Saturday evening I was working my way through the various articles in my iPad App – Zite. I really like the way I can see a snapshot of the article and choose which ones to read and which to skip or know I have read elsewhere. In my social media section “Why I Deleted My Klout Profile“. Just last week I saw a post on Twitter where another social media guru said that they had just deleted their Klout profile so this article really caught my attention. If the social media gurus are opting out there must be something here.

Now you might be wondering as a public person with a blog, twitter account, personal and business facebook pages, etc, etc, etc. why would she be worried about Klout.

The privacy issues Pam Moore outlines in her post really made it clear to me I didn’t want to participate in this product. My biggest concern in this area is the privacy of those people I interact with on Facebook. I have a number of friends that are minors. They and their parents trust the people that they are friends with on Facebook to remember this and treat their posts and information in a more protected way than we might with the more social media savvy adults using Twitter.

I can’t explain it any better than Pam did in her post, so I encourage you to read her article and take the action that is appropriate for you.

A few weeks ago I had the honor of be a presenter at the PIIAC Annual Conference. My afternoon workshop was “Your Brand, the Web and Social Media”. I love doing this session. Since the landscape of the subject matter is constantly changing it is always a challenge to be as current as possible. I am no expert in any of these fields but I do have lots of working experience and study on these subjects and their interconnectivity. I find that many insurance agencies don’t have grasp of the importance of this. When doing this workshop I like to find an agency in the area that is doing all of these things really well.  Besides the audience learning awesome, practical information, I get to learn new things as well.

I was so thrilled to be joined by Barrett Bartels of Affordable American Insurance for this workshop. Here are 8 of the great points Barrett shared with the group:

• Your Google Places information is the #1 thing you should do on the web.
• Your client reviews should be at your Google Places. The link on your website should go to the Google Places Reviews.
• The website is reviewed on a regular basis and revised and updated as needed.
• It is important to update the look and stay fresh.
• Their site is built on the WordPress platform. This allows them to update the look without having a total re-do of the site.
• Like any other part of your business, you need to track the effectiveness of your website and other social media platforms.
• Multiple individuals within the organization are responsible for blogging. Everyone knows the schedule and they know they are responsible.
• A blog does not have to be long, it just needs to be informational and relevant.

Over the next few weeks I will be blogging about each of these items and other parts of this experience I find agencies struggling with.

Post your questions and I will seek out the answer and resources.

There is much debate about this. There is proof in both opinions. Some very successfull websites just don’t appeal to me. They look junkie or have no “personality”. But it is easy to see what your next steps are. They use big colored buttons to guide you through what you need to do. However, I do believe that a site can be both really functional, clean and nice looking. An example of this would be GRSites. I subscribe to this site and use it to build custom buttons for websites. My comments about this site:

• It is clean and easy to read.
• It is clear by their use of buttons what you need to do to subscribe.
• In the subscription section of the site you are easily led through the process of creating and customizing your buttons.
• Nothing fancy, but it gets the job done.

I very much dislike websites with black or dark backgrounds as I find them hard to read. So I just move on. If a site is not easy to navigate and information is not easily accessible, I am not spending anytime there unless it is my only alternative.

I spend a good deal of time working with agencies to design the look and content of their websites. Most of them have very strong opinions about their look. I think their look is an important part of presenting themselves to the public and represents their brand and many of them have an idea based on printed materials that they use to promote their business. Most of my clients are usually stuck on content. Some are even paralyzed to move forward because they have no idea what their site should say or do. They also have trouble envisioning how their website should be a tool for their clients or how to attract prospects.

Just recently I received an email from one of my clients that read:

Pat:

I had a client come by this week who had received the names of several potential advisors to utilize. She said she got on all the web sites and really liked mine the best and that’s how she decided to come see me!

I wanted to share that with you! So thanks for doing such a great job on the site!

