Archive for the ‘Insurance-Technologies’ Category

So many insurance folks are asking, “If I get into Social Media, what do I say?  _____ insurance is so boring.  Plus people don’t really want to have it – it’s like going in for a physical or check-up….”  I don’t know about you, but to me that seems like a cop-out, an attempt to avoid having to learn something new, or just fear of the unknown.  But it’s worse than that, depending on how senior the person is in the organization, because it creates a drag on the SocialTech effectiveness of the organization.  But most of all, it’s untrue.  Here’s a terrific example from this week.

Yesterday, New York Life hit the Social Media nail on the head with a combo Facebook fan page update/blog post.  I’m tracking New York Life on my Facebook profile, not because I’m a customer, but because they got my attention somehow (I think through email), showed me a Facebook button, I clickedin on it, and hit the “Like” button.  I’m more interested in their social strategies than their insurance products right now, but you never know, right?  So now a few times a week I see what they are doing in my Facebook Newsfeed.

The Facebook feed said this, (in case you’re not on Facebook yet I’ll copy/paste)

As sad as I am to say it, summer is almost over and you know what that means… School is about to start and for some, college is vastly approaching, which brings us to the question: Are you ready to pay for it? Starting a college fund has been the solution for some families; however, what do you suggest? What have you done to save?

The link then said this,

Start a College Fund: 8 Strategies

www.newyorklife.com

Hmmm. Nice little segway from a reference to time-of-year to educational info without a sales pitch.  There were a few “Likes”, a few “Comments” – some action.  So I clicked through to see what the landing page looked like.  (By the way, New York Life has 2,700 Facebook Fans – not a whole lot for a company of it’s size, but enough to start a viral marketing process.  By this time next year, if they play their cards right, it could be 27,000… perhaps 270,000 in two years – FOR FREE and reaching fans who prefer Facebook for their news and information – AHA!.)

IMHO, the landing page is terrific.

What works well:

1. Good branding, but not overwhelming.  I clicked through from a branded Facebook link, so I expect to see a brand reinforcement image. The new tab also has the brand thumbnail.  And the URL is newyorklife.  So I’m comfortable in seconds.
2. It’s got a Facebook Like button right away, so I know I’m going to be able to Like it and Share it with my friends – useful.  By the way, I’m coming from Facebook, so if there WASN’T a Facebook Like, it would be counterintuitive.
3. The orange “Get a Quote” buttons are good but not overwhelming.  OK, I know the company is trying to sell insurance.  But they are clearly trying to offer useful and timely advice along the way.  So I don’t mind being given the opportunity to take action if the article underscores a gap I have in my financial situation.  In fact, that’s why I clicked-through, right?  Let me check out these 8 Tips and see how my situation stacks up…
4. They also have a phone icon on the left if you want to speak to someone right now.  Absolutely.  Channel of Choice.
5. Love the Mom kissing the baby on the right.  Links to another page dealing with parents and that particular life event.  Good.  (Boy, what a great chance for a viral video right there about new parents and babies and life insurance.)
6. Most of all, the content is good.  OK, it’s a little long, but that because of the compliance text.  And it’s 8 Tips, so that’s a lot of info.  But you need a lot of info on this particular subject, right?  Surely this content was scrubbed by NYLife compliance – but it’s still good, not too heavy with industry lingo, uses a lot of keywords, good stuff.

What do you like about it?  Thoughts on my Comments?  Please Comment below.

Issues: Mostly minor things.  The list is longer, but the issues don’t outweigh the good.

