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Who’s Covered? MetLife Rules Facebook, but Allstate is All As When it Comes to Insurance Companies on Social Media

Unmetric benchmarks America’s leading insurance providers on their social media engagement strategies


WEBWIRE

NEW YORK Today Unmetric, the social media benchmarking company, releases the results of its “Who’s Covered? Insurance Social Media Showdown,” a new report detailing which insurance companies have done the best job establishing a meaningful presence on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The report assesses more than just raw number of fans, and breaks down how insurance companies across the U.S. are building, updating, and engaging their communities through social media.
 
Unmetric’s Insurance Social Media Showdown examines the activity of the 13 most active American insurance companies on social media over a two-month period, from September 1 to October 31, 2012. Unmetric gave each insurance company a score based on a blend of quantitative and qualitative metrics, weighted and averaged to produce a single number ranging from zero to 100 for each social network—one score for Facebook, one for Twitter and one for YouTube. These scores, the Unmetric Scores, are based on metrics such as content strategy, engagement, growth, timing and frequency of posts, tweets and videos on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
 
In terms of who boasts the largest Rolodex, Farmers blows away the competition with over 2.3 million fans on Facebook. Second place goes to MetLife, which claims 554,438 fans. Oddly enough, enthusiasm for Farmers on Facebook doesn’t translate to Twitter or YouTube. This may be due to the fact that Farmers sponsored Facebook’s Farmville in 2011 and saw extreme fan growth; millions of people ‘Liked’ the page in return for free digital goods. The company pales in comparison to USAA and GEICO, which lead on Twitter and YouTube with over 35,000 followers and 17,000 subscribers respectively.
 
Although Farmers, USAA and GEICO boast the most social relationships overall, Liberty Mutual has had the most success in growing its fan base. The company has experienced a remarkable 170 percent growth in Facebook fans and 84 percent growth in Twitter followers over the time period measured.
 
While earning fans is certainly a great step toward asserting popularity, engaging with them is what sets one company apart from the next. Unmetric weighted all the Likes, Comments, Shares and Estimated Impressions generated by each company on Facebook to determine which insurance companies see the most engagement with their fans. Despite having the smallest following of any company measured, Travelers Insurance knows how to get their fans involved, earning an average engagement score of 303. By comparison, the next closest company, USAA, earns only 124, followed by MetLife, which rounds out the top three with a score of 105. The average U.S. insurance page earns an average engagement score of 61.
 
Travelers leads in engagement, but what content is grabbing the attention of fans? For the insurance industry, posts focusing on corporate social responsibility are not only the most popular, but also earn the highest average engagement scores. For example, a post from American Family Insurance offered 50,000 meals for the hungry in exchange for 20,000 Likes.
 
Engagement on social media is just as much reactive as it is proactive. To determine the most reactive brands on social media, Unmetric broke down reply metrics for each company on Facebook and Twitter. Esurance is easily the most responsive brand on Facebook, responding to a whopping 76.5 percent of incoming posts. The company takes four hours and ten minutes on average to respond, second only to State Farm, which replies in just under four hours.
 
Looking at Twitter, Farmers is quickest to reply, in an average of two hours and 28 minutes, followed by American Family with an average of just over three and a half hours. While Farmers is quick to reply, State Farm actually replies to tweets twice as often. Interestingly, State Farm publicly apologized 41 times during the time period measured. By comparison, Allstate and GEICO posted the second most apologies, each with six.
 
And what about video? The insurance industry has long honed the art of the TV commercial to make their products and services relatable. Despite strong showings from Progressive and Allstate, GEICO is the king of YouTube. The company garnered nearly 50 million video views and over 17,000 subscribers in the time period measured.
 
Last, but certainly not least, Unmetric took a look at the popular mascots that have popped up in more recent years to humanize the insurance industry. Flo from Progressive, Mayhem from Allstate and the GEICO Gecko each maintain separate Facebook pages from their parent companies. Flo dominates in terms of popularity and growth, with nearly five million fans and a steady growth rate of 4.9 percent. Despite her robust fan base, she does the worst job of actually engaging fans. Mayhem from Allstate takes this honor, earning an average engagement score of 219.
 
So at the end of it all, who’s covered in Unmetric’s Insurance Social Media Showdown?
 
To determine the most socially adept insurance company in America, this report combines each company’s three Unmetric Scores into one combined score out of 300. While MetLife is the clear winner on Facebook alone, the company’s activity on Twitter and YouTube is less notable. According to the combined scores, Allstate earns the win with a combined Unmetric Score of 166. State Farm comes in second with 148 and GEICO rides their strong showing on YouTube to a third-place standing with 145.
 
