California operator A-1 Self Storage released the final results of its 2011 U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots annual holiday toy drive. More than 2,200 new and unused toys were collected from A-1 customers and the general public at the company's 40 facilities. The toys were distributed during the holiday season to underprivileged children in each of these areas.

A-1 Self Storage is proud to make a difference in our local communities by participating in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots program each year," said Brian Caster, President and CEO of Caster Cos., the parent organization of A-1 Self Storage. "We are in awe of the overwhelming support from everyone this past holiday season, especially during these tough economic times."

The Toys for Tots program was founded in 1947 by Maj. Bill Hendricks. Its mission is to collect new and unwrapped toys during the holiday season and distribute them as Christmas gifts to needy children in the community in which each campaign is conducted.

A-1 Self Storage has 17 locations in the San Diego County area and more than 40 locations statewide. It is the self-storage division of the Caster Cos., a third-generation, family-owned company headquartered in Southern California since 1959. Caster Cos. develops and manages A-1 Self Storage, A-1 Car Storage and other commercial properties in California. Its portfolio includes more than 4 million square feet of real estate.

The East Haven, Conn., Planning & Zoning Commission unanimously approved a new 57,120-square-foot self-storage facility at 494 Short Beach Road. The commission granted preliminary approval in July 2010, but has now agreed to the necessary rezoning for construction to begin.

New Town Engineer Kevin White told commission members that because he was coming into the project at a late stage, he did have a few minor questions he wanted answered by the developer before construction started. Therefore, the commission made the approval conditional, pending the address of White's concerns.

The facility will sit on approximately 12.4 acres directly behind a Dunkin Donuts. The parcel is owned by Archie Tracy. Rick Raymond addressed the commission on behalf of the developer, Anthony V. Giordano & Associates of West Haven. According to the source, Raymond said the facility will be valued between $5 million to $5.5 million.

Raymond also serves as the vice chairman of the commission. He removed himself from the commission's table just before the discussion and vote. On the other side of the table, he answered his fellow commissioners' questions regarding the proposed facility's plans. An alternate member was appointed to serve in Raymond's place during the agenda item.

Commission members and White questioned Raymond before the vote about the effect the new facility might have on traffic. According to the source, Raymond responded that the new facility should have a minimal impact on traffic flow, citing zero accidents in the area and the state department of transportation's approval of the project design.

Randy A. Smith, director of operations for Another Closet Self Storage in McAllen, Texas, is launching a full-scale attack on the self-storage industry's many aggregation websites in an effort to drive them out of the business. Smith's campaign launched with a controversial video message displayed at NoStorageAggregators.com, where he makes his objective clear.

"I want to see to it that every online storage aggregator has their membership revoked by every self-storage association around the world and see them ejected from the industry." The reason for his mission? "Because they are competitors, not vendors. True vendors don't compete with self-storage facility operators for online self-storage consumers. Aggregators do!"

Self-storage aggregation websites such as SpareFoot.com and USstoragesearch.com consolidate listings of available self-storage units from facilities nationwide. These websites work for the self-storage industry much the same way as Hotels.com for the hotel industry. These aggregators capture consumers online and sell the reservations to facility operators. A representative from SpareFoot.com declined to comment.

"If you look at every other industry that has been dealing with aggregators for a while, you find they are in a mad rush to disengage from them and focus their online efforts in bringing customers directly to their own websites, bypassing the aggregators totally," said Smith. "They realize aggregators are competitors, not partners."

As an example, Smith referred to the fallout that occurred last year when American Airlines pulled its presence away from travel aggregators Orbitz.com and Expedia.com. "Were doing just the opposite in our industry. Were welcoming this threat with open arms. Our ignorance will be costly if we continue on the path were on," asserted Smith.

In addition to his video message, Smith released a whitepaper titled "Dancing With the Devil: How the Self-Storage Industry Is Selling Its Soul to the SpareFoot.coms of the World and the Hell We Are About to Reap for Doing So." A link to the whitepaper and video message was sent to leaders and members of more than 40 U.S. and foreign self-storage associations. Smith said he also sent it to approximately 500 executive-level self-storage contacts from his LinkedIn network. He estimates the circulation of his message to be close to 8,000.

Smith said he hopes to educate the self-storage industry to the point where operators take proactive steps to disengage from all third-party aggregator sites. "Working in unison, operators can minimize the financial damage aggregators are doing to our industry by simply agreeing not to patronize them. Then, their revenue dries up and they fade away," he said.

Smith has been in the self-storage industry for almost 10 years. Another Closet Self Storage, with eight facilities in Texas, operates more than 750,000 square feet of space.

Atlanta-based Storage Post, a self-storage operator with locations on the East and Gulf Coasts, recently donated $500 to Angel Flight, a non-profit organization that provides free transportation for medical and humanitarian purposes. Storage Post's Doraville, Ga., facility is located near Angel Flight's headquarters and the Dekalb-Peachtree Airport, where Angel Flight coordinates charitable missions using private airplanes.

