hashtags are topics and trends. People use hashtags on Twitter to identify keywords in tweets and highlight recurring topics. For example, if you’re tweeting about hurricane season, you could use #HurricaneSeasonPrep or #HurricaneSeason. If you’re tweeting about an approaching storm, use its name as the hashtag. It will help people looking for information about the storm to find your content.
7. Engage with replies, retweets, and tags
This one is simple. Always engage with your followers. If they reply to a tweet, make sure you like or respond. This is the human connection that makes Twitter such a powerful tool for businesses.
P.S. If it’s a complaint or customer support question, respond ASAP! Twitter has become a powerful tool for customer support.
8. Engage your employees
You can use your employees, some of whom may already use Twitter, to extend your network. Send an email to your team every time you share a new blog post on Twitter and include the link to the post. Let your team know that you would appreciate a like, retweet, or reply. (This goes for all social media platforms)
Conclusion
If you’re not already, it’s time to get your insurance agency on Twitter. The sooner you create your profile, the sooner you can start earning followers. These tips should help you do just that.
There is nothing more important to a successful social media presence than a content plan. Knowing what your day-to-day posting schedule looks like is invaluable to producing high quality, engaging content on Twitter.
Zach Weeks is a content marketing specialist at Insurance Technologies Corporation (ITC), a provider of marketing, rating and management software and services to the insurance industry. ITC helps its customers across the U.S. grow their businesses and become more efficient through the philosophy of providing quality software and services.
A version of this article originally appeared on ITC’s blog and is republished here with consent.
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