In this instructional video, Shauna Thoresen – CEO and founder of Social Waves Media – explains why many insurance agents fail to generate leads on social media and outlines three common, costly mistakes. She first defines the true purpose of social media for agents: to attract ideal prospects, begin building a relationship, and establish trust, mirroring the first minutes of a face‑to‑face meeting. She then details the three mistakes she observes: (1) the “secret agent” – keeping profiles private, omitting contact info, or hiding the fact they are agents, which prevents discovery and trust; (2) posting direct‑mail‑style, cookie‑cutter graphics that look like discarded flyers, which fails to engage audiences seeking personal connection; (3) over‑relying on company branding instead of personal presence, which makes the agent appear faceless and less trustworthy. Shauna supports each point with personal anecdotes, including a “PITA client” experience that highlighted the importance of early trust. She recommends agents re‑imagine their social‑media strategy: use their own name, post personal video or text content, share authentic stories, and post at a realistic frequency (one‑to‑two times per week) rather than daily. The video ends with a call to comment on personal barriers, subscribe, and apply the revised approach to build trust and generate leads.
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If you're an insurance agent, chances are you are making one of these 3 huge social media mistakes that are costing you clients without even realizing it. In this video, I'm going to break down the purpose of social media, plus the 3 biggest mistakes, so that way you can avoid making them from this point forward. If we haven't met, my name is Shauna. I'm the CEO and founder of Social Waves Media. I have been specializing in lead generation since 2015, and in 2022 is when I first started working with insurance agents. In that time, I've performed dozens of ad audits for large agencies. I've worked with hundreds of insurance agents, and I've spoken to thousands of agents. And over the course of several years, I have seen that there are 3 really big social media mistakes that agents seem to consistently make that in the long run are preventing you from truly growing your brand and costing you clients. So let's talk about social media and the 3 biggest mistakes that I see agents make. Now, if I asked you, Why do you post on social media? What would your answer be if I asked you, should businesses post on social media? I'm willing to bet that the majority of you would say yes, businesses should absolutely post on social media. But why? What is the actual purpose of that? You see, so many business, business owners, entrepreneurs, they post on social media, but they have no idea what the why is behind it. So let me share with you what that is. The entire purpose of social media is to attract and then to begin building a relationship with ideal prospects. It essentially serves the exact same purpose that the first few minutes of a prospect meeting does. You want to establish a connection. You want them to get to know, like, and trust you. It also can give you a little bit of social proof if people are able to go to your page and hear you actually speak. So here's what I like to always remind agents. Social media has changed the way that we are able to build a connection. Social media has not changed how we build a connection. So you already know how to build a connection with your people. You are already good whenever you get in front of a prospect having a conversation with them, and that's exactly what your social media account should do for you. So let's get into these 3 biggest mistakes so you can fix them. So when I first entered the insurance world in 2022 and I launched my course Insurance Click to Close, that teaches agents how to generate their own leads using Meta ads. When I first entered your world and I first had all of these independent agents that were messaging me or reaching out to me, I wanted to go check out their profiles so that way I could get a glimpse into your world. And I was surprised how many insurance agents had profiles that either had nothing posted, they didn't have in their bio that they were an insurance agent or any way for anyone to get in contact with them. And even worse, Lots of agents had their profiles private. So I call this mistake number 1. This is the secret agent. It's like, shh, I'm an insurance agent, but no one can know. And the reality is, if you're an independent agent, so if you're an LOA, that's different. But if you're an independent agent and this is your business, you cannot treat this business like it's a job. Like if I'm working for a job, a company, I'm not gonna be posting my face on social media. Promoting that company, right? But when it's your business and it's your baby, putting yourself out there is part of the long-term growth. I'm telling you, we're moving in a day and age that it is information overload. AI is advancing so extremely fast, and you are going to become a commodity before you know it if you don't start putting yourself out there as an advisor. And let me tell you, establishing trust from having some sort of an online presence, even if it's just like a few videos or just a little bit so people can get to know you, is extremely important. So my very first PITA client, okay, so I don't know if you've ever had a PITA client— stands for pain in the ass. If you've had a PITA client that they come to you and you're like, here, I put you on the best Medicare Advantage plan for you, I promise, like I have made sure it has everything that you want. And then you find out a few months later that they've actually been flipped and gone to someone else, or they're constantly pestering you with follow-up questions. The reason that's happening is because they don't have enough trust in you. And sometimes just having that initial trust from the beginning can make a big difference. So the first PETA client that I had was in like 2018, and I was not utilizing social media to push my Facebook ads, uh, business that I had going. I wasn't, to be honest with you, it's still uncomfortable for me to put myself out there on social media because I am a recovering overthinker and I'm very critical of myself and I overanalyze everything that I do. So if that's you, We got each other. I