At Hearsay, we’re privileged to have a team of subject matter experts who share proven techniques and strategies for building effective digital marketing programs with our customers.

Today, we’re featuring Amanda Peitz, our Head of Digital Transformation. She helps our clients enhance their social initiatives by analyzing agent and advisor's social activities and spotlighting behaviors that improve field effectiveness, increase social user maturity, and boost ROI.

Below, she shares advice for firms looking to optimize their field team’s social selling abilities.

‍Amanda, can you please explain what the User Maturity Model is and how it’s used? 

The User Maturity Model is a proprietary tool our team developed that’s used to measure an individual's social media marketing skill level. UMM allows us to analyze and score specific user behaviors—things like profile completeness, publishing frequency, how often the user adds new connections, and how the user engages with their network. Each behavior is scored separately, and we calculate a total. Each user is assigned to one of six tiers—Tier 1 being the most social-savvy, Tier 6 being the least. 

How do firms and firm leaders benefit from using UMM?

‍Increasing adoption and usage is critical to social selling success. UMM scoring allows firms to measure progress over time by establishing a benchmark. Understanding the behaviors associated with each tier also empowers organizations to teach new social selling skills by coaching individuals who fall into lower tiers, assigned based on their current skill level. 

Are there any trends you’ve found to be consistent across small, medium, and large firms?‍

Definitely. There are three key things I see on a regular basis:

1. Most organizations have individuals who fall into the least active tiers (4, 5, and 6). Getting these individuals with the least social savvy to incorporate a consistent social strategy requires a different approach from users who fall into tiers 2 and 3.
   
   
2. Often, users think they’re “doing all the right things,” but UMM data reveals proficiency gaps. Providing specific, actionable insight to individual users makes them more aware of what they’re not doing.
   
   
3. Typically, over 50% of advisors and agents in mature programs are in tiers 1 and 2. These organizations benefit from increased earned media value (EMV) as a result of the positive social selling behaviors of highly effective users. Put simply, when users publish more frequently, and their content is seen by larger networks, brand awareness goes up. 

‍A few firms have built particularly effective, mature social selling initiatives. What tactics have you seen them use to generate adoption and consistent positive performance?

Firms with high-performing programs often share three traits: 

1. Leaders have buy-in from the firm’s executive team as well as from administrators and users. To be most effective, program advocacy should start at the top. To drive strong adoption, program benefits should be communicated with your field early and often. Taking the time to establish strong buy-in and prep your field reduces roadblocks a team may encounter at launch. 
2. We see the best results among teams willing to leverage tailored training. Training teaches social sellers in less active tiers how to implement positive social behaviors and graduate to higher tiers. Incorporating an element of gamification that highlights—and rewards—impactful social behaviors is a great way to introduce friendly competition. This often proves to be a powerful performance-enhancing tool. 
3. Last but not least, the most effective firms take the time to identify which social behaviors have a direct positive impact on advisor and agents’ business success. Tying metrics for key behaviors to business outcomes helps leaders build a repeatable, scalable program.   

UMM sounds pretty awesome, but I have to know—are firms seeing results? Any wins you can share? ‍

Yes! We presented UMM to executives at a top-tier insurance firm in early 2023, and the team adopted the model. Equipped with an automated monthly UMM report, the firm developed its own internal report that correlates each agent’s tier to new premiums underwritten that month. With both reports in place, the team was able to definitively correlate tier 1 and 2 social behavior with writing more new premiums. The team implemented tiered training to uplevel tier 3-6 agents and advisors in an effort to continually improve over time.

Thanks for sharing your insight, Amanda! This is such a powerful way to track and measure social progress. We look forward to hearing more success stories in the near future!