Snowstorms, Social Media, Your Insurance Agency

Snowpocalypse: When weathermen predict large amounts of snowfall in a short period of time – Urban Dictionary

Snowmageddon: President Barack Obama’s term for the February snowstorm that shut down Washington, D.C.; or End of (school) Days due to an excessive snowfall event.*

What does any of this have to do with insurance?  Surely, if your insurance agency is located in an area experiencing a snowpocalypse, you have an insurance story to tell.  Maybe it’s how your staff were able to work from home to help clients with claims issues, or a heroic trip into the office to be there for your agency customers at a time they might be more likely to need your services.  Making the connection between a weather event and what is going on with your agency, your staff, and your customers is an easy blog or Face Book riff.  You don’t need to write a new chapter for War and Peace every time you post to Social Media.  And who knows what kind of interest your short post might engender, particularly if you can add a photo or video?

*Note:  Snowmageddon was the number 1 trend on Twitter at one point during the February, 2010 snowstorm

So, six months behind this blog, Fast Company scrutinizes Dells ‘Twitter-driven’ sales. On the one hand, they note the success of Twitter as a sales tool; on the other, they note, as I did six months ago, that the ‘Twitter-driven’ sales are a drop in Dell’s bucket. It’s true that all Dell’s tweets cost them nothing, but as the article points out, tweeting takes time and there are pitfalls to be avoided. In short, while I think Twitter can be a useful branding tool for insurance agents, I don’t think Twitter is worthy of all the hype. It may be something you fit into your branding arsenal after careful consideration. As a straight up sales vehicle – I think it’s probably a non-starter for insurance agents.