Martin Day, CFP®
Financial Advisor
1200 S. Main St., Ste. 1600 • Grapevine, TX 76051
P. 817.865.1810 • F. 817.424.1404

Box Financial Advisors

Now, how the look of the site would attract clients was not a discussion Martin and I had. Our discussions revolved more around content and functionality and a bit on the design. But what a wonderful thing to know that you have a site that a prospect would think enough of and gathered enough information from to contact you. I think it is a balance of all of these issues that need to be considered when working on your site.

If you are looking for someone to help you with your site, check out Agency Web Strategy. This site provides you with information about my services in website design and creation. What are your questions and concerns about creating or updating your website?

I have heard many people say that they don’t think social media is a very good way to meet people. Usually they say that it is only valuable to meet people face-to-face. I guess these people have forgotten how they probably first met many of their clients by a telephone call. Either the client called in as a prospect or as a new producer they spent a good deal of time making telephone calls to introduce themselves and get interest from the prospect. Also, think about those insurance carrier underwriters and brokers that you talk to almost every day. Have you met all of them in person? Did you always know them the 1st time you ever called them? My experience is that the answer is often, no I haven’t met them. But I have built some great, long term business relationships and friendships with a number of these individuals and I still haven’t met some of them.

I look at today’s social media as the new phone call. Best part is, there is no playing tag or leaving voice mail. Over the past 2 years I have met some pretty great people via social media. Sometimes I am introduced, other times, I introduce myself. Some of them I have never met and some of them I have never talked to on the phone. However, that has not impaired our ability to communicate, help each other and do business together.

In the last few weeks, I have worked with Richard Biever at Copper Lion to have my business cards re-designed and printed. All of this was done via social media and email and payment online. Now you might be asking, how did I find Richard since he is in Indiana and I am in Texas and why did I choose him? The answer is that several months ago Nibby Priest (who I also met via social media) posted a link to what looked like an interesting blog for Mary Biever. That blog was “Tiptoe with the Typewriters“. I liked the post so much that I asked Mary if I could have her as a guest communicator at the Insurance Ecosystem blog. Through following Mary I found that Richard did great design at the Copper Lion. She posted a picture of her new business cards one day and I knew he was the person to design my new cards.

This week I have had a conversation via Twitter with an agent that I have been following for a number of months regarding the need for an APP based on my recent post on YES-Your Agency Needs an APP. I also asked Jason if you could recommend the best area of Detroit for my husband and I to stay over a weekend. He said we needed to talk so we communicated via twitter about a time to talk. When Jason called, he said, this is cool, I don’t think we have ever talked by phone before. He and I discussed my plans for the weekend in Detroit and he gave me his input on where to stay. Now Jason and I began following each other after I began following Ashley. I no longer remember how Ashley and I found each other.

I have many more examples of how social media has provided me with great business and personal connections. I could not have possibly made some of these valuable connections in my regular world without social media. I would most likely not crossed paths with these individuals.

Don’t look down your nose at social media. Learn how it can enhance your life, both business and personal.

Share your great social media stories with us.

I beg to differ with you.  People have actually been using social media since before phones were installed in insurance agencies.  I would actually suggest that the written letter (by hand, typewriter, word processor or computer) could also be considered social media.  In these “old fashioned” communications, while business was being conducted, relationships were also being built.  Many of those letters and phone calls included some personal interaction along with the business communication.  The next step up from the phone and letters were teletype communications, then along came faxes and emails.

I worked for a general agency in the late 1960′s & early 1970′s that relied heavily on a telex machine to communicate with London.  This was one of my duties.  We placed a lot of business with our London markets and there were daily communications.  I got to know my underwriters quite well and them me through these communications.  It is the nature of doing business to learn about your clients, insurance carriers, vendors, etc.

I was curious about what all is considered media and what is the definition of social media.  So here are my research results from Wikipedia.