Angel Flight assists hundreds of families each year and is entirely funded by corporate and private donations. The organization's mission is to ensure no one is denied potentially life-saving care because of travel costs. In addition, Angel Flight actively responds to compelling non-medical-related transportation needs and helps reunite families separated by disaster.

"Angel Flight is a compassionate organization with an important goal to help families during difficult times," said Storage Post Chief Operations Officer Jack Chaney. "Many Storage Post employees and members of the management team were affected by Hurricane Katrina. Angel Flight's assistance delivering supplies and medical equipment to New Orleans saved lives. We want to give back to Angel Flight so they can continue to assist those in need in Atlanta and beyond."

Angel Flight provides health-care access by arranging free transportation and offers disaster relief through the delivery of supplies and personnel to areas in need. The organization was founded in 1983 by Jim Shafer, a medical professional and pilot.

Storage Post has locations in Georgia, Louisiana, New Jersey and New York. The company is actively pursuing acquisitions.

By Sheryl Connelly

One of the top questions asked by today's business owners is, Why do I need to be on social media? Its usually followed closely by, Can I really make money using it?

Allow me to dispel the myth: You are not required to use social media to promote your business. No matter what that well-meaning marketing person or business coach says, theres no hard and fast rule in business saying you absolutely need to use social media to properly advertise your self-storage facility. So go ahead and kick the peer pressure to the curb.

To address the second question, Ill ask one back: From where does most of your new business come? If you said word-of-mouth or referrals, then youre among the lucky population who has the potential to really make money using social media. How? Social media is the new word-of-mouth.

Before you get too excited, understand that to garner sales leads from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or any of the social-networking websites, it takes healthy doses of patience and strategy. If youre a business owner who's withstood the recession, you probably have patience in spades, but its putting together a strategy for social media that seems a bit daunting. You may question which networks you should use or what you should say.

Think of social media in terms of a tennis match. Youre using human engagement and dialog to drive preference and loyalty. Think back to the tennis greats. Sure, their talent was exceptional, but it was the way they engaged everyone in the game. In particular, John McEnroe, with his brash comments and passion, kept us on our seats and talking.

Social media is a lot like that. We want to watch some action going back and forth, while being invested in a passionate conversation about something in which we believe. Always keep in mind that social media isnt the conversation, its simply the hypothetical tennis court where the conversation takes place.

There are hundreds of social-media tools out there where conversations are happening. Which ones should you use? None of them ... at least not yet. Dont concern yourself with the tools or platforms available on social media in the beginning. Develop your strategy first, then decide which tools fit best into it. To get you started, Ive outlined seven simple steps to help you develop that elusive social-media strategy.  

Step 1: Develop Your Pitch

For non-writers, this may be a tough exercise, but try to determine what youd say to someone to succinctly convey what your company doesin 120 characters or less. Think of this as your social-media elevator speech or commercial. If you were stuck in a room full of cell-phone users with only Twitter to communicate, what would you post? Yes, I know youre allowed to use 140 characters on Twitter, but you want to leave 20 characters for followers to re-tweet your message with a little message of their own or @mention back to you that their own followers can see.  

Step 2: Evaluate Your Current Relationship With the Online Community at Large

What does the online community already know about you? On a scale of one to five, with one being not aware and five being that you have an active community of advocates for your business, where do you stand?

If online consumers know nothing about your self-storage business, its probably best to start by developing your social-media community through online brand awareness. If you have a somewhat active community of people who rent from you once, you may want to work on increasing customer loyalty. Active community of advocates? Increase sales. You get the picture.  

Step 3: Decide What Kind of Campaign This Will Be

At the end of the day, you have to be able to measure outcomes, so exactly what do you want that result to be? Now that you know where you stand with your current online community, it makes this step easier to determine.

Warning: Strengthening brand awareness, deepening customer loyalty and increasing sales are all worthy outcomes, but dont try to do all of them at once. Pick one and stick with it for a pre-determined amount of time. I recommend a three-month campaign strategy, meaning you will be developing your online community messages and content to support that one strategic objective for a full 90 days.   

Step 4: Research How Your Target Audience Uses Social Media

You cant replace good research when it comes to estimating return on your social-media marketing investment. Forrester Research Inc., an independent technology and market research firm, is a fantastic resource to use when determining how your target audience is using social media. Check out its demographics map at www.forrester.com/groundswell/profile_tool.html. Once you understand the consumer-usage behavior, you wont waste time using the wrong networks to get in front of your target audience.

A word of caution: You may feel pressure to address all demographics on social media because it seems so easy to link network accounts. Dont try to be all things to all people. Focus on no more than three social-media demographics within a campaign. You can always target another demo next time.  