1. I think they forgot to turn off the italicized font, perhaps right after the ‘compliance’ text in item #1, so right after the “Keep in mind…” paragraph.
2. Not SmartPhone-friendly – same exact Web page…. should use a browser-sniffer and optimize the page for the tech environment.
3. Not Search Engine Optimized – could do a lot more with title tags, alt tags, tag cloud, and page source.
4. Links to resources do not open in a new Tab or Window – critically important and such a common mistake.  So if I click on a link, that doesn’t mean I’m done with the original page, I just want to follow that trail for a sec.  But if I’m done with that trail or get distracted, I might close that tab or window . Then I’ve lost the original page I was reading – and the brand has lost the sales op.  Make sense?
5. Not enough linking to external resources on keywords like Section 529 – great resource on wikipedia for that.
6. “Share this Article” on the right should just be a ShareThis button next to the Facebook Like at the top (similar to what I have below)
7. The Comment box should already be open at the bottom.  You want to encourage Comments.  Remember that someone who engages with your content is far more likely to Share and return to the page – and THAT’S the Holy Grail.
8. The “Consult an Agent” form is too heavy-handed on the page.  Perhaps they could have been satisfied with the repeat of the orange box from the top,  Btw, that’s a nice little widget (which should also open up in a new tab, right?) with a decent viral marketing and data collection Thank You page (could do a LOT more with that page).

That’s is for now – my hour’s up.  GTG.  Hope this was helpful.  Please Comment and Share.  Would be eternally grateful for the viral help.

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Awesome SocialTech Strategy by State Farm.  Also a form of Crowdsourcing – internal.  Brilliant.  I’m going to use the app.

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Picture from my recent family camping trip to the Adirondacks.  See all the pics here.  Olympic stuff, cliff jumping, YT cooking, scenic shots.  Epic trip.

Starbucks | Foursquare | Droid Incredible | Tweetdeck | Popularity growing 2.0 | Tips and Tricks | K.C. in October | B2B Case Studies Advisen

Gotta tell ya… Really stoked that Starbucks has free wifi. What do you think?  Traveler?  Web power user?  UGC Elite?  If so, you totally get the magnitude.  One’s thing Fo Sho – the joints are hoppin again.  And how much did it cost?  What’s the ROI?  Curious on your take… Btw, as I type up this post at the Starbucks at Union Square in NYC, as he hands out every creation, the barista whimsically says “___name___, thank you.  If it’s not perfect, let me know.  Have a great day…”

I started using Foursquare on this trip.  Hoping to get the hang of it in the next few months.  Any comments or suggestions?

Took delivery of a Droid Incredible last week.  I’m running so hard right now, it’s hard to get up to speed on how to leverage it.  But I’ll be taking time.  So far, I’ve gotten some glimpes of why it’s called a SmartPhone.  I’ve taken an intuitive guess on a couple things, and Bang! – that’s how it worked.  Example: I got a text message and wanted to call the sender – Yup.  I needed to call a contact but didn’t have his cell #.  Found him on Facebook.  Went to his Info.  Called his cell.  Got him.  Closed the loop on something.  Added him to Google Contacts.  Good to go.  Took a 8 megapixel photo in low light and uploaded it to Facebook.  I know this is going to rock.  And only $99.  Cool.  Oh yeah – and it’s light.

Tweetdeck is my favorite tool right now.  So easy to use.  On demand, like a helicopter, it drops me right into the middle of any conversation I desire.  Such a fantastic research and listening tool – to all my networks in one interface – not to mention easy updating the networks from spot.  If you’re frustrated with Twitter or not using it at all, really encourage you to reach out to me.  Happy to teach you how to get in the conversation, or at a bare minimum use it for research.  Twitter will tie you into a whole new world – one of transparency, innovation, and freshness.  Try this: for 3 months, dump 90% of your mainstream media consumption – retain the top 10%, cut the rest.  Take some of that time and “listen” to Twitter via Tweetdeck.  Pick up how it works, how people are communicating, what they’re sharing, hashtags, links, retweets, follow fridays, integration with blogs and linkedin.  Promise you – You’ll thank me for it.

