Social media has opened doors for insurance companies and their agents to share industry-related content and engage with their community on a much more personal level.

However, the extent to which insurers are adapting to and embracing social media seems to be increasing at a gradual pace on account of industry regulations.

Customers look to their friends and trusted networks for advice on which products and services they should go with, and insurance shoppers are no different. They read online reviews of insurance companies and products, pose questions to their social networks, as well as reach out to insurers directly, looking for the right fit for the right price.

Here are some ways insurers can capitalize on social media:

1. Listen to your community

Monitoring online feedback and conversations about the industry in general is one of the most lucrative opportunities to be gained from social media. The experiences and expectations revealed by customers using social media is a powerful resource for insurance companies seeking to learn more about their customers and join the social conversation.

2.  Share tips and lower risk

Many vehicle insurance companies are capitalizing on social media by sharing educational content, such as safety tips, with their community through Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and blogs to help lower their customers’ risk and establish their presence as a credible and helpful insurance brand. For example, tweeting about an approaching storm and advising customers to protect their cars and other insured valuables is helpful and can help to reduce claims.

3. Put your brand front of mind

Building off of the above points, a credible and active social media presence not only builds trust with customers, but it puts your brand front of mind. Create awareness and buzz around your brand and build trust by actively engaging with your community and sharing valuable content. Your customers will thank you for it.

What tips do you have for insurance companies looking to embark on their social media journey? What other ways can insurers capitalize on social media? For more on how social media can work for your financial services company, download our ebook, How to Create a Social Media Strategy for the Financial Services Industry.

Video-sharing application Viddy has seen a sharp rise in social media mentions in recent weeks. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the L.A.-based app has been downloaded by 26 million people already, and is adding about a million users per day.

Since the launch of the Viddy Facebook Timeline app, many are now speculating that the service may be the next big thing in social media.

Pop Star Justin Bieber has helped Viddy become a rising topic of social media conversation over the past month. Bieber, with over 27,000 followers on the service already, recently launched his first video, giving Viddy a huge surge in social media mentions.

Viddy: The Trends

Viddy’s arrival on Facebook Timeline causes a small jump in social conversations in February, hitting its peak on Feb 16. A Conversation Cloud displays the word “follow” very prominently as the influx of Facebook users ask friends to follow their Viddy exploits.

The next small spike surrounding Viddy occurs on April 30 as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg signs up for the application and shares a video of his dog, Beast.

While Zuckerberg and his company’s Timeline roll out have helped Viddy gain a massive surge in users, it is Bieber who has brought the application’s name into the social media conversation in a big way.

May 10 sees a huge spike in Viddy conversation on the strength of Bieber and his legion of fans.

trying to figure out what my first viddy is gonna be

— Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) May 10, 2012

Mashable launches a “How to get started with Viddy” post that same day which also sees a good amount of circulation.

How to Get Started With Viddy on.mash.to/KcBaXN

— Pete Cashmore (@mashable) May 10, 2012

Tuesday of this week saw Viddy’s highest spike so far hitting a peak of once 41,000 mentions, again due to activity from Bieber.

photoshoot was….well u will see. #viddy #abouttogoIN

— Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) May 15, 2012

With incredible exposure from one of social media’s most prominent celebrity users, and a full integration with the reigning king of social networks, Viddy seems poised to conquer the video sharing world.  More posts are emerging every day (including this one) surrounding the rising app, and it will be interesting to see if the rise in social conversations around Viddy continue outside of Bieber and his army of retweeters.

Have you registered a Viddy account yet? Have you been sharing your creations with your Facebook audience?  Tell us about it in the comments. And be sure to check out previous posts from Radian6  for great tips on integrating video into YOUR social media strategy.

We just published The Guide to Social Media Monitoring. Here’s Chapter 3.

Why?

Your mother used to remind you that you have two ears and one mouth for a reason. Being a good social media listener will help you immensely in a crisis, allowing you to respond quickly to the right people with the right information in the right way.

A good social media listening program can preserve — and even improve — your brand’s reputation in a crisis.

How?

Discussions happening in social media can serve as an early warning system before an issue erupts. By using advanced tools you can observe new words popping up more frequently about your brands.