• Media (communication), tools used to store and deliver information or data
  • Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising
  • Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass electronic communication networks
  • Digital media, electronic media used to store, transmit, and receive digitized information
  • Electronic media, communications delivered via electronic or electromechanical energy
  • Hypermedia, media with hyperlinks
  • Mass media, all means of mass communications
  • Multimedia, communications that incorporate multiple forms of information content and processing
  • New media, a broad term encompassing the amalgamation of traditional media with the interactive power of computer and communications technology
  • News media, mass media focused on communicating news
  • News media (United States), the news media of the United States of America
  • Print media, communications delivered via paper or canvas
  • Published media, any media made available to the public
  • Recording media, devices used to store information
  • Social media, media disseminated through social interaction

  Social media are media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable communication techniques. Social media is the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into interactive dialogue. Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein also define social media as “a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, which allows the creation and exchange of user-generated content.”^[1]Businesses also refer to social media asconsumer-generated media (CGM). A common thread running through all definitions of social media is a blending of technology and social interaction for the co-creation of value.

  Do you have expectations that your staff will have appropriate conversations in their daily contact with your clients, insurance carriers and vendors?  Do you sometimes have conversations about appropriate conversations in the business world?  So, if you are comfortable with your staff communicating via phone, letter, fax, email, etc. then why are you so afraid of having them communicate in the bigger social media world today?

  I would like to hear some your questions and concerns.  Then we will have a social discussion on ideas and solutions.

I have written before about the use of Google Alerts.  When you have a common name like Pat Alexander, you daily alerts may be about you, or a myriad of other people.  I wrote previously about my name appearing in an obituary.  Also, I frequently have alerts about Pat Alexander, Author.  There are others named Pat Alexander that twitter or appear in other articles on the web.

However, the past few weeks I have found that I have a new Pat Alexander in my alerts frequently.

So when this alert appeared yesterday I thought it was time I check out this Pat Alexander.  This Pat Alexander seems to be an overachiever as anyone with this name should be.  This is the 2nd or 3rd alert I have received where he has been the top scorer on this team.  So to check out my new career go to:

S-O improves to 4-5 with Spirit Lake win

You should set up at least one google alert on your name just to see what other people with your name are up to.  It might also be beneficial to set up a google alert on  your company.  What is being said about your company?  You might also want to set up alerts about your competitors.  What are they up to and what are people saying about them?  Do you use google alerts?  If so, how?  What do you find important about this tool?

One of the lists I have created in twitter is PatAlexander/Influencers.  Who is in this list and why is the question.  This is the list that I pay attention to through the day.  I edit this list from time-to-time.  I might try someone new in this list and find that they really don’t contribute information or content that I find useful.  Recently someone in this list began posting promotional tweets, around 10 at a time, several times a day.  It was difficult to get through the clutter to read everyone else.  Thus, that person has been removed from this list.  It became so bad that I actually un-followed the individual.  As I find new people to follow and as new people follow me, I think it is important to see what they are about.  I really appreciate good conversation and ideas.

Speaking of ideas, there have been a number of them that I have acted on since the 1st of the year.

@rickjmiv – Rick Morgan – Invited me to be a member of Quora.  This looks very interesting.  I just signed up yesterday so I need to find a time to concentrate on this and see how it fits into the grand scheme of things.  Rick is always looking forward and searching for useful tools and then shares them via social media.

@afeldt – April Feldt – Challenges the world and herself each day.  Much of the time it is on social media.  Last year April expressed that she missed doing presentations which she had done regularly at her previous employer.  Within a few hours someone had contacted her, and a presentation was in the making.

@awhitney2B – Ashley Whitney – Shared a link about how Instapaper can be used to capture web pages which are automatically sent to your Kindle.  I have signed up, Tested this out and am now actively using it on a daily basis.  In the past I have printed the page to .pdf and sent to my Kindle.  But that doesn’t always format very well and I must print, save, and email to my Kindle email address.  Once I set up my Instagram preferences, I only need click on the Read Later shortcut on my web browser tool bar.  One simple step.

@MaryBiever – Mary Biever – I met Mary because of @NibbyP re-tweeting her blog on Tiptoe with the Typewriters.  Mary agreed to let me post this as a guest post atInsuranceEcosystem.  Her newest guest post at InsuranceEcosystem is What, Why and How of QR Codes.  Mary blogs on a wide range of subjects at Real Life in River City.

