Social media selling - How and where to start?

A lot of Agents asked me about using social media for sales and whether it works. I am happy to see that a few of them are embarking on this journey.

I recently heard an impressive success story in Penang of a young 20 something-yr old who did decent business in month 1 of his joining us. Business good enough to qualify for one of our conventions as well. But, more importantly 100% of it was through Facebook!

At AXA Affin Life, we also supply leads to our EYE Agents (Young Agent Entrepreneurs programme) to grow in their formative years and have seen decent conversion rates on our leads. These are by and large cold leads with no particular affinity (i.e. partnerships)

Before embarking on social media selling, define the purpose clearly. These 3 questions are critical and one should spend time to answer them:

1. Why do you want to put your business on social media? - Awareness, new sales, customer service, etc.

2. Are my customer segments the ones who will use social media for sales and service of insurance products?

3. Do I have the DNA to be on social media? - If not, do I have the resilience to explore now and constantly look at ways at staying relevant.

Once you have answered those broad questions, your approach may vary and I am happy to have more detailed conversations with you (including the technical ones). But, here are 6 simple rules for those who are keen to start off, based on my observations.

1. Content is king!

In social media, content is king. And content doesnt mean curating any content from anywhere and cluttering your profile. Pick content that you and your readers relate to. Constantly put them out there and seek feedback. For e.g. 2 contents a day covering 2 types of topics (i.e. financial planning, economy, business, etc.)

2. Respond to people

Do not post a content and forget it there. Be active and respond to every query or comment within a set time frame. A highly efficient response and response time are equally important and is central to your success

3. Show yourself

Do not hide behind actors and cartoons. Put yourself out there!

4. Do not brow-beat your brand all the time - it can be nauseating

It is important for blogs, Facebook, Insta and so on used for business development purposes to not end up being a constant self promotion zone. People will see no value in it on a regular basis and this will not help readership and engagement

5. Work out your own style and avoid the avoidable!

Do not post irrelevant stuff (i.e. about a movie for instance) and stay away from politics, religion, etc.

Follow your style as new age media gives us that freedom. We do not need to follow one writing or content style.

Share your latest posts on multiple platforms and ask people to do the same. This will help build up your readership.

6. Offline has to meet online

In our industry, it is important to have both styles of engagement. For e.g. once a while may be organise a coffee session on some topic that excited a group of people or that someone in your platform. This will build affinity

The best way to know is by trying it out. Be ready to fail as there are 1000's and millions of social media promoters out there. To be able to seen amongst that, requires a lot of resilience and constant pursuit of differentiation.