If you were an cell phone carrier, for example, the sudden appearance of the word “cancellation” along with “bad” and “customer service” should send you digging for more detail.

Keep an eye on negative mentions. If you suddenly see a huge increase in people badmouthing your brand, you have a crisis on your hands.

Listen Before the Crisis

Emergencies are no time to develop basic listening skills. Start now. If your brand earns the reputation of being a good listener that takes care of its customers, you’ll have a backup reservoir of trust to tap into when the crisis hits.

Beforehand, look for channels to use for crisis outreach. Where does your community hang out: Twitter, Facebook, or industry forums? Also identify and build relationships with key influencers who can amplify your response.

Social media can alert you to potential issues before they escalate. For example, community news sites around your facilities could help you prepare for the windstorm that could knock out a server farm. You’d be able to warn your customers of impending downtime.

Monitoring social media can shut down many crises before they get off the ground. You can deal promptly with an upset customer or rogue employee before the issue gets posted on The Consumerist.

Listen During the Crisis

During a crisis, monitor relevant conversations. What kind of volume and sentiment are you dealing with? Which people and which sites are critical of your brand? Knowing about the 5,000 angry posts on your Facebook wall will help you respond quickly and sensitively.

Monitoring social media will help you see the crisis from your customers’ perspective, shaping your language and adjusting your priorities.

Listen After the Crisis

Don’t stop listening just because the latest crisis has passed. You need to be aware of unresolved issues and lingering frustrations that need to be fixed. Don’t just passively listen: ask.

Monitor social media for sentiment around your brand, comparing levels before, during and after the crisis. Is your stock beginning to rise again? If not, why not?

Because attentive listening throughout a crisis shows you care about protecting your customers as much as protecting yourself, it can turn a crisis into a bonding experience with your community.

Case Study: Frontier Airlines

Last July 13, a massive hailstorm hit Denver, taking 22 of Frontier Airline’s planes out of commission. Frustrated customers idled in long lines at Frontier counters and even longer wait times on their toll-free reservation lines.

Marco Toscano, Senior Manager of Social Media, saw this as the perfect chance for his department to assist the reservations group by providing information and flight re-accommodations.

The team tracked down mentions of Frontier across the social web and reached out to re-book flights, spread updates, and let their customers know they were there to help.

“Customers on Twitter were so surprised at how easy we were making it to re-book that they were reaching out and asking for us to send them email confirmations because they couldn’t believe it could be done so quickly,” explains Toscano.

The first few days following the storm were challenging but soon the team at Frontier saw an increase in the “thank you” tweets, and was thrilled to see how grateful people were to be updated about flight number changes, delays and cancellations.

One of the 4,000 thankful customers they helped tweeted, “Another reason to fly @flyfrontier their @FrontierCare booked me a new ticket in 10 min rather than the insane line at airport. Awesome!”

(Read the full case study.)

In our next post, we’ll explain how to use social media monitoring to generate leads. Meanwhile, go ahead and download The Guide to Social Media Monitoring.

We just published The Guide to Social Media Monitoring. Here’s Chapter 2.

Why?

Social media has tipped the balance of power from the brand to the customer. Nobody enjoys listening to hold music for 45 minutes. Customers will broadcast their complaints on Facebook or Twitter, and expect you to come find them.

By listening carefully to your customers and community, you can easily catch customer service issues as they emerge, even on fast-moving sites like Twitter.

Communities see responsiveness from companies, and those companies earn their trust. Your customers aren’t asking you to be perfect, but they’re asking you to pay attention.

How?

Searching for terms around your brands and products, as described in Chapter 1, will turn up most customer service issues.

Your first challenge is to determine whether the author of a post is a customer. If you sell directly to consumers, you’ll have to figure this out from the context of the post or by asking directly.

B2B companies track their customers much more closely with CRM systems. The first time a person pops up, figure out their employer by viewing their social profiles. This might take a little sleuthing, following links from Twitter to About.me to LinkedIn.

Crosscheck the name and location in Salesforce (or whatever CRM system you’re using.) Your CRM data will give you more context on ongoing customer service issues and let you know which Account Manager in your organization is responsible for this customer.

