RGG Communications

(Originally from the April 2012 issue of American Agent & Broker)

A booming interest in Pinterest expands to insurance marketing

If your “Jeopardy” answer is, “What’s a picture worth?” then you’re well on your way to understanding the focus of this month’s column. Pinterest is the social media tool du jour. It has broken onto the business scene with such a bang that there already are comparisons to Facebook and Google+ in terms of its growth and potential for marketing.

So what is Pinterest and why should you care?

Pinterest is similar to other social networking sites: a platform where you can share with friends things that you find interesting. It allows you to find people with common interests and expand your presence through a very tight filter of visuals, both pictures and videos.

After joining Pinterest and creating an account, you can use the standard topic pin boards—such as art, home décor, apparel —or you can add your own specific topics.

For the full article, visit propertycasualty360.com.

(Originally from the November 2011 issue of American Agent & Broker)

Build a successful content strategy plan using social media

We’ve all heard or used the phrase, “Knowledge is power.” For years, people and businesses valued their assets at the level of information they had and what secrets they kept. Data and information were doled out sparingly, with people holding back on the juiciest pieces.

Then the Web took root and soon new successes were found among those companies that could provide access to information easily and quickly. “Mash-ups,” the creative combination of services, features and functionalities where the whole is definitely greater than the sum of its parts, became the catalyst for the development of social media.

All of a sudden we found ourselves confronted not only with a thousand cable channels on TV but a limitless stream of online stuff—from websites of every kind to blogs written by self-described experts on one topic or another to the growth of online videos that could be described as fueling a data pandemic.

To read the full article, visit propertycasualty360.com.

(Originally from the September 2011 issue of American Agent & Broker)

BranchOut, Google+ and other social media tools change the landscape

We are all familiar with movie sequels. In fact, the first movie sequel dates all the way back to 1916’s “Fall of a Nation,” which was the sequel to the 1915 feature “Birth of a Nation.” The general expectation of sequels is that they are not going to be as good as the original. I could argue that it depends on the movie, the screenwriter and director of the sequel, but I won’t get into that here.

Certainly, when you consider some movie franchises such as “Star Trek,” “Friday the 13th” or “Harry Potter,” you can see that they come from all genres with varying degrees of success.

A new take on movie sequels came in 1999, when George Lucas released the first of a trilogy of “prequels” to the blockbuster “Star Wars” series. The prequels told the stories of the characters leading up to where the originals started. Throughout the 25-year history of “Star Wars,” Lucas continued to tweak and add to each new re-release of his movies. He brought new aspects to the films, updating the quality of the special effects so they didn’t seem outdated.

To read the full article, visit propertycasualty360.com.

(From the August 2011 issue of American Agent & Broker)

Protect your business from risks related to social networking

I can’t think of any advancement, technological or otherwise, that has taken the world by storm with such game-changing results as what social media has done. It’s no longer enough to have a website or other Internet presence; you must now be part of the “untethered” world.

According to IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, “the global smartphone market should grow 55 percent this year, reaching 472 million units sold by the end of 2011. Last year, 305 million smartphones were sold across the globe.”

It will more than double again by 2015.

The technology behind today’s smartphones are changing so rapidly that manufacturers are continuously releasing new phones with each new model incorporating advanced, new features. Couple that with the incredible mobile app market with a forecasted 38.2 billion downloads in 2011—growing to nearly 182.7 billion downloads anticipated in 2015—and you have a virtual onslaught of technology in every aspect of life that new apps will have to be created just to keep track of the apps we already have.

To read the full article, visit propertycasualty360.com.