Note: Darron Markwood, AIP Marketing Alliance Vice President of Marketing and Compliance Officer, is sharing his personal marketing/compliance opinions about social media in this two-part series. His opinions are not representative of AIPMA or Integrity and are designed to be informative and educational only. This week focuses on the compliance side of the social media marketing discussion. You can reach him at darronm@aipma.com or (248) 312-2609 for questions or to continue the conversation.

Social media continues to serve a purpose for independent annuity and life insurance agents as a means to communicate to clients and prospects about how these financial products could set up future #retirementplanning success.

The channels are endless now as LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, X(Twitter), and Threads are joined by common platforms like Reddit to share opinions, messages, education, and even misinformation about these products to consumers.

AI also has started to impact these channels as ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Claude (among others) are being leveraged to make developing and posting content easier and faster to the point where some people may wonder if these videos or posts are actually real.

At AIP Marketing Alliance, an Integrity Company, my role involves compliant usage of AIPMA’s selected platforms on LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Based on our choice to use these sites, I often get asked about marketing on social media – and for that reason, I decided to share some personal observations through this two-part series to provide some opinionated direction typed by my hands without AI intervention.

Let’s start by stating I’m not against using AI as Integrity has approved Copilot for employee use, and employees company-wide have found ways to leverage Copilot for business-related tasks. Admittedly, I may have used Copilot for a few lobby signs for visitors as AI can create graphics quickly and much easier than me creating in Canva or Photoshop at times.

However, taking shortcuts when describing life insurance and annuities causes me personally to write a line in the sand as AI might not fully explain the complexities of these products yet. Financial professionals (agents, advisors, etc.) need to be compliant at the local and federal levels as it is very important to market and sell these products in the best interest of each client. AI might not recognize that need.

Ever since I started at AIPMA, one of the main selling points of an annuity involves the statement of how an annuity can provide “guaranteed lifetime income.” A decade later, I still see this statement, but I rarely see the disclaimer of “based on the claims-paying ability of the carrier” or how each state’s Life and Health Insurance Guaranty Association could get involved if a carrier faces insolvency.

As insurance carriers have realized, social media isn’t really built for compliance disclaimers based on limited character counts and how social media is designed more for scanning vs. reading. Unless it’s the latest TikTok video on cats, funny happenings, or whatever else becomes viral for that moment that day.

In that same breath, insurance agents and financial professionals need to understand how posted content is regulated at multiple levels to protect consumers from making uneducated decisions about their retirement choices. Posting graphics stating erroneous statements about annuities, life insurance, long-term care insurance, or even final expense insurance could lead to potentially losing your state license or carrier contract, government-imposed fines, or even both.

That’s why the first part of this series is focusing on the compliance part of the social media conundrum, and I will tackle the marketing challenges next time. Until then, here’s a couple of tips of “things to avoid” when posting (or sharing) social media content about financial products (if you do so without compliance or carrier approval as that happens…).

• Avoid absolute words like all, every, always, never, must, nothing, and everything. Instead, you can pivot to words like could, may, frequently, sometimes, some, most of the time, or other statements that leave room for potential exceptions.
• Delete out the “obvious” AI signs in your verbiage. Most people know the first one as the em dash (—) instead of the hyphen (–) happens frequently in AI-generated content. Want to hide the AI? Replace the em dash with the hyphen (Alt Code 0151). A second thing I’ve noticed is AI-generated copy typically doesn’t transition well between sentences. Basically, you’ll have a written thought then a comma to break up the second thought. For example, “An annuity is a retirement product for consumers, designed for guaranteed lifetime income.” Most non-writers don’t see the run-on nature and will look past this, but AI doesn’t transition well between written sentences at times.
• Stay away from AI-generated pictures that include any type of money or showing riches (i.e., retired person on yacht, lighting a cigarette with a $100 bill, etc.). Canva, Adobe, and other stock image sites have pictures of those wonderful people enjoying themselves without the future implications of Richie Rich lifestyles.
• Do not use AI-generated videos of AI people using AI voices to promote you or your products. I’ve seen really bad ones (AI person with a 1983 War Games like voice) and some better versions which look almost real. Be yourself in a video or share carrier/organization approved, compliant content.
• Understand the internet saves just about everything. Mistakes are very difficult to delete as the right or wrong post can be shared by thousands if not millions of people. Before clicking that post button, confirm you want to share that content, graphic, or video.

As a personal user of some social media platforms, marketing is important for your brand, but keeping your brand compliant is just as important as the content itself. For that reason, AIP Marketing Alliance publishes approved social media posts monthly for downline wholesalers and agents to help them educate their customers in a compliant manner.

I’ll talk more about social media marketing in a couple of weeks in our next blog. In the meantime, you are welcome to contact me at darronm@aipma.com to share your thoughts or ask questions regarding compliant social media marketing.

We are #TheRightMIXin26 for independent insurance wholesalers and agents. For more than 40 years, AIP Marketing Alliance (AIPMA), an Integrity Company, serves as a premier life insurance and annuity distribution partner to provide full-service support to independent wholesalers, brokerages and agents from our Troy, Michigan office. NOT AFFILIATED WITH OR ENDORSED BY THE GOVERNMENT OR THE MEDICARE PROGRAM.

AIP Marketing Alliance is committed to supporting our independent insurance wholesalers and agents. Visit our blog on aipma.com to stay informed on these upcoming launches and learn why wholesalers nationwide choose AIPMA as their distributor for selling life insurance, annuities, long-term care insurance, final expense, and much more. Ask about lead programs, access to IntegrityCONNECT’s technology, myAIP CRM platform with customizable recruiter portal, and online tools/resources designed to grow your business. The difference is personal.

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