Insurers are like a lot of businesses in this crazy, information-rich world of the 21
st century. They are competing for a spot in the hearts and minds of customers and potential customers.
The competition is intense, as you can see from the blog entry of Heather Dougherty, director of research for Hitwise, on which Web sites are generating the most page views. Facebook is far and away the leader, generating nearly 25 percent of all page views.
How big of a margin is that? Only YouTube (6.4 percent) and Google (5.3 percent) have more than one percent of page views. The other members of the top five, Yahoo and Bing, like Google, are search engines, but they each have a long way to go to catch up with Google.
Facebook’s growth has been nothing but stunning. A year ago, Facebook made up 16 percent of page views, which was well ahead of Google (No. 2 a year ago) and YouTube. But since then Facebook has added another nine percent to its market share. I’m searching for a word even better than stunning.
What does this have to do with insurance? To me it says if you want to find more policyholders you better establish a presence on Facebook and if you want to help your independent agency force you better help them develop a strategy for social media as well.
You can’t create a Facebook page and expect to increase your market share based simply on your presence, but you can’t afford not to be seen as a company that wants to do business with people that have their own concept of where and when to shop.
Facebook is a juggernaut in 2010 and will likely be in 2011 as well. Something will come along and knock the site off its perch, no doubt, but until that happens, no matter what business you are in, you need to start looking for some more friends.