Life insurers train agents for social media use

Life insurance companies are looking at how to enable agents to effectively use social media for product promotion.

Amit Roy, chief distribution officer, Aegon Religare Life Insurance, said they were training agents in this regard, such as how to use Facebook, and asked them to share their experience.

“The exercise will have a ripple effect; it will also lead to better product branding. In their Facebook pages, they have innovative taglines for new products launched by the company, so that they can attract attention of their “friends” on the site,” he said.

Social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter are already being extensively used by insurance companies, life and non-life. The brand promotion here includes contests with prizes, beside quizzes to promote awareness.

Anisha Motwani, chief marketing and digital officer at Max Life Insurance, said they already had a list of Do’s and Don’ts for social media in the business. She said there was a lot of potential in social media training for agents.

By tagging friends who can be prospective customers, Roy said they’d been able to have a more meaningful discussion, on social media. “We have been able to coach and motivate agents by making use of this medium in a better manner,” he said. The sector could also use information from social media, said insurers, to assess customer habits and then provide a better product to suit the need. However, this is still nascent.

“We are working on using social media to help agents engage better with regular and prospective customers.  Using analytics, we can also ascertain at what lifestyle our customers are,” said Motwani.