Here’s a breakdown of some notable metrics, gathered from September 1 to October 31, 2012:


Facebook    September 1 - October 31, 2012
 
Unmetric Score
1.     MetLife – 58
2.     Farmers – 56
3.     Liberty Mutual – 48
4.     USAA – 41
5.     Allstate – 37
 
Total Fans
1.     Farmers – 2,312,884
2.     MetLife – 554, 438
3.     USAA – 287,723
4.     GEICO – 278,214
5.     State Farm – 270,606
 
Growth
1.     Liberty Mutual – 169.9%
2.     Allstate – 67.4%
3.     American Family – 34.6%
4.     Esurance – 15.2%
5.     Travelers – 7%
 
Highest Engagement (Calculation of Likes, Comments, Shares, and Impressions that each FB post receives)
1.     Travelers – 303
2.     USAA – 124
3.     MetLife – 105
4.     American Family – 89
5.     Nationwide – 69
 
Response Rate
1.     Esurance – 76.5%
2.     MetLife – 61.5%
3.     Allstate – 48.9%
4.     State Farm – 45.1%
5.     USAA – 41.2%
 
Average Reply Time (HH:MM:SS)
1.     State Farm – 3:53:00
2.     Esurance – 4:09:00
3.     American Family Insurance – 5:17:00
4.     Nationwide Insurance – 7:02:00
5.     MetLife – 7:34:00
 
Twitter    September 1 - October 31, 2012
 
Twitter Unmetric Score
1.     @Allstate – 64
2.     @StateFarm – 63
3.     @WeAreFarmers – 56
4.     @Nationwide – 48
5.     @amfam – 47
 
Total Followers
1.     @USAA – 35,904
2.     @Allstate – 29,730
3.     @StateFarm – 28,576
4.     @Nationwide – 15,959
5.     @Progressive – 15,394
 
Growth
1.     @esurance – 11.1%
2.     @StateFarm – 10.2%
3.     @USAA – 8.6%
4.     @WeAreFarmers – 8%
5.     @GEICO_Service – 7.9%
  
Average Reply Time (HH:MM:SS)
1.     @WeAreFarmers – 2:28:00
2.     @amfam – 3:33:00
3.     @Nationwide – 3:47:00
4.     @TRV_Insurance – 3:51:00
5.     @StateFarm – 4:17:00
 
YouTube    September 1 - October 31, 2012
 
YouTube Unmetric Score
1.     GEICO – 76
2.     Allstate – 65
3.     MetLife – 59
4.     State Farm – 54
5.     Progressive – 49
 
Total Video Views
1.     GEICO – 48,828,698
2.     Allstate – 26,738,065
3.     State Farm – 22,569,700
4.     Progressive – 14,161,451
5.     Nationwide – 3,122,372
 
YouTube Viewership Growth
1.     Liberty Mutual – 84.1%
2.     American Family – 54.5%
3.     Progressive – 13.3%
4.     Nationwide – 12.9%
5.     USAA – 9.7%
 
Total Channel Subscribers
1.     GEICO – 17,576
2.     Allstate – 8,541
3.     State Farm – 7,064
4.     Progressive – 3,835
5.     USAA – 1,187
 
Channel Subscriber Growth
1.     USAA – 17.4%
2.     American Family – 17.3%
3.     Nationwide – 14.9%
4.     Liberty Mutual – 12.4%
5.     MetLife – 11.7%
 
Mascot Facebook Showdown
 
Unmetric Score
1.     Flo from Progressive – 74
2.     Mayhem from Allstate– 41
3.     GEICO Gecko – 30
 
Facebook Fans
1.     Flo from Progressive – 4,699,955
2.     Mayhem from Allstate– 1,407,479
3.     GEICO Gecko – 292,705
 
Facebook Growth
1.     Flo from Progressive – 4.9%
2.     Mayhem from Allstate– 2.6%
3.     GEICO Gecko – 1.7%
 
Highest Engagement (Calculation of Likes, Comments, Shares, and Impressions that each FB post receives)
1.     Mayhem from Allstate – 219
2.     GEICO Gecko – 46
3.     Flo from Progressive – 21
 
Overall
 
Combined Unmetric Score
1.     Allstate – 166
2.     State Farm – 148
3.     GEICO – 145
4.     Farmers Insurance – 130
5.     MetLife – 129
 
 
“Today, social media is a natural extension of physical communities into the online world,” says Unmetric CEO, Lux Narayan. “Insurance agents have always been skilled at building and maintaining long-lasting relationships, so it’s no surprise these companies have taken to social media like a fish to water.”
 
“At Suncorp, we have been ’social networking’ long before the rise of social media. Building relationships and succeeding in this arena is just as important for our business as succeeding in the real world,” says Lauren Cain, Community and Content Adviser at Suncorp. “Unmetric allows us to stay on top of our competition and identify insights across all social media, enabling us to serve our customers more effectively.”
 
 
Unmetric supplies a distinct, high-demand service for brands that stops companies from flying blind with their social media efforts. Using a combination of advanced algorithms and human computing power, Unmetric delivers data and benchmark insights for various industry sectors that were previously unavailable for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Pinterest. Now brands are finally able to answer the basic business question of “How do we stack up against the competition?” when it comes to their social media presence.
 
Methodology:
Unmetric compiled its Social Insurance report by sourcing data from its social media benchmarking platform. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube statistics were gathered from September 1 to October 31, 2012.
 
About Unmetric:
Unmetric Inc. is headquartered in New York City and works with clients across the world. The Unmetric platform was established to give Fortune 500 companies and other large global brands and agencies key performance data around which they could benchmark their social media efforts and answer the question “Are we doing well?”. For more information, visit www.unmetric.com, or check out the Unmetric blog at http://blog.unmetric.com.
 



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