Social Media &

Insurance Regulation

Scott Holeman
NAIC COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR

Jeremy Wilkinson
NAIC ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER
www.collegehumor.com/video:1913584
 Agenda
• What is SOCIAL MEDIA?
• Who uses it? Why?
• Practices and policies
• What’s next?
• Questions
 What is social media?
Amanda Cox & Steve Duenes, New York Times
 Defining social media
(social networking sites)

– User defines profile

– User defines connections (audience)
– User defines, creates and promotes content
Boyd,
Boyd, d.
d. m.,
m., &
& Ellison,
Ellison, N.
N. B.
B. (2007).
(2007). Social
Social network
network sites:
sites: Definition,
Definition, history,
history, and
and
scholarship.
scholarship. Journal
Journal of
of Computer-Mediated
Computer-Mediated Communication,
Communication, 13(1),
13(1), article
article 11.
11.
Wikipedia.
Wikipedia.
 History . . .
• SixDegrees.com (1997)
• MySpace (2003 to 2006)
– Suffers from sale to News Corp. and privacy concerns
• Facebook (2004) becomes available to anyone
age 13+
– Became second behind Google for all Web sites in Feb. 2010
– 400 million users (133 million unique visitors per month)

Boyd, d. m., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of
Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), article 11. Wikipedia.

Compete.com: We’re Number Two! Facebook moves up one big spot in the charts, Written by
Aaron Prebluda -- February 17th, 2010
 Definitions & background
What is it to you?
– Free Google juice (Search Engine Optimization)
– Free tools for your Web page (YouTube embeds)
– Virtual communities (focus groups, wikis, forums)
Reaches the fastest growing,
most engaged users of all
online and media content.
• Facebook – Mini-mobile site
– Swiss army knife with 400
million active users
• LinkedIn
– Resumes and recruits
– 40 Million users
• YouTube
– 1 Billion daily
• Twitter
– 75 million users
– 10-15 million active
– Mobile news feed
 Worth watching . . .
MySpace
Digg, Stumbleupon, Buzz, Yelp
– Recommendation engines
iTunes
– Podcasts*
Google, Apple, Microsoft
– Changes coming to hardware

* iTunes access presents challenges and is not

required to have a Podcast.
Who uses the Internet?
• 93% of Americans age 18-29
• 81% of Americans age 30-49
• 70% of Americans age 50-64
• 38% of Americans age 65 +

74% of adult Americans

Pew
Pew Internet
Internet &
& American
American Life
Life Project:
Project: http://www.pewinternet.org
http://www.pewinternet.org
Who uses social media?
• 73% of people online
use Facebook
– 48% MySpace
– 14% LinkedIn
• 52% have profiles on
more than one
– up from 42% in 2008

Pew Internet & American Life Project:

http://www.pewinternet.org
Study: Ages of social network users: Posted in Main on February 16th, 2010 by Pingdom
Study: Ages of social network users: Posted in Main on February 16th, 2010 by Pingdom
www.marines.mil
 Internet trends mobile
• 56% of all adults have access to the Web
through a mobile device
• 32% have used a Smart phone
• 19% use a mobile device to access the Web
each day
• Rates of growth are estimated at about 75%
annually since 2006.

2009 (April) Pew Internet & American Life Project: http://www.pewinternet.org

 NAIC engagement
• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• YouTube
• Podcasts
• RSS
 What about states?
California Twitter, YouTube
Connecticut Facebook
Delaware YouTube
Idaho Twitter
Illinois Facebook, YouTube
Louisiana YouTube
Mississippi Facebook (Commissioner Mike Chaney)
New York Facebook, Twitter
North Carolina Facebook
North Dakota Twitter, YouTube
Oklahoma Twitter
Washington Twitter

As of April 14, 2010

“With effective
management of
the risks,
companies will
look to jump on
the social media
bandwagon . . .
it’s here to stay.
Dec. 8, 2009 NAIC-IMSA Social Media
Education Session (Podcast and PPT
available at www.NAIC.org)
 Why do we use it?
Our ‘traditional’ Web audience:
• 340 thousand unique visitors in 2006
• 1.4 million in 2009
– up 28% so far 2010
• 71% of our users are Age 35+
– College-educated
• 53% are female

Web analytic tools: Webtrends, Quantcast and Google Analytics.

Social media can
connect you to
communities more
vulnerable to poor
insurance decisions
and scams.
 Current Goals
• Develop mobile platform for news,
alerts, special sections and events
• Support traditional Web traffic (SEO)
• Learn the tools/trends
• Recruit employees
Start slow,
dip your toe . . .
• Create profile and lurk
• Limit access to essential staff
• Outgoing engagement only
• Use current online content
Engagement is less
like a light switch…
…and more like a dial.
Dos & Don’ts
What to do . . .
• Think TATTOO: it’s
permanent
• Be authentic
• Be concise
• Stay on message
It’s your current
online presence,
just smaller and
less likely to eat
up a phone…
 Please don’t . . .
• Get creative with profile
• Use wall for individual
communications
• Be lazy with
grammar/spelling
• Post bad photos
• Friend strangers
• Invite me to be a pirate
zombie mobster
• Sacrifice content for
fan/follower counts
What’s
Next?
 Social media
specific
content
Possible examples:
– Social Media PSAs
– Apps (iPhone/Facebook)
– National Meeting
Tweet-ups
– Moderated group
discussions
 Web-liography
http://www.pewinternet.org/
Wireless Internet Use BY JOHN HORRIGAN JUL 22, 2009
http://mashable.com
FACEBOOK FAIL: How to Use Facebook Privacy Settings and Avoid Disaster
http://www.technoratimedia.com/
State of the Blogosphere 2009
http://www.wikipedia.org
Social media history and definitions
http://www.socialmedia.org
Best practices, dos and don’ts
http://www.ted.com
Clay Shirky: How social media can make history (Video Talk)
http://www.pingdom.com
statistics regarding ages of users and by social networking site