The broker network

A growing number of brokerage firms are waking up to the potential of social media, says James de Mellow

Twitter is never far away from the headlines. The social media phenomenon is in the news almost every day, whether it’s a celebrity speaking out of turn or its use in mass protests, such as recent events in Egypt.
But away from the controversies and headlines, Twitter and other forms of social media can be a valuable business tool if used properly – and the insurance industry is no exception. Increasing numbers of brokers around the UK are finding that there’s a role for Twitter as part of their wider communications strategy.
“Twitter allows me to promote the business and it is relatively inexpensive as a commercial tool,” says Neil Grimshaw, Director at Ravenhall Risk Solutions, a multi-account user. “You’ve got to have an objective with social media,” he continues. “My personal account is for talking to people and following those who entertain me. The Ravenhall account, however, is a marketing tool. It’s got to be informative and provide something that other people want to read.”
Lynn Richards-Cole, Associate Director: Group Business Development at Perkins Slade in Birmingham, has been tweeting since Christmas 2009, when it started as a bit of an experiment. “I began to post messages and asked myself what I wanted to achieve,” she says. “As I got into it, I posted mainly business tweets, with a little personal stuff thrown in.”
Convincing Perkins Slade of Twitter’s commercial value, Lynn says, was tough at first. “When I pitched the use of Twitter in January last year, the business wanted hard evidence of how it works. We’ve already got one small piece of business directly from someone seeing us on Twitter, so the potential’s there.”

Twitter tactics
An organisation that has fully integrated Twitter into its communication strategy is the British Insurance Brokers Association (BIBA). Their Twitter feed, @BIBAbroker, has more than 550 followers. “We launched last January after it was clear that Twitter was becoming of interest to brokers,” says Leighann Burtrand, Head of Communications at BIBA. Their follower number received a big boost after last May’s annual BIBA conference and has grown steadily since. BIBA also launched a YouTube channel last October.
“Brokers like to communicate in a number of ways,” Leighann says, “and I’m a firm believer in using Twitter as part of your wider communications strategy and not focusing excessively on any one thing.”
Neil agrees: “What I’m trying to do is tie all our media together,” he says. “We want our messages to be strengthened by using social media, but not to be confined to it.” He also thinks that using the platform to merely try to drive traffic to the company website is a mistake, a sentiment that Lynn shares. “You shouldn’t jump in and just post links to begin with,”she says. “If it’s just a sales tool, people will switch off from you.”
One of the things tweeters love about the platform is its direct nature. “It’s live, and with other advertising there’s no feedback,” Neil says. “On Twitter, if someone comes back to you with a comment or question, you can respond right away.” Leighann discovered how Twitter could be used for rapid communication when a BIBA delegation went to Westminster to meet Conservative MP Greg Hands. “When we arrived, we found that he’d cancelled and sent an aide instead,” she says. “The meeting went well and, by the time the BIBA team had got back to the office, he had tweeted us his apologies!”
Twitter might be speedy, but online communication should not always be so frenetic. “BIBA also has a group on LinkedIn, and the discussion there tends towards longer, more thought-out debates,” Leighann says.
For those struggling to make sense of the new technology, BIBA has developed legal guidance notes for brokers who use Twitter, as well as staff protocol guides and disclaimers for LinkedIn groups. “We realised that we needed to produce some material to help our members,” Leighann says. “There will also be a seminar on using social media at the annual BIBA conference in May.”
Lynn has already discovered that Twitter is multi-faceted and, ultimately, is what the individual makes of it. “It can be used for market research or engaging with other people’s conversations,” she says. “I also use it to follow the insurance press. Now, when I have my breakfast, I don’t read the newspaper – I look at journalists’ tweets. Sometimes I wish Twitter had come about earlier!”