@NibbyP – Nibby Priest – Nibby gently reminded many of us that if we haven’t blogged in a while with this tweet.  Thanks Nibby for reminding me so I wouldn’t mess up at the beginning of this blog.

Nibby has a personal blog at NibbyPriest.com and a company blog at GoVaughn.com.  I have met a number of people via Nibby’s comments on twitter and facebook or re-posting of their blogs.

Some of these individuals I knew before I became active in social media.  We would see each other once or twice a year at an industry event, but otherwise had little contact.  Social media has given us insight into each others lives and a chance to communicate in real time or in the time we have available.  I have much closer relations ships with each of these individuals today.

Others on this list I met via social media.  When we were able to meet in person we were able to immediately begin a conversation without all of the introduction, getting to know you stuff.  We already knew a lot about each other.  Such a comfortable way to meet for the first time.

I have yet to meet Mary Biever yet.  But I think it would be wonderful.  Hopefully that will happen someday.  In the meantime, we will continue getting to know each other via social media.

These certainly aren’t the only people I follow or that influence me.  These are the most recent examples of those that challenge me almost every day.  In addition to these great relationships, I have been able to connect with several business opportunities via social media.  Monitor who you follow, try out new people from time-to-time, weed out the ones that don’t contribute to your life.

Who do you follow and why?

I was honored to be asked to be the keynote speaker at this organization’s annual convention.  I have attended this convention over the years as an exhibitor and as a member.  My busy schedule and the dates for this convention have not worked together for several years.  Thus, there are a number of people I haven’t seen in those years.  When I was asked to do a presentation on social media I was delighted.  Wow, how fun would this be.

• I would get to talk about a subject I really enjoy sharing.
• I would get to see a whole bunch of friends I haven’t seen in a long time.
• The convention was being held in Arlington (a short 20min drive from my house – no airplane ride).
• They were feeding me lunch.

There are no minuses here in my mind.  Well as time went on, some of this changed.

I guess I didn’t really notice the word keynote in the invitation email.  I think of myself as a breakout session presenter.  Most people think of the keynote speaker as a motivational speaker.  That is just not me.  However, the association president had seen me do this presentation at the Joe Vincent Seminar in January and I was assured this is exactly what they were looking for.  Okay.

As time goes on and I was modifying the presentation for the timeframe available and to update some of my information; I began to worry that it wasn’t the right information.  In the world of social media there are frequent changes and there is more information than I could possibly present in one hour.    What were the attendees expectations?  Do other presenters fret this much?

About a week before presentation day I started worrying about what to wear.  It can be so frustrating to be a woman sometimes.  You know guys just put on a shirt, tie, suit, shoes and their are done.  We women are a different story.  Which jacket will be the most comfortable and look the best?  Which shoes will work best with the outfit?  What jewelry should I wear.  Remember, there will be a microphone.  Some jewelry interferes with the microphone.  Good grief!!

On Thursday before the Saturday event I return from Las Vegas.  The news media is telling me that the traffic around the convention hotel is going to be horrid.  There is Six Flags annual Freight Fest and Saturday promises to be a beautiful day so there will be a lot of people driving to Six Flags.  Texas A&M and The University of Arkansas are playing football and the Cowboys Stadium at 2:30pm.  Then there is the Texas Rangers 3rd game of the playoff game at 4:07pm.  The Sheraton hotel sits in the middle of these three venues and I don’t think there is a mile between the three.  So now I am officially concerned.  Every worry is piled on.  I call this head trash.  Somehow I have it before every presentation and every meeting with a client.

To take as much control of the situation as possible I started my Saturday morning a bit earlier than usual.  It did take trying on three different jackets before I way happy.  I double checked that I had all the presenter tools I needed and was out the door to the hotel an hour earlier than I had originally planned.  The only issue when I arrived at the hotel was convincing the parking attendants that I was there for a convention and not attending a game.  They were charging event parking fees and monitoring who was parking in their lot.  Couldn’t they tell by the way I was dressed I wasn’t going to some sporting event?  The early arrival allowed me to find a quiet place to review my presentation one more time, take deep breaths and gather all of my thoughts together.  The other benefit to an early arrival was the opportunity to say hello and spend some time visiting with friends.

