Twitter continues to be used by most insurers to provide soft marketing messages about promotions, sponsorships and customer endorsements. Other activities include financial quizzes, insurance related education materials, warnings regarding impended natural disasters and Facebook announcements. Some insurers do respond publically to customer questions but, largely, this is not the significant activity. Some of the direct auto insurers have created separate customer-service twitter identities but their primary identities are still more prominent. In a previous post, I referred to a poll run on behalf of the Red Cross indicating a 1 hour response time is becoming the customer expectation and most insurers are simply not geared up to deliver at that level. One overriding goal for many insurers is to have a dialog with consumers and customers outside of their traditional periods, the policy payment and a claim.
USAA continues to lead the follower count and while their growth rate has slowed, they were able with an early entry to establish a solid follower base. It is not as if USAA pound the twittersphere with information, being consistently low volume tweeters. On the other hand, State Farm has always been up there at or near the top of the tweet count. A possible surprise is Travelers managing just 8 tweets a month but growing the follower base by 46%. Part of this is due to a consolidation of Twitter activity into a new corporate identity.
Overall the number of tweet has growth within the industry with the average now at 69 per month, up substantially from just 6 months ago at just about half that number.
The movers and shakers and people to keep an eye on include Farmers with a 88% increase in followers over the past 3 months from an already strong base. New York Life and Westfield have impressive growth rates but from initially low numbers implying a new focus and effort on social media. This is certainly the case at New York Life who have also burst on the scene with Facebook.
Leaders by Number of Followers
| Growth | Av Tweets | ||||
| Insurer | Primary Twitter Handle | Followers | 1 Month | 3 Months | Month |
| USAA_news | @usaa_news | 10187 | 4% | 11% | 13 |
| State Farm | @StateFarm | 6900 | 7% | 20% | 229 |
| Aflac Duck | @aflacduck | 6629 | 5% | 14% | 86 |
| Allstate Insurance | @allstate | 5623 | 7% | 20% | 182 |
| Progressive | @progressive | 4608 | 5% | 13% | 131 |
| Chubb Insurance | @ChubbInsurance | 2886 | 9% | 15% | 28 |
| Nationwide | @Nationwide | 2627 | 4% | 11% | 15 |
| Farmers Insurance | @FarmersGroup | 2343 | 21% | 88% | 64 |
| Liberty Mutual | @libertymutual | 1640 | 14% | 38% | 63 |
| Travelers Insurance | @TRV_Insurance | 1580 | 22% | 46% | 8 |
| The Hartford | @TheHartford | 1564 | 10% | 27% | 25 |
| GEICO | @GEICO | 1507 | 14% | 38% | 45 |
| Esurance | @esurance | 1141 | 3% | 9% | 97 |
| Northwestern Mutual | @NM_News | 993 | 8% | 26% | 16 |
| Thrivent Financial | @Thrivent | 914 | 6% | 17% | 27 |
| American Family | @amfam | 808 | 44% | 80% | 108 |
| Westfield Insurance | @WestfieldIns | 574 | 20% | 119% | 81 |
| Amica Insurance | @AmicaMutual | 482 | 17% | 45% | 54 |
| New York Life | @NewYorkLife | 286 | 26% | 123% | 47 |
| Industry Average | 53292 | 8% | 21% | 69 | |
Leaders by 3 month Growth
| Growth | Av Tweets | ||||
| Insurer | Primary Twitter Handle | Followers | 1 Month | 3 Months | Month |
| New York Life | @NewYorkLife | 286 | 26% | 123% | 47 |
| Westfield Insurance | @WestfieldIns | 574 | 20% | 119% | 81 |
| Farmers Insurance | @FarmersGroup | 2343 | 21% | 88% | 64 |
| American Family | @amfam | 808 | 44% | 80% | 108 |
| Travelers Insurance | @TRV_Insurance | 1580 | 22% | 46% | 8 |
| Amica Insurance | @AmicaMutual | 482 | 17% | 45% | 54 |
