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How an Effective Social Media Content Calendar can Benefit Insurance Agents

Written by Sarah Lewis

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July 28, 2022

How an Effective Social Media Content Calendar can Benefit Insurance Agents

If you’re an insurance agent struggling with consistent social media marketing, a content calendar could be the solution you’re looking for. Setting up a content calendar is a straightforward process and often has impressive results for agents looking to increase lead generation and their online presence. In this article, you’ll discover how to create a social media content calendar and how it can benefit insurance agents.

What is a Social Media Content Calendar?

A social media content calendar is a detailed summary/overview of all upcoming and planned social media posts. Having this detailed summary helps insurance agents post strategic content, maintain consistent posting, and reach their audience regularly. A social media content calendar doesn’t have to be overly complicated either. Depending on an insurance agent’s need case, their content calendar can range from a simple list of dates you would like to post, specific scheduled posts, or an even more detailed and specific schedule.

The most successful social media content calendars feature specific information to maximize engagement for each post. Information often included are things like:

The social media platform: Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Etc.

  • Content type: Video, Testimonial, Product, Etc.
  • Date: Ideal date to be posted
  • Time: Ideal time to be posted
  • Title: The name of the post
  • Topic: What the post is about
  • URL: Any URL’s/links that will be included/relevant to the post
  • Visuals: a description of any visuals the post will include

This in-depth information provides the framework from which each post can be built and gives you options for when they should go out.

However, when developing your content calendar, ensure you aren’t accidentally creating a content plan instead. While both cover similar things, there is a clear difference. A content calendar identifies the dates and times for social media posts, while a content plan focuses on the strategies and topics addressed through your marketing. Both tools are closely related and can be used together, but a social media content calendar is a calendar before everything else. A content calendar without dates is just a content plan.

Why should Insurance Agents Use a Content Calendar?

With the digital age in full swing, 72% of the U.S. population is active on social media, and as time progresses, the percentage is only rising. Clearly, your social media presence is essential for an Insurance Agent’s marketing strategy. If you are an insurance agent new to marketing on social media, check out our “5 Amazing Social Media Tips for Insurance Agents”.

A social media content calendar helps with two of the most critical details of social media marketing:

  • Marketing to your target audience
  • Consistency
Market directly to your target audience by planning out posts a few days, weeks, or even months in advance and better think through the kind of content your audience wants to see. Posting without much thought on social media won’t get an insurance agent very far. There is competition everywhere, and insurance agents must post curated content to reach their target audience. A content calendar can prevent half-thought-out posting and be a valuable tool when planning marketing content and communications.

Maintaining consistency when posting on social media is one of the most influential parts of being effective with social media marketing. It may seem easy, but consistent posting is a challenging part of social media marketing. Implementing a content calendar is a great way to help insurance agents manage their time better and overcome the consistency challenge. There are many ways implementing a content calendar will benefit insurance agents and help them reach their goals.

  • Save time
  • Schedule out posts
  • Reduce errors
  • Develop more cohesive marketing campaigns
  • Develop a stronger brand identity
  • Plan content around holidays
  • More accurately track performance

How Can an Insurance Agent Create a Customized Social Media Content Calendar?

An insurance agent can create and start using a social media content calendar anytime. Creating an effective content calendar doesn’t require any special software or tools. All you need is a spreadsheet (like Google Sheets) or a calendar, and then complete the following steps.

1.Set goals for your social media

Before making a content calendar, an insurance agent will need a clear goal for what they want to achieve. When social media posts have clear goals supporting their creation, their messaging is more likely to be understood by the targeted audience.

2.Conduct an audit on your current social media accounts

After setting clear goals, an insurance agent should evaluate their current performance on social media. These metrics are important for developing a baseline to test your marketing strategy. Information an insurance agent will want to gather includes:
  • Account details: usernames, passwords, etc.
  • Platform-specific goals
  • Audience demographics
  • Information on the most successful posts and marketing campaigns
  • Gaps in content
  • information on posts with poor or very poor results
  • latform-specific KPIs (key performance indicators)

It may take a bit of time to gather this information initially, but without a well-developed baseline, it is nearly impossible to track improvement.

3. Decide what social media platforms to use
More social media platforms are establishing themselves in the market, and you will need to determine what platform works best for you and your business.
Because of the demographic differences between social media platforms, an insurance agent may find more success in focusing on a specific platform with a higher utilization rate from their target demographic. (Facebook, for example, has the largest usage rate of people 65+), instead of spreading their efforts equally over various social media platforms. Check out more detailed information about social media platform demographics here to determine what your target audience is using.
4. Determine your posting frequency
Consistency is one of the biggest benefits of using a social media content calendar. Posting frequency varies from business to business. Suppose your insurance agency employs a large marketing team with the bandwidth to interact with followers and develop content. In this case, there should be no issue with posting multiple times a day. If you’re working alone or have a smaller team posting a few times a week may better utilize your time and resources.
Above all else, the quality of an insurance agent’s social media posts is more important than quantity. Poor content with no interaction is not very beneficial to your online presence.

The key takeaway to keep in mind when developing a posting schedule is that it should be realistic. Creating a posting schedule you can’t maintain won’t set you up for your desired success. Most social media algorithms favor consistent posting when deciding what to show in user feeds.

5. Decide what content you are going to post

Insurance agents should be aware of two helpful posting rules when deciding what kind of content to post on social media.
The 80/20 Rule

Use the 80/20 rule to balance audience engagement and selling efforts. Social media users will tire of your content if you continuously try to sell them. The 80/20 rule states that 80% of your content should be geared towards audience engagement, information, and education, while 20% can be used to promote your agency and products.

The Social Media Rule of Thirds

The social media rule of thirds helps insurance agents add variety to their posts. An insurance agent’s audience can quickly become bored if their content is always the same. According to this rule, one-third of posts should be original content, one-third should be shared content, and one-third of content should be shared personal interactions with followers.
Social media can be a powerful tool to help generate new leads, gain customers, and engage your existing clients. Learn more about how insurance agents should be using social media to grow their agency.
6. Conduct an audit of your available resources
The final thing an insurance agent must do before creating a social media content calendar is to conduct an audit of your resources. This includes determining how many people will work on the content and who will be responsible for each task.
If you have a team dedicated to social media management and content creation, it becomes more important to delegate responsibilities clearly to avoid working over each other.
After completing the above steps, it’s time to start making your social media content calendar. Create a new file with Google Sheets, Excel, or your preferred spreadsheet software, and use the columns to track dates and the rows to track the platform, content types, titles, topics, links, and visual notes for each post. Using this guide, you’ll have a basic social media content calendar template in just a few minutes. You can use the above categories or build it out more for your insurance agency’s unique needs.
With a bit of time and basic Microsoft Excel skills, an insurance agent can create a social media content calendar that results in increased audience interaction, brand awareness, and an established online presence. Click here to learn more about making content and how to grow your insurance agency with social media. If you are looking for more ways to improve lead generation, check out Agent Pipeline’s “5 Ways to Improve Lead Generation”.
Would you like to learn more about how Agent Pipeline can help your agency succeed? Give us a call at 866.562.8318 to see how we can use our resources to help you build the ultimate framework for growth.

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