Yep, the popularity is growing for Web 2.0 in insurance.  I’ll go further than that.  With the onset of Smartphones and iPads, I say it’s hit critical mass and is exploding.  And for VERY good reasons.  Man, if you’re a marketer or sales guy, help me understand why you are NOT focused on Web 2.0?  Know this – every day that goes by that you are not generating some kind of content or footprint in the space is a day lost that you will not get back.  “I know I should…” or “I shoulda…” are words that will haunt relative to Web 2.0 and SocialTech.  I’m happy to help.  It’s not time consuming or expensive – IF you do it right and have someone coaching you.

Tips and Tricks?  Everyone always wants one or two when they talk with me.  Here’s one: Use Mozilla for your browser.  Dump IE like the plague.  If you have Favorites to transfer, no problem.  Why?  Speed, efficiency, nimbility, user interface, passwords, remembering data for common forms like name and address fields.  SO much better.  Oh yeah – and virus security, pop-ups, flash block, etc.  What do you think?  One other thing – When your browser opens up, what pages automatically load?  Do you have several tabs load at once so you can quickly check in across your social networks?  You can set that up in your browser preferences – save you gobs of time.

Looking forward to speaking at the KAIA Meeting in K.C. in October.  They are giving me 2 hours to download SocialTech to an audience of about 200 KS, MO, and NE agents.  I guess they liked me last year.  So much has happened in the meantime.  I hope the folks come ready for an avalanche of information.  In fact, I think I’ll start with that move clip from Vertical Limit where the guys turns to the camera and yells “AVALANCHE!!!!!”

B2B Case Studies re SocialTech, Sales and Marketing, and ROI.  But here’s the real question: This stuff is practically free.  And if you know what you are doing, extremely efficient.  I’m here to help you.  And there’s plenty of people like me more than happy to help.  Curious on your rationale for NOT doing Social and sales.  Socially Facilitated Selling – it’s where it’s at.  Move.

Some of my favorite case studies….
http://www.fastcompany.com/1665075/the-definitive-case-for-b2b-social-media-marketing
http://www.hubspot.com/marketingsherpa-top-7-B2B-Case-Studies-for-2010/
http://www.toprankblog.com/2010/05/case-study-email-crm-social/
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/it-pays-to-listen-avayas-250k-twitter-sale/
http://sonofgeektalk.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/social-media-in-pharma/
http://adamchristensen.com/2009/01/23/the-impact-of-corporate-culture-on-social-media-ibms-case-study/
http://businessesgrow.com/2010/06/20/a-fascinating-hardcore-b2b-social-media-success/
http://www.jeffbullas.com/2010/01/16/new-case-study-shows-social-media-is-the-major-contributor-to-lead-generation/

Useful related articles:
http://mashable.com/2010/06/24/b2b-sales-productivity/
http://mashable.com/2010/04/08/b2b-marketing-tools/
http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4815/How-to-Turn-a-Blog-into-a-B2B-Lead-Generation-Machine.aspx

Comments?  Lurking is Lame.  If nothing else, add a comment and drop a link back to your site….

Pictures from Starbucks at Union Square due shortly….

Post time: Two hour, 12 minutes (including pictures) – Worth the time?

As I cruised through the crowd at the PIMA 2010 MidYear Meeting looking for new faces to introduce myself to, I ran across a new guy who had just stepped into the conference.  Looking at his name tag, Craig had the “Prospective Member” white ribbon.  Cool.  A ‘younger’ guy, Craig had a nice way about him – smart, professional, confident, clean cut, articulate.  Great.  After finding out a little about how he came to know about PIMA, where he was from, and what line of business he was in, he asked me, “What to you do, Mike?  What is WebWisedom?”  “I’m helping PIMA members understand the Social Web and how to leverage it for marketing results.” Then he said a very significant thing, “Great!  Just the person I want to ask: What’s the hash-tag for the conference?”  WOW! WOW! WOW!  So mark the date: 07/15/10 6pm, opening session of the 2010 MidYear Meeting – the first time someone actually asked ME about Twitter!!!  And yes, he was a Gen-X’er.

