SOCIAL MEDIA & INTERNET MARKETING BLOG

Posts Tagged ‘Rainman Web Development’

Out of “Site”, Out of Mind

August 3rd, 2011 by Rainman Web Development No Comments

The Importance of Independent Insurance Agencies Creating an Online Presence

Before I started working at Rainman I had never heard of an Independent Insurance Agency. When I thought of insurance, I thought of that little green gecko from Geico or the deep-voiced, Dennis Haysbert from the Allstate commercials. I started thinking that if I didn’t know independent insurance agencies existed, how many other young professionals and potential clients don’t know as well?

It occurred to me that it’s all about the way a company markets itself. If you’re out of sight, you’re also out of mind. Independent Insurance Agencies are not on TV because air time is very expensive, but some are not even online— and there is no excuse for not being online. Everyone needs a website (even Brad Paisley knows that everyone is so much cooler online). Online is where most shopping, decision making and relationship building takes place these days. Along with helping independent agencies adapt to the online world, we help them get started on social media.

I wrote a poem for any of you independent agencies who might need a little more convincing to get online and get found. Enjoy!

Stop ignoring your clients and show them you care

Opt for some content with fun and flair

Connect on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook

Invite clients and their friends to take a second look

At your agency by staying one step ahead of the game

Liking insurance will never be the same

Make it hard to forget your name

Easy, because we’re here to help you

Don’t be afraid to try something new

It will be worth it in the end

And everyone you know will want to be your Facebook friend!

-Amanda Brown, former sales associate, Rainman.com

The Continent Next Door

July 27th, 2011 by Rainman Web Development No Comments

There is little doubt that the world is getting smaller every day. In the last decade, the creation of social media has shrunk the world to the size of a cellular phone. Right now, if I wanted to, I could take my iPhone and do anything; from calling my wife, to buying movie tickets, to finding my exact position on the globe. Today, the time it takes for information to travel from one side of the world to the other is mere seconds.

The mainstream media first took major notice of the power of social media during the uprisings in Iran back in 2009. For the first time in history, stories, pictures and video of the Iranian government cracking down on protestors become available to the rest of the world, all while the Iranian government banned all outside media. Social media’s power showed again this winter and spring: in countries such as Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia. Egyptian protestors used sites like Facebook and Twitter to organize protests and gather information on where government forces were searching for dissidents.

Last Friday (July 22^nd), social media once again became the tool for people sending information from one place to the rest of the world, but for an entirely different— and horrifying— reason. When Anders Behring Breivik began his attack on downtown Oslo, Norway, and the later massacre at a nearby children’s camp, images and video of the aftermath took just minutes to make it onto the Internet. I read of the attacks on Mashable and Twitter a full 15 minutes before news sites for MSNBC or The Huffington Post had alerts.

After seeing how quickly information spread from Oslo, I couldn’t help but wonder what would have been if social media was as prevalent in our lives on September 11^th, 2001 as it is today. How many tweets or Facebook updates would there be from people who, later, wouldn’t make it out of the World Trade Center alive? How many people could have had a chance to say goodbye to their loved ones? Better yet, how many people could have been saved by a simple tweet, “I’m still alive in here” after the attacks?

In the world we live in today, social media is shaping itself to become the ultimate tool for spreading information. It can be trivial, like what you ate for dinner the other night; terrible, like a gunman who is seen at a children’s camp or school; or extraordinary, like a democratic revolution has begun, and people are rising up against a dictator.

When I take time to think about the times we live in, I am truly amazed, humbled and grateful to be able to center my career in a form of communication that is surely to shape the next century, and the world my children and grandchildren will live in.

Are Video Games Shaping the World Today?

July 14th, 2011 by Rainman Web Development No Comments

What is the gaming industry coming to? Why are parents frustrated with video games?

I would always ask myself these two questions and never knew how to answer until I looked it up a few weeks ago. The answer is simple: video games are beginning to revolutionize the world! Video Games help many different types of people every day, whether they are in the military, boxing, pilots, physical therapists or even just people trying to have a good time. It isn’t impossible that video games will become part of our lives, such as in some movies like Avatar, Surrogates and Gamer. Each one of these movies shared something in common: that the world will become a video game itself and we will ‘play’ as robots doing all the work while, in reality, we sit at home doing nothing with our lives. With this rolling around in my brain, I have begun to wonder, “is this really going to happen?” Ever since I can remember, I have been playing video games. First, it was an Atari space fighter game, and then came everyone’s favorite character and game Super Mario. I would spend hours devoted to that game and always wanted to be in it just because it was soooo cool. Haha!

Which brings me to the answer of my second question— “Why are parents frustrated with video games?” The reason is because children or teens devote too much or all of their time solely to video games, instead of school or physical activity. Parents may believe it is not healthy for the brain or that kids are just plain wasting their time. The truth is that video games help a child’s ability to think in tight situations, survival techniques, sometimes even history and physics! I can’t imagine how many things I have learned due to playing video games throughout the years of being enrolled in school. Come to think about it, I’ve even passed a few tests in history thanks to video games. If life was like a video game, I like to think that we would all be smarter than a 5^th Grader!

#bandwagoner

July 6th, 2011 by Rainman Web Development 1 Comment

A few weeks ago, I was given the opportunity to present a continued education course at the Association of Wyoming Insurance Agents Annual Convention. The course, entitled “Web-Based and Social Media Marketing,” was a chance to educate independent insurance agents about the advantages of a clean, easy-to-navigate website, location-based services supplemented by customer reviews, and utilizing Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to promote agencies. Now, this was the first time I’d presented a CE, not to mention the first time I was required to present anything for two whole hours by myself. To say I was slightly nervous would be a massive understatement. Luckily, the CE attendees were wonderful and very responsive, and I even made it to the two-hour mark. However, that’s not the focus of this blog post.