Pay attention to whether your mentions increase as folks talk about your stellar customer service practices, and see if your ratio of positive sentiment increases as your outreach and resolution of customer service issues in social media takes hold.

Case Study: TD Bank

TD Bank understands that customers place a great deal of trust in their bank and they expect it to be as accessible, helpful and responsive to their needs as possible. To TD that means being there for customers where they feel most comfortable, whether it’s in the branch, on the phone or on social media channels.

Using social media, the bank has been able to identify and help with thousands of customer inquiries on a range of topics, from service issues to banking hours. For example, during Hurricane Irene, which shut down much of the east coast for several days, TD was able to update affected customers with information about branch and ATM availability.

“People are very candid on social media, and it gives us the chance to get feedback on our branch hours and services or help a customer resolve an issue. We find our customers are happy to know that we are ˜listening and that we are here to help,” explains Wendy Arnott, VP of Social Media and Digital Communication. “Social media gives TD the power to be where our customers are and for us there is nowhere else we would rather be.”

(Read the full case study.)

In our next post, we’ll explain how to use social media monitoring to handle your next crisis. Meanwhile, go ahead and download The Guide to Social Media Monitoring.

Our own @madleeeen toured Montreal recently and stayed at a charming Bed & Breakfast. She loved the curb appeal of Couette et Chocolat so much, she shared this pic with us.

Dear Unnamed Travel Brand,

Thanks to the public nature of Twitter, I overheard your recent conversation about feeling overwhelmed and unnoticed in the giant sea of social media that your competitors have sailed successfully for some time.

After having a look around your social channels, I could see how you’ve been washed away by the wake of those early-adopting companies.

Here are four tips for getting noticed.

Be Attractive

Imagine your social networks as the lobby of your hotel or the lounge for your airline. You want your guests, customers and passengers to not only feel comfortable when they choose you, but to also be impressed with how you attended to the details for their sake. These same people will judge you just as quickly based on how impressive your online image is.

Pay attention to detail in everything from the avatars you select to the background of your Twitter profile to the events on your Facebook timeline. More and more, research is showing that people are interested in visuals, so your pictures and videos should be breathtaking, like this awesome depiction of Alberta by Travel Alberta. What are your examples of breathtaking tourism video?

Be Chatty

Quiet kids on a playground typically get chosen last for dodgeball. Many of them may be the best at the game, but because they’re less noticeable, they often get picked only when there are fewer bold and outgoing kids jumping up and down for attention out of the way.

Have you ever exclaimed: “Gosh, that silent cruise line really got my attention” ? I didn’t think so. Talk it up with your community online. In social media, strong and silent don’t partner well. Ask questions, conduct polls, and jump on board with popular memes and hashtags.

Be Thrilling

Being conversational is not enough. Ensure what you’re talking about is interesting. Mix up your messaging while staying true to your brand. Be thoughtful and thought-provoking. Use the language of your audience and wow them by delivering what’s fresh and relevant to them. Don’t know how to figure that out? Spend a bit of time listening before you engage.

Not only is the Virgin America Twitter feed evidence of much two-way banter, it’s witty and entertaining! With contests, quirky photos and general information all mixed with good old-fashioned engaging, I actually make it a point to check out their Twitter feed often. Can your followers say the same about you?

Be Findable

You can look pretty and tell a dynamic story, but if the spotlight is not turned on and the microphone plugged in, it’s all for naught. In my day-to-day, I look at a lot of travel brands online.. Far too often I am unable to find even the brands that I felt were popular. Sometimes I encounter a number of abandoned Twitter handles, or even just too many aliases to make clear sense of clutter the goal of finding you.

Search for yourself the way other people talk about you. Ask others to do the same for you, and then compare notes. Was it easy? Make sure you’ll be found.

While this advice may be old school to some, there are many travel brands (and organizations of all types, really) who are hard to find, and even harder to look at once they’ve been found. Don’t be discouraged about budgets and the fancy creative teams your bigger competitors may have. Use the resources you have — including the opinions of colleagues and friends — to dress up your social media presence and really be ready to greet your customers with your best foot forward.

For more helpful advice on how to make your brand more personal and appealing, have a look at this ebook on building stronger customer relations.