Understandably, the natural reaction to the suggestion of social networking for many brokers will be... "I'm in insurance, nobody ever wants to socialise with me."  Alas this is all too true.

At parties, in days gone, by I used to say that I was in IT - which was true - except everybody then wanted to talk about the problems they'd been having with their PC or, worse, their printer.  I then developed the self-preserving habit of declaring myself in IT, but with a strong insurance bias - which was true.  Most times this was not enough to put people off and we'd get around to their printer problems just a little later on.

Now I tell them that I'm in insurance - which is true - and if they don't recoil immediately, I add... commercial insurance.  If I like the look of them, then, obviously, I tell them something entirely different - which may not be true.

Anyway, the point is, that insurance people and social networking are unlikely bedfellows.  Indeed, given most people's reaction to the news that one is involved in insurance, it is a miracle that anybody within the industry ever marries outside of it, except to teachers, who often remain single up to an age at which they become desperate.

How insurance brokers can - or can't - exploit social networking sites for business purposes is a topic that we shall look at in more detail in due course.