Social Media Specialist Maria Caballero accepted the award this year at the Salt Lake City, UT, ceremony.

“We love engaging with our customers through our social media channels,” said Caballero. “Each social media platform has a unique strategy to create engaging content that will resonate with each audience differently. Understanding those audiences is fundamental to having a successful marketing program and generating revenue.”

Caballero joined Extra Space a year ago, right as the team started to see a fundamental shift in how audiences were engaging with online content due to the rise in popularity of short-form video.

“Even though we’ve been at the forefront of social media marketing in the self storage industry for many years, we knew this change was an opportunity to improve our strategy,” Caballero continued. “However, due to the lack of internal resources to create authentic short-form videos, we quickly realized that our influencer program could solve this issue.”

The team’s goal was to generate authentic and diverse content that would connect with customers. To do this, they partnered with thirty macro- and micro-influencers. They diversified the pool of creators by collaborating with DIY creators, realtors, professional organizers, small business owners, and moms-to-be.

“Our purpose was to empower our creators to be original and unique when producing content for their audiences. The aim was to have a wide variety of content that could appeal to multiple personas and demographics. We could then repurpose the content they created through our social and paid channels.”

Leveraging creators to showcase the Extra Space brand and produce relevant and authentic content has resulted in extraordinary results. In just 10 months, impressions and engagement on social platforms increased substantially. Additionally, by implementing the new collaboration tag feature on Instagram, brand reach has increased 800%. It leverages the influencers’ audiences, allowing the brand to be seen by the masses and untapped demographics.

“Working with influencers has allowed us to grow our brand recognition, facilitate our content creation process, and drive more traffic to our website. We are ecstatic about the program’s progress and the results it will continue to generate.”

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