2 Seconds to Make an Impact: Use Social Media Effectively and Compliantly

[A note for our agencies – feel free to use these articles in your communications with your agents.  Please include any disclosures that appear with the article.]

Social media is not just for sharing pictures of food or pets – when done properly, it can also be a powerful marketing tool to promote your business as a life insurance agent.  This phenomenon is here to stay, so it might be time to sign yourself up and learn how to use it effectively and compliantly.

The audience you have the potential to reach on social media platforms is massive. According to Sprout Social (1), in 2023, there were 4.89 billion social media users. The average time users spent on social media was 151 minutes per day. That is a huge opportunity to reach so many people. Let us break down those numbers into platforms and demographics so you know where to best spend your time:

• Facebook has 3 billion monthly active users, 2 billion of them access the platform daily (2)
  • 70% of American adults use Facebook and the average American spends 33 minutes per day on Facebook. (1)
• Instagram has 2 billion monthly active users (1)
  • Largest demographic is 18-24 (30.8%) and overall time spent per day is 30.1 minutes (1)
• LinkedIn has 930 million members, 200 million in the US. (1)
  • Largest demographic is 30-39 (31%) (1)
  • LinkedIn self-reports that they are the top-rated social network for lead generation.

Effective Social Media Marketing

How do you get in front of your target market and keep them from scrolling to the next post? That is easier said than done. Facebook reports that the average time people spend on a piece of content is 2 seconds (3). Just think about how quickly you scroll to the next post on social media if your attention is not immediately grabbed.

What can your target market take away from your content in 2 seconds? If branded well enough, a consumer may be able to recall the brand and general message of your content in that fleeting moment. Although, you do not want them to spend just a moment on your content – you want them to engage with it, so the message resonates with them.

Engaging content can take some trial and error but here are some general tips:

• Your content should be authentic and relatable, so consumers see you are human.
• Mix in some non-promotional content to show your personal side.
• Stand out. Visually appealing images and catchy captions can get the user to stop scrolling and break up the monotony of their feed.
• Tell a story that resonates with you and can emotionally engage your audience.
• Directly engage with your audience through interactive polls, questions, or challenges.
• Remember to respond and acknowledge any comments or messages you receive. Avoid engaging in debate or interacting with negative comments.
• Stay current with trends, events, or holidays to remain relevant and part of the ongoing conversation.

Outside of these suggestions, mirror what you see getting a lot of traction on social media. You do not have to re-invent the wheel.

Compliant Social Media

Since the financial services industry is highly regulated, it is important to keep your social media activity compliant with state and federal regulations because it is considered a 24/7 “live” advertisement. Like any advertising, any social media content you create must be fair, balanced, and not misleading, among other things. This can be hard to do with the brevity of social media posts and profiles.

It will be important for you to find a way to be concise and still provide enough information that the user can make an informed decision from your post. This can be why it is better to talk about general concepts rather than specifics, so you do not have to add lengthy disclosures to your post. Avoid using promissory language and get in the habit of using “may happen” instead of “will happen”. Also, you may see a lot of trending videos out there describing life insurance as an investment – life insurance is not an investment and regulations prohibit the comparison, so do not follow that trend.

A good way to stay compliant is to share the content from the National Life Group (NLG) social media pages or look at our posts for ideas. The posts on the NLG pages have been pre-approved, reviewed for context, and provided with disclosures when necessary. You can safely share these posts to your platforms or get ideas from them; just keep the tips mentioned above in mind.

As a reminder, if you are registered with our broker/dealer and registered investment adviser – Equity Services, Inc. (“ESI”) – all your business-related social media must be pre-approved by our Advertising Guidance Team (“AGT”) and your social media pages must be connected to Hearsay.

Additional information on our social media policies can be found once you log onto NLG’s Agent Portal under Training àCompliance à Advertising/Social Media. Also, the AGT is available at adreview@nationallife.com, or by calling (802) 229-3129. We are glad to demystify any compliance concerns you may have around social media!

Happy Posting!

1. Sprout Social, 50+ of the most important social media marketing statistics for 2023, March 2023. https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-statistics/
2. Hootsuite, 45 Facebook Statistics Marketers Need to Know in 2024, January 2024. https://blog.hootsuite.com/facebook-statistics/
3. Facebook, Capturing Attention in Feed, June 2022.