Social media marketing has become a rallying cry here at Affordable American Insurance. While we have no stake in any social media platform, we do have a stake in the success of our members, and social media is the one tool that no entrepreneur, business owner, or independent agent can succeed without. So, we'll continue to toot this horn until you're all successfully leveraging the power of social media to propel your agencies to new heights.
Social media marketing methods
Social media build your brand, connect with existing and potential clients, and ultimately increase profits. There are two basic methods of social media marketing: free and paid advertising. You may be thinking, "you had me at free," however, there are benefits to paid marketing. In fact, real magic happens when you combine the two, allowing one to boost the other.
Free Social Media Marketing
Free social media marketing is also referred to as "organic" social media marketing. By setting up a business profile on a social media platform, whether it's Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Snap Chat, and/or Tik Tok, you are in the process of organic marketing. Without spending any of your marketing budgets, you can define your brand and connect with clients. Sharing information, photos, graphics, and videos relating to your industry will slowly build an organic following of existing and potential clients.
The limits to free social media marketing are that you will most likely only connect with a small percentage of your target audience. Where free social media marketing excels is in the ability to continue to nurture and strengthen existing connections.
It is also worth noting that free social media will take time, and, not just in cultivating a captivating social media profile but in planning out your social media strategy.
Paid Social Media Marketing
Paid social media marketing will blast your brand, services, and products much further and reach more clients. You are paying for your brand to be promoted and presented to anyone actively interested in your products and services, people who are likely to be interested, and anyone in your target demographic.
You can pay to boost your existing organic content or create a unique message and advertisement campaign. The people reached via paid advertisements will ultimately land on your organic social media page or website, so it's important to back up any paid campaigns with relevant, engaging, and informative authentic content to seal the deal and keep people coming back for more.
Pay Per Click
The most popular method of paid social media marketing is Pay Per Click (PPC) advertisement. PPC lets you create an advertisement or a piece of content that you want to promote, and the social media platform will blast it out to interested parties. However, unless a person clicks on your advertisement, you don't pay anything, making paid social media marketing the most cost-effective method of paid advertisement.
Tools to succeed as an independent insurance agent
At AAI, we offer our members the tools to succeed as independent agents, including utilizing various marketing methods on social media and other business strategies essential to growing your agency. With AAI, you are independent but not alone.