5th Spanish Self-Storage Conference: a well-matched sector

[sohanuzzaman56]

[By Jorge Mira ] On October 29th I had the opportunity to participate as a speaker at the 5th Spanish Self-Storage Conference , organized by AESS (Spanish Self-Storage Association) , to talk about Social Media Marketing .

Special thanks to Jos Collin , Director of Reserva Self-Storage and President of AESS , for inviting me. Thanks also to Sandra Noy , Manager of the Association, for her excellent professionalism before and during the Congress.

Participation in this congress has been, overall, a very rewarding bc data europe experience. I have been able to see first-hand the good relationship that exists between the members of the Association, who in some cases are direct competitors. The atmosphere has been very cordial.

These good relations undoubtedly contribute to consolidating the collaborative style between companies that Santiago Niño-Becerra prescribed during his presentation to overcome the crisis. We must move - he told us - from hyper-individualism to a situation of coordination and cooperation (between companies).

The Internet, the 2.0 phenomenon, certainly helps to foster this collaboration. Thus, in my presentation on Social Media Marketing I gave as an example a forum of Self-Storage companies in the United States, which accumulates thousands of messages, where these companies share all kinds of knowledge and experiences from all the areas that affect them (sales, logistics, marketing, legal…).

Along with the theory, I had the opportunity to present some success stories and good practices in the sector. In the United States and Canada, it is the small and medium-sized self-storage companies that are leading the way. We saw the cases of Jiffy Self-Storage and SelfStorAll . Although there are also larger companies that take advantage of social networks and have managed to connect with their audiences in this environment, such as the New York-based Manhattan Mini Storage .

In Europe, we took a special look at the case of Espazo , which was also present in the room. A small company that has more than 30,000 fans on Facebook and that treats each one exquisitely. A glance at its wall is enough. The conversation with the Espazo executives, over coffee, confirmed to me that their investment in social networks has been worthwhile. They give value to the client and, in return, many of their clients are true brand evangelists.

Some large companies are also doing interesting things on social media, such as Big Yellow in the UK. In Spain, Guardatodo stands out , present in the room, as they understand social media as one of their ordinary communication channels.

However, the conclusion is that in Europe there are still very few examples of companies that have incorporated Social Media into their marketing and business strategy . There is still a lot to do. I hope that it will encourage attendees to jump into the ring soon