There is no doubt that many of us have watched the explosion of Social Media in the news for the last few weeks. We use Socials daily and more often than not, Social Media is in the news and most times for bad reasons.
Here are some very sobering statistics:
Facebook has over 13 million Australian users, YouTube has 14 million visitors a month, Instagram has over 9 million active Australian users, LinkedIn 4.5 million active Australian users and Twitter has 4.6 million active Australian users.
With over 13 million Australian users Facebook cannot really be ignored and there is a potentially rich vein of potential business for Self Storage facilities.
Used correctly.
Which one do you pick to target potential Self Storage customers?
Facebook is the obvious choice with over 75% of the Australian population as members and at any given time of the day 3 million online. Facebook users are you and me, your brother your daughter, your grandmother and your potential customer.
Let’s explore how to target these potential customers.
Understanding social media is the first step. The platform is designed to inform and to socialize and it’s very important not to mix up posting on social media and social media marketing or advertising.
They are two distinctly different activities. Those Ads on the right of your feed are Ads.
Posting
Most Self Storage facilities have a Facebook page and it’s important to resist the urge to start posting away about units that you have for rent unless you have 50,000 followers – which no one has. Posts will generally go unread and that’s because you do not have enough followers to make a difference and your followers could already be customers.
Facebook Marketing
Facebook is a free platform. Creating a page costs nothing. Attracting customers does.
While Facebook was not designed for advertising, from the outset it has become a very effective way to market businesses worldwide and Self Storage can use Facebook to good effect. Facebook has become for many millions as their only internet experience.
It’s like a second Internet and after recent news stories being removed showed 35% of Australians rely on Facebook’s free platform for news.
Success in Facebook marketing comes from understanding two things.
The product offering and your target market.
Engaging advertisements target the market, placing those targeted advertisements into the market segments that you wish to attract will deliver success and it will flow through to the click-through rate of your website. Targeted marketing messages can be very effective in driving traffic to your website and in turn to your promoted product via a landing page.
Targeted marketing campaigns with product offerings targeted to specific market segments in geographic locations relevant to your market works and is cost-effective.
Facebook is an effective medium that can be used to target market your message and to drive traffic to your website which in turn if set up correctly should be able to deliver the message with an opportunity for the customer to buy, now, or in the future.
Secondly, understand your target market, find out who they are and where they live. Then target them using socials advertising tools.
Other Social Media platforms
There are plenty of other social media platforms like Twitter, Yelp, BlogSpot, Pinterest, Google Plus and many more, but they all have one thing in common: a very high percentage of their users are also Facebook users.
LinkedIn is a business based platform and can attract business leads, Twitter particularly is about the moment at hand. Twitter is like a revolving carousel of information. Posts quickly disappear. Good for communicating news.
Other Social Media considerations
Online reputation is critical for Self Storage along with every other business. Complainers are generally merciless and if you have an unhappy customer the potential for them to take to Social Media to make your life difficult is very high.
Creating targeted advertisements and marketing material is a professional job and needs to be understood properly for it to be effective. Not only from a budget perspective but from the type of material that is posted and the target market that is required.
Social media marketing requires specialist social media management skills. Social Media marketing takes a lot of time and it takes time for the results to deliver. Self Storage staff can be part of the process by all means but it would be very easy for social media activity to consume the entire day and no owner will be happy with that!
To summarise, Social Media Marketing is a very effective way to attract new Self Storage business, it’s cost-effective and must be done in conjunction with the facility Website to maximize the value of the marketing offer.
Next time you bump into that person with the head down in their telephone, you want them to be reading one of your sponsored advertisements, not posting a rant about your facility.
The marketing team at R6 Digital™ create engaging Social Media campaigns for many Self Storage facilities, including graphics and offers and those campaigns are successful.