Relative to the new two-meeting format, netnet, PIMA is doing its best to be a good steward of precious resources.  I’d be interested in Comments (below after the pictures), but the new “MidYear Meeting” we just experienced had a record attendance for a summer meeting.  So whether you are an Agency, a Company, or a Business Partner, there seemed to have been plenty of people to talk to and network with.  My observation – there seemed to be a good mix of decision-makers and influencers as well.  From the Business Partner perspective, I felt there was good buzz in the Exhibit Hall on both Friday and Saturday.  I loved the indoor/outdoor places to have private conversations as well.  Any other thoughts?  Please Comment below, start a thread on the PIMA Linkedin Group page, or drop an email.  Feedback is always welcome.

Lastly, I recorded some sound bites from the speakers at the conference (with their permission).  When I get a few spare minutes, I will relay the recording via podcasts… some compelling content to consider.

As normal, I took a few pictures at the event.  Wanted to share two here.  One is of the “Best of PIMA” winner – significant because it went to a Broker (Aon) for a Social Media Marketing campaign.  The other is of the Panel gathered to discuss the impacts of PPACA.  This was a phenomenal trio of industry wizards who spoke extremely clearly about the potential adverse consequences of PPACA, about how similar legislation has failed in MA, and about the very real possibilities for the ultimate destiny of the bill.  I’ve got some sound bites from that as well.

Cheers!  Comments welcome.  What did you think of the conference?

Have you heard this term yet?  If not, I’m honored to be the first to mention it, but I guarantee I won’t be the last.  I consider Crowdsourcing to be one of the most compelling aspects of Web2.0 and Enterprise Social Technologies.  (Btw, if any of this resonates, perhaps use the ShareThis button below and pass it along to your network).

What is Crowdsourcing?  Hear’s the deal… There’s 1.6 billion people on the Internet.  Each one has a talent or capability.  Crowdsourcing is putting all that intellectual property and talent at your disposal, if you know how to tap into it.  Crowdsourcing combines the concepts of bidding, rating, outsourcing, user-generated content, free-lancing, and viral sharing.  Crowdsourcing can be used to accomplish virtually any business function, but circa 2010 Crowdsourcing is especially useful for professional services.

Here’s a simple example: Logo development.  Today, if you need a logo for a new product, a campaign, a new business or unit, an event, what does your process look like?  Use the Comment section below to briefly describe your last logo development process.  In general, it likely took at least a couple weeks, generated 5 or so logo’s that were ‘decent’ but not brilliant, and cost several thousand dollars.

Crowdsourcing site - LOGOTOURNAMENT

Compare that with LOGOTOURNAMENT, a Crowdsourcing site just for logo development.  What you do is put up your specs and a ‘bounty’.  The specs describe what you’re looking for and the bounty is what you will pay the ‘winner’ of the Crowdsourcing ‘contest’.  Depending on how well you communicate and dollars involved, THE NEXT DAY you will start to see 10′s of logo’s, REALLY GOOD LOGO’S.  Pick one and pay the bounty, perhaps only in the 100′s of dollars.

So everyone’s always asking about the ROI of Social Tech.  Do the math on Crowdsourcing.  Again, you can use it for almost any business purpose, but especially professional services.  In general, I’m finding the following metrics: 1/10th the cost, 10 times as fast, and high quality.  And yes, the work is likely being done, today anyway, in another country like India, China, Russia, South Africa.  But you don’t pay unless you are satisfied, the ‘vendors’ are rated so there is accountability, and oh yeah, there’s no ‘politics’.  :-) Doesn’t that sound good?  I’ve heard it said, and I’m starting to believe it, that Crowdsourcing will dwarf Outsourcing.

If you need help with Crowdsourcing, let me know.  Meantime, here are a few resources.  And remember my first point: Crowdsourcing is a part of Social Tech that EVERYONE can do.  No need to be held back by legal and compliance departments, government regulators, etc.