| Liberty Mutual | @libertymutual | 1640 | 14% | 38% | 63 |
| GEICO | @GEICO | 1507 | 14% | 38% | 45 |
| The Hartford | @TheHartford | 1564 | 10% | 27% | 25 |
| Northwestern Mutual | @NM_News | 993 | 8% | 26% | 16 |
| Allstate Insurance | @allstate | 5623 | 7% | 20% | 182 |
| State Farm | @StateFarm | 6900 | 7% | 20% | 229 |
| Thrivent Financial | @Thrivent | 914 | 6% | 17% | 27 |
| Chubb Insurance | @ChubbInsurance | 2886 | 9% | 15% | 28 |
| Aflac Duck | @aflacduck | 6629 | 5% | 14% | 86 |
| Progressive | @progressive | 4608 | 5% | 13% | 131 |
| usaa_news | @usaa_news | 10187 | 4% | 11% | 13 |
| Nationwide | @Nationwide | 2627 | 4% | 11% | 15 |
| Esurance | @esurance | 1141 | 3% | 9% | 97 |
| Industry Average | 53292 | 8% | 21% | 69 | |
Leaders by Average Tweet Activity
| Growth | Av Tweets | ||||
| Insurer | Primary Twitter Handle | Followers | 1 Month | 3 Months | Month |
| State Farm | @StateFarm | 6900 | 7% | 20% | 229 |
| Allstate Insurance | @allstate | 5623 | 7% | 20% | 182 |
| Progressive | @progressive | 4608 | 5% | 13% | 131 |
| American Family | @amfam | 808 | 44% | 80% | 108 |
| Esurance | @esurance | 1141 | 3% | 9% | 97 |
| Aflac Duck | @aflacduck | 6629 | 5% | 14% | 86 |
| Westfield Insurance | @WestfieldIns | 574 | 20% | 119% | 81 |
| Farmers Insurance | @FarmersGroup | 2343 | 21% | 88% | 64 |
| Liberty Mutual | @libertymutual | 1640 | 14% | 38% | 63 |
| Amica Insurance | @AmicaMutual | 482 | 17% | 45% | 54 |
| New York Life | @NewYorkLife | 286 | 26% | 123% | 47 |
| GEICO | @GEICO | 1507 | 14% | 38% | 45 |
| Chubb Insurance | @ChubbInsurance | 2886 | 9% | 15% | 28 |
| Thrivent Financial | @Thrivent | 914 | 6% | 17% | 27 |
| The Hartford | @TheHartford | 1564 | 10% | 27% | 25 |
| Northwestern Mutual | @NM_News | 993 | 8% | 26% | 16 |
| Nationwide | @Nationwide | 2627 | 4% | 11% | 15 |
| usaa_news | @usaa_news | 10187 | 4% | 11% | 13 |
| Travelers Insurance | @TRV_Insurance | 1580 | 22% | 46% | 8 |
| Industry Average | 53292 | 8% | 21% | 69 | |
Average tweets per month over the past 3 months
Looking at the results from this article it really shines a light on the fact that Agents and Agencies are driving the Social Media movement within the Insurance Industry not the Big Budget carriers.
I work for an independent agency in Upstate New York and I would finish 6th on the list of total followers right behind Progressive and right ahead of Chubb. And I not nearly the tops as far as Agents go.
How is this possible? Relationship. Many carriers are still using Social Media as a Broadcast advertising tool and not a relationship building tool. People engage on Social Media for the relationship.
Thank you,
Ryan H., http://www.RyanHanley.com
@AlbanyInsurance
Ryan
You make a couple of excellent points. Major carriers have very low conversation levels, typically just 1 in 10 is to a person (@replies). The primary goal for many has been to create a broadcast channel and not to engage in a dialogue (with the exception of a few direct auto carriers). This is partial driven by the fact that carriers really have little or no ongoing relationship with the customer and therefore not entirely sure how to proceed.
Some more enlightened carriers are looking at the problem the other way around. Have agents recruit followers and fans and work with them as a channel to suppliment their own news and stories. This is more in line with how the business runs today. Facebook is more condusive to this approach and American Family is probably a good example. If each agent has 500-1000 friends and a carrier has 4000 agents, that is a huge reach but it must be done in co-operation with agents who must see the value. The agent then engages in the dialog possibly talking about information provided by the carrier.
Terry Golesworthy