Here’s the thing: it was brought to my attention that while only a handful of attendees had a Facebook Page or Twitter created for either themselves or their business, almost two-thirds of the the class owned an iPhone, Blackberry or Android. The topic of discussion quickly turned to smartphones and, before I could hide it behind the laptop in front of me, my two-year-old feature phone was spotted.

“What kind of phone do you use, ma’am?” one of the attendees asked.

“Well, it’s from Samsung. It’s…not a smartphone,” I replied, hesitantly.

“You mean you’re here to tell us we have to be on Facebook, but you don’t even have an iPhone?” responded another attendee, bewildered.

The room went silent. Great! After working so hard on this presentation for the past month, I’ve ruined my credibility with this crowd by the simple offense of not being up-to-date on technology. There is no sarcasm there. I’d known for quite awhile that the need for a smartphone was significant. After all, the company I work for prides itself on being on top of the latest tech innovations in order to bring value and new business to our clients. I should have been among the first few waves of consumers running to the smartphone market, but I’d just never gotten around to it. The class eventually focused on the topic at hand and gave great feedback on the presentation as a whole, but not before giving me a hard time for my dinky phone, understandably so. (Thanks for having me, AWIA!)

The first thing I did when I got home? Ordered this:

Why is having a smartphone important? Well, not only do all of your friends, neighbors and colleagues already have one (according to comScore, 76.8 million people in the U.S. owned a smartphone as of May 2011), but a smartphone offers the user all of the convenience of a computer with full internet access in a small, extremely portable package. Plus, they’re just darn cool! What other device allows you to locate, check into, rate, recommend and follow a restaurant or other place of business with the touch of a fingertip?

No matter the industry you work in, it’s important to be aware of what’s happening in the world. A smartphone presents the capability to stay connected to social networks– anytime, anywhere. One can post to Twitter directly from the Twitter app and find out information about an event seconds after it happens. Moldova, Iran, Tunisia, Egypt and others have seen strong change to political and national structure due to the influence and instantaneous connection offered by Twitter and Facebook users worldwide. That means the support from a mass of completely unrelated strangers made a difference in the lives of a people thousands of miles away. Who doesn’t want that kind of power in the palm of their hand? #rhetoricalquestion

If you’re like me, you get lost–often. This wouldn’t be such an issue if I didn’t insist on discovering new parts of town on the weekends. However, I prefer a life of adventure and, consequently, a life of stopping at various gas stations to ask for directions. No need with a smartphone! Google Maps has often been a savior while living in San Antonio, and the iPhone has the Maps application pre-installed. My favorite feature is the automatic location update. Say you’re leaving a restaurant and want to know how to get to an art gallery you read about online. Just type in the name of the gallery and select Directions to Here, then tap the arrow in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen and voila! Your path updates every few seconds as you travel, so you know for certain you’re taking a step in the right direction (pun definitely intended). It’s not the coolest thing an iPhone can do, but I find it very helpful.

Many people say that smartphones are a time-suck and distraction. Sure, one could potentially spend the entire day scanning Craigslist or playing Angry Birds, but if used correctly, a smartphone can free up time that would otherwise be spent responding to email at the office or getting lost in Southside San Antonio. Isn’t that all anyone wants– more time?

I’m happy to have jumped on the bandwagon, even if I was a little late to the game. Now I have no excuse for being late to meet a friend, eating at a bad restaurant or not knowing who Rebecca Black is. If only this thing could walk my dog for me after work! I guess it’s just a matter of time before I find the app for that.

-Theodora Setterbo, Social Media and Marketing Specialist, Rainman.com

What is a QR Code?

June 29th, 2011 by Rainman Web Development 1 Comment

A QRCode for the BBC

I seem to be answering this question a lot lately, mostly due to the awesome things we are experimenting on with them and how excited I am about it.

A QR Code is that little Square Bar Code You See floating around on TV, in Magazines and The Internet. But most people I have talked to didn’t know that was called a QR code. They also didn’t know how many amazing Social Media related things you can do with them.

Right now, I have been toying around with a Page for which people scanning a QR Code can go to, that acts as a simple and fresh-looking navigation page to all the Social Media and Web aspects of our Clients Portfolio, as well as one for Rainman.com. This will allow anyone, anywhere on a mobile device with a QR code reader app, to scan the QR code and be instantly taken to this Landing page, where they can be directed to a client’s Website, Facebook or Twitter page, their Blog, Youtube, or Linked In address as well as watch Videos, view maps, or even Contact them directly. All from a page that is easy to read from a Smart Phone or Tablet, with no need to type or even know the address! How is this done do you ask?

A QR code can be easily programmed to go to any URL on the web, all with a simple scan. Most Smart Phones and tablets have a downloadable QR code Reader App, and New Blackberries even come with them Standard. When scanning, the mobile device uses the Camera to take an image and scan it. The QR code can be on anything, like printed on a business card, a poster or a T-shirt, or even just displayed on another phone! The Scanner reads the QR code, and automatically opens a web browser and navigates to the site encoded on it. This allows a user to just hand out QR coded branding, rather than forcing everyone to remember their Websites Address. Anyone can then see your simplified, Phone-Friendly site, right on their Smartphone or Other Devices. But the possibilities don’t end there, check out this blog post on 5 creative ways to use a QR code for your small business.

More Experimentation is to come, and more excitingly cool tasks QR codes can be set for small businesses and Independent Insurance Agents. To view a sample of what Rainman can do with QR codes for your company, click here and give us a call at 830.331.9995.

-James Karthauser, Web Development, Rainman.com