My take: Enterprises are missing SO MUCH opportunity because they don’t want to publish.  That’s fine, but what about research, inbound flow of information, Crowdsourcing, and so much else?  Don’t throw Social out because of a few barriers.

How Much Is a Facebook Fan Really Worth?

“A company’s fans spend more, are more likely to be loyal and will recommend the brand to their friends, according to the firm’s research.”

Doesn’t this say that creating Fans is the first step toward referrals, traffic, e-word of mouth, etc.?  Seems like a no-brainer to me.  So you’re in insurance and you don’t think anyone will be a “Fan” of insurance?  How would you like to be in Batteries???  Take a look at what Rayovac is doing on Facebook – they’ve got 17,000 fans!  My guess is they’re probably making money with this.

25 Digital Media Questions Marketers Need to Answer

Really good article that validates a lot of my content.

Social Tech and the C-suite – “Our case studies outlined below show that having your CEO visible on social media can bring tangible results to your bottom line.”  I had this very conversation yesterday with a CEO.  (Yes, I sent this article).  If you are a C-Suite Exec and this is the first you saw this, now you know.  And this is why my presentation in KeynoteTM on Enterprise Social Technologies is SO appropriate for an intimate session with Executives.  [I always appreciate referrals (click ShareThis below and pass it along).]

From control to conversation: Corporations and social media

I’m helping a company re-engineer their corporate Web properties to adapt to Web 2.0 and Social Tech.  The Web property is the “Destination”.  The Social Tech architecture fosters the “Conversation”.  Your constituents want CONVERSATION. Think of it this way – Lecture or Lab? Would you rather sit through a Lecture from a didactic, seemingly out of touch prof, droning about sanitized, philosophical concepts?  Or would you prefer a Lab with a teacher that you can ask questions of, with fellow students you can share and dialog with, and with interactive ‘stuff’ you can learn from?  Do you see the difference between a static Web 1.0 site and a dynamic Web2.0 Conversation?

Are You Really Committed to Social Media?

Read the 2nd para if you read nothing else.

AGAIN – ALL FROM TWITTER! USEFUL???

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Favorite thing from the last week?  Of course Soccer and the World Cup.  Unfortunately, the U.S. Men’s National Team lost ignominiously to Ghana in the next game (seriously, those were the best defenders we have in our entire country?!?!? Ridiculous ‘system’ we have…) But BEFORE THAT, we has a moment of tremendous glory that I will forever treasure.  I hope these links stay active for a long time, but here are my two favorites following Donovan’s stoppage-time goal.

Really love the Speed Matches: USA Vs. Algeria ESPN video – extremely exciting!

And then this companion link – the reaction video from a bar in Seattle, fans who had suffered through 90 minutes of frustration, and then watched the game-winner. Just phenomenal! Watch especially the guy on the right side of the video in the first 5 seconds.  I laughed until I cried when I first saw this.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid73315185001?bctid=101507741001

Any thoughts???

(Btw, this post took an hour to create.)

Favorite recent picture… see more here.

I’m almost 50.  My father went “gone to glory” when he was 54….

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Richard Alan “Dick” Wise

Your time was short, yet you made the most of it.

- You did not have much money, yet lived a rich life.

You were 6’9″, yet you made yourself ‘small’ for the comfort of others.

- You lived in trying times, yet always showed optimism and a smile.

You lived in-land, yet spoke often of sailing the oceans.

- You never owned a vintage car, yet knew them all by sight.

You lived in a humble log home, yet built fantastic ones for others.

- You dreamed great dreams, yet worked to help others achieve theirs.

You guided me, disciplined me, and encouraged me.

- Yet you smiled and said at the last, “No Mike.  I’ll take care of you.”

You did, yet you did.

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A favorite picture from the log cabin days in Jaffrey, NH.