Buzz Builder

Social Media Case Study: How Rebecca Fairbanks Is Building Her Farmers Insurance Agency in Oregon with Twitter and Facebook

When Rebecca Fairbanks opened a Farmers Insurance agency in Oregon last year, she decided that social media would be a great way to build her local reputation and kick start her new business. Prior to starting her business, she had worked for an insurance agency in Kansas City for ten years.

I learned about Rebecca six months ago when her name appeared in my “Who To Follow” recommendations on my Twitter profile page. Since becoming one of her followers, I’ve been intrigued with how she uses Twitter and Facebook because I’ve met few professionals who devote as much attention to social media as she does. Today, I chatted with Rebecca about the lessons she has learned from her online experience.

Rebecca decided to focus on social media because she was convinced that it was important to her prospects. For the first six months, her online activities generated conversations but not sales: “It took about six months to start seeing Twitter and Facebook followers become clients. But, once my online community got to know me, the requests for insurance information and quotes just started coming in. Now, social media is driving a significant percentage of my business.”

Today, Rebecca has nearly 1,300 followers on Twitter and 264 Facebook “likes,” both numbers far exceed what most large multi-location insurance agencies have. She’s more active on Twitter than Facebook because she believes that it’s better at reaching the middle class, low risk professionals who she targets.

Rebecca uses Twitter for making connections. “Most of my Tweets aren’t about insurance because that alone would be boring.” Instead, Rebecca provides her followers with useful and fun links to local news stories, restaurant recommendations, and events. Every once in awhile, she’ll mention an interesting insurance fact, story, or statistic but she doesn’t push products via Twitter. She believes that most Twitter users who become clients do so because she comes across as knowledgeable and involved in the community. Later, as she communicates with her followers via Twitter’s direct message system or email, some will request to meet with her or ask for insurance information and quotes.

Because Rebecca believes that “websites are less relevant in a world that social media dominates,”  her Twitter profile links to her Facebook wall not her website. “People can’t connect to you on a website in the same personal way that they can via social media. That’s why I focus on driving traffic to my social media sites.”

Rebecca doesn’t spend as much time on Facebook as she does on Twitter because it doesn’t generate as many leads. But, she is careful about differentiating her Facebook and Twitter content. “I don’t like going to a company’s Facebook wall to just see a lot of automated posts coming in from Twitter. Facebook content should be unique. With automatic feeds, people don’t develop the feeling of connection that is necessary for building trust.”

To conclude, I asked Rebecca whether she thought other service professionals should be using social media, her answer was emphatic: “Of course!  For instance, just imagine all the great tips that a lawyer or CPA could share via social media and how that would build their credibility and connections. I’m sure that social media would offer them tremendous opportunities for business growth just as it has for me.”

My Top Three Takeaways from the National Speakers Association's (NSA) Influence '11 Conference in Anaheim

My head is still buzzing from what I learned at the National Speakers Association's (NSA) Influence '11 Conference in Anaheim, California from July 29 to August 3, 2011. This was third time I attended NSA's main conference, and I enjoyed this event far more than any other. 

Since I became an NSA member six years ago, the speaking industry has changed dramatically. Before the Great Recession, there were many speakers doing quite well giving the typical motivational talks that generations before had heard. However, since the economic downturn began in 2008, companies and associations that book speakers are seeking more than motivation. They want speakers who provide audiences with inspiration and practical tools to make positive personal and business improvements in a challenging environment. Since I'm a "high content speaker," I feel fortunate that the speaking business is moving into areas in which I'm naturally the strongest.

After attending any conference, my immediate goal is to put three ideas I learned into practice. Once I've done this initial implementation, I move on to three more ideas followed by another three. With the pages of notes that I collected, I'm sure that I'll move through the implemention of multiple rounds of ideas which I plan on sharing in future posts.

The Most Impactful Thing a Speaker Can Do Is to Be Silent

Ken Dychtwald, Ph.D., a psychologist, gerontologist, documentary filmmaker, entrepreneur and best-selling author of sixteen books on aging-related issues, delivered a mesmerizing 90 minute keynote presentation on How The Age Wave is Transforming Our Lives, Our World and Our Profession. His content was great but what I'll remember most is what he didn't say. When he took his first five second pause to let us reflect on a point that he made, I thought he had lost track of his thoughts because I've never seen a speaker be quiet for such an extended period. Yet, when he did this another three or four times during the presentation, it was quite clear that his pauses were intended to give us valuable time to absorb particularly important points. 

Social Media Is About Chatting and Engaging not Broadcasting and Selling

When I heard Scott Stratten, a social media guru and the author of Unmarketing, describe how too many marketers use Twitter as a platform to talk at customers rather than engage them in conversation, I thought to myself "guilty as charged." He shared that he has tweeted over 77,000 times and 78% of those were replies to his now almost 100,000 followers. Since Twitter has been such an effective tool for the growth of Scott's speaking career, I'm commited to using my Twitter page as an engagement vehicle. Since the conference, I've noticed a bump in my followers as I've started to converse with them and share their wisdom through retweets.

Great Speech Coaching Is Rare But It Can Do Wonders

In my relatively short time in NSA, I've seen too many mediocre speakers selling their services as speaking coaches. Their students wind up worse than they started. Even excellent speakers offering coaching to speaker wannabes can be more of hindrance than a help since many try to get their students to be like them on the platform. This never works because audiences have a sixth sense about speakers who are not true to themselves and speech coaching can often casue a new speaker to appear artificial.

One of the highlights of the conference was a competition of six rising speaking stars selected from NSA chapters around the country. In the first round, each speaker had three minutes to do part of a keynote presentation. Then, three judges, Randy Gage, Roxanne Emmerich, and Glenna Salsbury provided the speakers with on-the-spot evaluations before casting their votes. After the first couple of speakers presented, I could guess what tips that Randy and Roxanne were going to make. While their advice was quite sound, it wasn't nearly as transformative as Glenna's. I was amazed at how she was able to take each speaker's exact words and recast them in such a way to make them more impactful. Also, her advice regarding posture, facial expressions, and mannerisms was tailored to the strengths of each individual speaker rather than trying to turn people into her vision of the ideal speaker.

If you attended the NSA Influence '11 Conference, please share you biggest takeaways or include a link to where you posted them in the comments section below.

Special thanks to Ian Griffin who writes the extremely useful Professionally Speaking blog for an excellent post on some of his valuable takeways from the NSA Influence '11 Conference which inspired this blog entry.