The presentation went very well.  There was a lot of interest and audience participation.  Why do I always worry so much?  A big thank you to FIWT for having me join them at their convention.

What business meeting gets you uptight?  How do you deal with it?

Our world of social media continues to explode. Along with that comes new technologies and new design. While creating a new social media plan for a client over the past few weeks, I determine that my site was too busy and outdated in its design and performance. It has only been about a year since I last had a re-design. However, as someone working with clients on updating who they are and how they operate, I think I need to be as current as possible in addition to looking to the future.

Remaining as current as possible is a challenge. While assembling my social media presentation for the client; there were changes to some of the tools I was recommending. Just a few days ago I became frustrated with the blogging software I was using and decided to go back to a previously used software. Well, just today I received an update to the blogging software I was using and now it is superior to the one I returned to, so here I am again and loving the new features.

Now in the world of an agency you can’t go changing software everyday, but you need to be involved with your current vendors to engage them in moving forward in their development. When I talk to a vendor and ask what they are doing to design and implement touch screen functionality I usually just get ignored. Sometimes they tell me their clients are asking for it. I suggest that most agencies don’t know they should be pushing for this technology.

Insurance agencies are so focused in their world that they are not always aware of what is happening in the outside world and what technologies they should be engaging. I believe that if insurance agencies and companies want to hire and retain the best people they need to have the best technologies. Many days I feel our whole industry is going nowhere fast toward achieving the best technologies.

What are you wishing for? Have you talked to your vendor? What is their response?

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Insurance Agency processes, insurance agency workflows, social media

In January 2010 I presented a session at the Independent Insurance Agents of Texas‘ Joe Vincent Seminar on Social Media in Insurance Agencies. I have received so much positive feedback about this session. As a result of this session I have had the pleasure to work with an agency on developing their social media plan. The owner of the agency attended the session and had some ideas in mind. The initial question was – “What tools do we use?” Then – “How do we manage them?”

I had designed a product called Web 2.0 Strategies some months ago. This was its initial outing. What fun and what a challenge. I initially met with the agency for a Q&A. One of the great parts of this session was that the owner thought it was important that I also get feedback from various staff members on what they think the agency’s social media plan should look like. I received great information from them and ideas on a couple of items we had not discussed in the executive meeting.

Back in my office I began pulling all the information together for a presentation and recommendations. While a small number of social media outlets are meaningful, to support them properly, there are a number of tools needed. How was I going to take this very confusing world and make it easily understandable?

Only a few days before my initial meeting with the agency I didn’t have a clear understanding myself of why you would want or need to use foursquare. I had inquired to the twitter community about this question and my friend Liz Kittell provided me with a definition. However, it just didn’t seem to fit a social media plan in my mind. Oddly enough the owner was describing to me a benefit that the agency negotiates on behalf of all clients with some of the agency’s commercial clients. While he is talking it become crystal clear to me what foursquare is all about.

Another challenge I found while working on this plan is that Web 2.0 and social media are ever changing. Each day there are new articles with great ideas and uses for social media. Functions as social media sites are changing frequently as well. Then when you think you have documented everything applicable a new idea comes along or you find that piece of information you have been looking for endlessly.

This is a chart I used to simplify the plan visually for the client. Then I provided them with a detailed report of what each of these could accomplish and suggestions on how to use. Additionally, we discussed tools such as hootsuite for managing their twitter accounts and their usage of foursquare.

This picture was our focal point for the meeting that we could re-visit at anytime. As the client said, this chart helped them through the mass of information to focus on the tools that would benefit them. What additional tools does our agency use to facilitate your social media plan? What questions do you have about putting together a social media plan?

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Social Media, twitter, facebook, business to business, youtube, foursquare, linkedin, joe vincent seminar, web 2.0, independent insurance agents of texas