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My Marketing Journey On Social Media Part 1

As you already know, I am a small business owner and salesperson. Actually, I have a marketing agency. Or is it an insurance agency? 

My insurance agency, Surf Financial Brokers, is pretty much a one person business. I have a few agents who I work with from time to time, but for the most part I spend the majority of my time prospecting, marketing and selling life insurance, along with disability, long term care, accident and cancer insurance. 

I also have a speaking business, which for now, is on hold until the Covid pandemic is over and we can get back to doing things like gathering together and seeing people without concern of infection. And I use both my insurance business and my speaking business to promote my book on sales, "You're Going To Be Great At This!". You'd think I'm a pretty busy guy.

Of course, I don't see many of my insurance clients in person either at this point. Everything is done over the phone, which is fine. I'll take what I can get considering the circumstances. But the truth is that I decided over a year ago, pre-Corona, that I wanted to make my agency as virtual as possible. At the time, I slowly started to put the infrastructure in place, by improving my website and thinking of ways to market a virtual agency.

Working on a shoestring budget, I met with any social media gurus I could find, along with watching tons of YouTube videos, and put together a strategy for social media. My blogging, which was hit or miss at best, became more consistent. I amped up my posts on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Recently I added a business Instagram account and a YouTube channel.



As I learn more I have made adjustments. A good example is Twitter, which I am finding to be nearly useless, even though I have over 12,000 followers. Those followers were accrued over a period of about 10 years and none were purchased. I do recognize that Twitter has several issues, one of them being a massive amount of fake accounts. I myself have several accounts, one for my insurance business, one that I use for promoting my book and a couple more that I used for personal dumb stuff. 

This leads to another point. If you have a social media presence for your business, do your best to stick with that business (or theme) on that account. My insurance feed (@surffinbroker) consists of insurance related topics. It's very confusing for your followers if you are including posts about your pets, vacations, or worse, politics.  If you have a charitable cause that you're passionate about, that's fine. Include it as one of your business's charities. On the other hand, your favorite metal band's concert dates probably should stay on another account.

While I'm on this subject, I may as well address the subject of politics. Our country is very divided and people are very passionate about their beliefs. Much like religion, no one wants to hear that their side is wrong. So why would you even want to go there as a small business owner? Speaking for myself, the last thing I want to do is turn off half of my potential market by openly arguing (because civil discourse is rare these days) about how your side is right and the other is wrong. 

Unless you are so successful that you can afford to lose business, or you can hide behind a brand name that isn't associated with you, you should probably restrain yourself from going political on your business posts. 

In part 2 of this post, I'll share more about LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. In the meantime, stay healthy!

Chris Castanes is a professional speaker who helps sales people succeed through workshops and humorous presentations. He's also the author of "You're Going To Be Great At This!", a humorous look at sales. For booking information, click here. He's also the president of Surf Financial Brokers selling life and disability insurance in several states.

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