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How a 70 Year Old Brand Speaks Social

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Ken Schneider is the head of social media at U-Haul, the industry leader in do-it-yourself moving and self-storage. U-Haul was established 70 years ago by L.S. “Sam” Shoen to fill the need for one-way moving trailers. In the same sense of filling a void, U-Haul was spurred to become active on social media as their customers were trying to engage their unmoderated accounts.

In episode 99, you’ll hear how U-Haul has evolved from no social media activity as recently as four years ago, to engaging with customers to drive brand loyalty and conversions today. Ken discusses how U-Haul regularly experiments with channels and content and how they measure what’s working for the brand.

99_uhaul
Imaged source from U-Haul on Twitter

On this episode you’ll discover:

  • How U-Haul started to monitor their established social media accounts four years ago when they realized customers were engaging with them.
  • How U-Haul is creating and providing helpful content, like moving hacks, to engage their customers.
  • How there are three (Social Cares, Community Management and Marketing) teams handling social media at U-Haul and what each of those is responsible for.
  • How Ken says they faced a learning curve with regard to discovering what resonates best with their audience and how well they’re answering questions.
  • Why Ken says the hardest thing for the Social Cares team in handling complaints is to ensure their SLAs don’t go down.
  • How all queries and complaints are handled in headquarters and then followed up with communication to the relevant local stores.
  • Why Ken tells his team to experiment every day on social media with regard to the types of content and channels and how they review metrics to see what’s working.
  • How U-Haul experimented with Snapchat to target college students regarding “College Boxes” and the role of their social media interns in the campaign.
  • Why Ken says social media has improved customer care, deflected calls, and allowed U-Haul to fill the content gap on their website.
  • Why Ken says, they’ve increased traffic and revenue by “looking at what our customers are talking about and asking, and forming the editorial calendar around what people need.”

Look at what your customers are talking about & asking to form an editorial calendar. @cmosidekick
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  • How Ken says U-Haul is becoming more mature on social and how they will be increasing their activity on Pinterest and YouTube.
  • How Ken’s “one thing” is to ask yourself if you are providing value to the customer with each piece of content.

Featured On This Episode:

There are TWO WAYS you can listen to this podcast with Ken Schneider from U-Haul…

You can click the Listen Now button at the top of this page… Or, you can listen from your mobile device’s podcast player through iTunes or Stitcher.

P.S. Next week’s podcast will be episode 100. I will solo on this episode to give you a preview of what’s in store for Social Business Engine over the next 100 episodes. Subscribe to our podcast to stay current on new episodes delivered to your inbox every Friday!

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