The Other Social Media Sites to Know About to Reach a Younger Audience

15 Nov The Other Social Media Sites to Know About to Reach a Younger Audience

For insurance professionals looking to leverage social media for networking and improving their lead generation strategy, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are the most prominent and popular; however, they’re not the only social media options. While other social platforms may not have quite as many users, they may still be worth checking out, especially if you’re interested in connecting with a specific audience or niche group.

Early adopters of other social media sites are often millennials or younger generations, which allows you the opportunity to connect with a different audience that is often phone and voicemail adverse. And this is one generation you don’t want to overlook. In 2014, TIME Magazine predicted that millennials will have more buying power than any other generation by 2017. While many millennials may be fickle on how they spend their money, one thing they are willing to buy is insurance products to protect their belongings, according to the 2016 Aflac WorkForces Report.

Here are three other social media platforms to keep on your radar and connect with younger potential consumers:

• Instagram – The photo sharing platform boasts 400 million monthly users who upload 60 million photos every single day generating 1.6 billion likes daily, according to data from SproutSocial. If you’re trying to reach out to younger adults, Instagram is a good place to start since more than half of its users are between the ages of 18 and 29.
  
  Earlier this year, LifeHealthPRO declared that “Instagram is the new Twitter for insurance agents.” Why? Because it’s the best platform for native content.To start using Instagram as part of your social media plan, make sure your images are sharp, clear and relevant. Don’t post photos that are blurry, grainy or otherwise not of good quality. Also, focus on quality over quantity. It’s better to post less often, but with higher-quality photos instead of posting every day with low-quality images. Since Instagram is now owned by Facebook, it’s really easy to connect the two accounts and cross-pollinate. For other ideas on how to best utilize Instagram, download our white paper “The Business of Promoting Yourself Online.

• Pinterest – Pinterest may not seem like an obvious choice for business professionals, but don’t let all the DIY projects and recipes fool you; there’s a lot of potential on the platform, according to demographic data from SproutSocial. Like Instagram, Pinterest tends to draw a younger crowd with 62 percent of adults ages 18 to 49 using the platform; however, don’t discount the 27 percent of adults 50 to 64 and the 17 percent over the age of 65 who also use Pinterest.
  
  Additionally, 42 percent of all online women are on Pinterest. Perhaps even more interesting are Pinterest user locations with 25 percent living in urban areas, 29 percent in suburban areas, and 30 percent living in rural areas. And most have money to spend with 30 percent of Pinterest users making between $50,000 and $74,999 and another 34 percent of Pinterest users making more than $75,000 a year. While insurance information isn’t always the most visual or interesting, you can still capitalize on Pinterest by creating relevant, original “pin-able” content that users will want to share and reference later, like a checklist, a tip or trick related to their life events (buying a car or home, getting married, etc.), or visually interesting content related to your services (i.e. pinning photos of homes and having them link directly to your home insurance services).

• Periscope – Periscope was founded in 2014 and is one of the original social live streaming apps. Using Periscope, you can transmit live video to other Periscope followers who have the option to interact with you through comments and questions. While broadcasting, those comments will populate on your screen making it easy to interact.
  
  If your clients tend to skew a little younger or they’re more digital savvy, then it may be a good idea to add Periscope to your social media strategy here and there – such as doing a live Q&A, going live from an event, or highlighting new products and services live. You’ll want to make sure to advertise the live event in advance on your other social accounts. Also, since Periscope is owned by Twitter, you can send a tweet once you go live to leverage those followers. Videos are only available for 24 hours, but they can be saved and uploaded to YouTube.

While these three platforms are great for supplementing your social media strategy, there are many other options that might be of interest. Snapchat is great for sharing behind-the-scenes photos and videos in real-time and Vine is an option if you’re interested in sharing short and sweet videos via social (they’re capped at six seconds).

Social media is changing the ways in which we communicate and as other platforms continue to emerge, it will be imperative that agents continue to learn and adopt new practices into their social media strategy to reach specific or niche audiences, such as millennials.