The Top Mistakes That Prevent Social Media From Driving Sales

Why aren’t you seeing the content from your social media accounts translate into growth? Let’s face a hard truth and steal a Star Wars line - it’s because your socials, “are not the droids you’re looking for.” Here are the mistakes you are likely making:

1. Reposting Generic Carrier Content.
It’s great that carriers are providing marketing content to agents. What’s not great is that their hundreds or even thousands of agents have access to the same content. How does that show the value of your agency? You may be thinking, “My clients don’t follow other agencies, so they’re just seeing that content from us.” That may be true, but they also are associating the content with the carrier, and not with your agency.

2. Posting Personal Content That Doesn’t Reinforce Your Brand/Value.
It’s great that you’re highlighting your staff with posts about their interests and time with your agency. But are you also thinking about how to reinforce the ways those staff members help clients? Let’s drop a couple of examples. “Stacy has been with our agency 9 years and loves her children and her cats.” Nothing wrong with that, but how about this instead, “Stacy has been with our agency 9 years and has helped over 200 clients improve their coverage and protect their businesses. She loves learning about the hospitality risks she helps cover.”

3. Not Focusing Enough on Conversational Writing.
Let’s say you’re considering buying new polos with your agency logo on them. Do you want to read a technical article about the fibers in the polo? Then why are you posting about the underwriting process on inland marine coverage? Approach your content from a client perspective. They want to see why these coverages matter. Give them examples, discuss how you’ve helped other clients, show how other claims situations have benefited from your expertise - show real world scenarios that people can understand.

4. Not Repurposing Your Best Content.
Were you on a podcast? Did you have a post that had a lot of engagement? Why aren’t you building off of that? Reformat it for other platforms. Post screenshots of tweets on Instagram, add stories of video cuts on Facebook, pull quotes from the original to post on Twitter - then link all these to the full form content on your site.

5. No Call to Action.
What do you want your social followers to do? Are you asking them to do it? Why the hell not? Give them a link to subscribe, a link to set a consultation, a link to learn more - something that captures more data. Conversion is key, but you have to track it to see it.

You have to have intention with your social media. What do you want out of it, and what do your clients and prospects want out of it. There is a Venn Diagram where these goals overlap. Find it and you’ll achieve social media success.

Let us help you find that “sweet spot.” Contact Daniel Smith at dsmith@marketretrievers.com or call 423.503.0388 for more info.