understand. So I wasn't putting myself out there, and this client came to me from a referral, and we started working together. And from the very beginning, I could tell she didn't trust me. She was sending me emails. Hey, did you see this article? Did you know that if you run ads that are optimized for this, it could do that? I saw that this person put out a blog post that said that you should use this many ad creatives, and we should be utilizing this custom conversion, and blah blah blah blah blah. She constantly was coming to me about things that I already knew, and my job running her ads was not to explain to her my mindset. Of course, I would tell her, here's the strategy that we're going to do and here's why it's going to work, but it wasn't to be micromanaged. And so obviously that relationship, it ended up dissolving. And in my contracts now, I actually have an entire clause that is because of that interaction that I had with her that makes sure that it protects my time and makes sure that the expectations are right. But at the end of the day, if she came to me and she saw me as an authority, like now when clients come to me and they want an ad audit, they are listening with their ears open. They wanna hear what I have to say because they trust me. Now they already are coming into the arrangement of working with me with believing that what I have to say is going to have value. And the only way that you can do that is by starting to build that trust from the very beginning, and social media allows you to do that. So mistake number 1, being a secret agent. Mistake number 2. The other thing that I see consistently is when I go to insurance agents' pages, it looks like mailers, like direct mailers, that a trash can full of them has just like spilled all over their page and they're just like sitting there. Call me now. Here's my logo. Here's the slogan. We offer this. Are you on Medicare? Call now. Um, here's like our office photo. Um, here's like a branded photo from this carrier and so on. And it's typically using cookie cutter templates. Here's the deal. We just talked about how social media is about building a connection with your audience, right? So let's use like my mother, for example. If my mother is scrolling through social media and she's trying to like look at, you know, what's happening on the pickleball court, what's going on with her friends, she's looking at recipes she's interested in, and she comes across your post that literally looks like the direct mail flyer that she's already thrown in the trash. It's not gonna capture her attention. She's not gonna feel personally connected with you. Let's say you have a phone call or you've met with my mother. She knows she's gonna be talking with you and she goes and looks you up on Instagram, which is what most seniors are doing these days. We're living in a day and age that, I mean, on Facebook alone, there's over 14 million active seniors in the United States on Facebook. So they go to look you up and all they see are these very bright direct mail flyers. They're not gonna get a sense of who you actually are. People want to get a sense of who they're going to be working with so that way they can feel if like that vibe is there, if they feel like they can trust you and kind of get a heads up of who you actually are. So don't be the blah, blah, blah agent. And then mistake number 3 is relying on company branding. It's putting a page out there that is based solely on the company branding or the agency that you've now created, even if it's just an LLC and you're just a sole proprietor, I have seen that a lot of agents will lean back on trying to make themselves appear as though they are a larger agency. We're moving in a day and age that the person is going to outperform the company every time. Like, think about your favorite companies. Like, do you follow Netflix? Do you follow Coca-Cola? No. People want to connect with a person on social media. So there's absolutely nothing wrong with sharing your company on social media, but relying on you bringing your face to that is what's going to have the most impact. So for me on Instagram right now, currently as I'm making this video, my Instagram is just my name, Shauna Thoresen. Uh, you can go there and follow me if you want. And then on Facebook, I have chosen to make it be my name and then dash my company, Shauna Thoresen Social Waves Media. And those are the accounts that I run my ads from and that I, I post from. And that's because Because you as an agent, if you're wanting to learn how to generate your own leads, you probably— if I had, if I had an entire page that was just my company Social Waves Media that talked, like gave you little quotes, gave you little tips, but it didn't have a face behind it, it would be hard for you to want to trust me to invest in my course and to work with me in my membership and to have me guide and lead you. No, before you're going to do that, you want to check me out. You want to hear how I talk. You want to see how I teach and get a feeling. So those Those are the 3 biggest mistakes that I see made on social media. So the takeaway is for you to step back and reimagine how you're going to utilize social media from this point moving forward. Think about it as a way for you to connect with your audience, for people to be able to find you and to start building trust with you. And I want to go ahead and just remove the barrier of thinking that you have to post on social media constantly and every single day for it to move the needle any on your ROI. That's absolutely not true. I always say, how often should you post? As often as you realistically can. The reality is, as business owners, we wear many different hats, and the reality is posting every single day and putting that pressure on yourself oftentimes results in either fatigue, making you have to overthink, and, and makes you just wanna give up. So instead, just consider reimagining how you're going to use it. Maybe commit to posting one. Or two times a week, just to get some foundational content out there. Now tell me in the comments: Have you been making one of those mistakes? And what has been the barrier from you actually putting yourself out there? Because I genuinely want to know. And if you've made it this far, consider hitting that subscribe button. It costs you nothing. It means a lot to me. All right, I will see you in the next video.