Step 5: Discover Your Remarkable Difference

Social media is fueled by passion. Find that one thing that your business does better than anyone else and build your campaign around it. For Volvo, its safety. Apple capitalizes on its ability to innovate. Disney constantly seeks ways to show how magical it is. Whatever that one thing about your business is, be passionate about sharing it, and the tribe will follow.   

Step 6: Infuse the Human Factor

Social media is about people sharing what they enjoy, find funny or support. Dont feel like you have to do all the work yourself. Allow employees or customers the spotlight to do what social media was designed to do.   

Step 7: Identify How You Will Measure Success

Last, but certainly not least, you must decide how youll measure the success of your campaign. If you skip this all important step, youre doing little more than throwing ideas onto a wall to see if they stick.

The beauty of online tools is theyre trackable. Use productivity tools such as Hootsuite, SproutSocial or Google Analytics to add a bit of accountability and measurement reporting to your campaign. Then you can truly say when and if your efforts are yielding a return.

Ultimately, the determining factor of success on social media is: Are you making more money now than before you started using it? Sounds eerily familiar to all your other marketing tactics, doesnt it?

Once youve outlined or formalized a strategy for using social media to promote your self-storage business, you can then choose which networks or tools make the most sense for you. Contrary to popular belief, social-media success is not about creating business profiles on every social-network platform known to man. Its about using the right networks to build a tribe of believers in your business that will spread the word to their friends so you gain new customers and grow your revenue.  

Sheryl Connelly is CEO of Marketing Media Management, a boutique, full-service, online marketing agency specializing in using social media and digital content to help advertise and promote small businesses. For more information, visit www.managemmm.com .

Self-storage real estate investment trust Extra Space Storage Inc. acquired 28 self-storage properties for $189.9 million during the fourth quarter of 2011.

The properties are in California, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island. Of the 28 properties purchased, 25 came from two separate portfolios. Nineteen properties were from the previously announced acquisition of a portfolio in California. An additional portfolio of six properties was purchased from a joint venture in which Extra Space Storage held a 10 percent equity interest.

In 2011, Extra Space Storage acquired a total of 55 properties in 17 states for approximately $289.6 million.

"Extra Space Storage is a growth-oriented company and these acquisitions demonstrate that we continue to be a disciplined buyer of assets that enhance our best-in-class portfolio, said CEO Spencer F. Kirk. We are excited by the quality, location and growth potential of the acquisitions we made in 2011."

Headquartered in Salt Lake City, Extra Space Storage Inc. is a fully integrated, self-administered and self-managed real estate investment trust. The company owns or operates 882 self-storage properties in 34 states and Washington, D.C.

Strategic Storage Trust Inc., a publicly registered non-traded real estate investment trust investing in self-storage properties, ended 2011 with an estimated $245 million in new acquisitions.

The companys most recent acquisition includes a portfolio of 12 properties in Georgia and Florida totaling approximately 8,000 units and one million square feet for a total aggregate purchase price of approximately $80 million.

"The acquisition of this portfolio will allow us to almost double our presence in the Atlanta market and fuel our ongoing expansion in Florida, said CEO H. Michael Schwartz. This targeted strategy allows for economies of scale and operational efficiencies that are part of our successful business plan. New properties in prime retail locations like these are traits we continue to pursue as we grow and expand our self-storage portfolio."

The 12 facilities will be rebranded under the SmartStop Self Storage trade name and join a rapidly expanding North American retail chain that now includes 91 self-storage properties in 17 states and Canada.

All of the 10 properties in Georgia are within 30 miles of downtown Atlanta, and the two Florida properties are in Jacksonville within seven miles of the city center. The facilities opened between 2006 and 2009, and about 80 percent feature climate-control systems. Many of the properties also offer exterior drive-up units and special parking for recreational vehicles or boats.

Since the launch of Strategic Storage Trust in 2008, the portfolio of wholly-owned properties operating under the SmartStop brand name has expanded to include 79 properties in 17 states and Canada.

#StorChat, the first self-storage community to live on Twitter, will continue to provide online interaction, education and fun for industry professionals in the year ahead, according to a press release issued by its inventors.

Launched in September by co-creators and hosts Kenny Pratt, president of Crescendo Properties, and Rachel Greenfield, marketing analyst for SpareFoot, #StorChat is a weekly online conversation during which self-storage operators gather to discuss business-relevant topics. Participants ask questions, get answers, share their expertise and exchange ideas in an open, real-time exchange.

#StorChat will be expanded in 2012 to include live meet-ups at tradeshows, a monthly blog series on the best lessons learned in chats, and #StorChat challenges that ask participants to experiment with certain marketing or operational efforts and report back to the group on what works and what doesnt.

Previous #StorChat discussions have covered topics ranging from social marketing and sales tools to alternative revenue streams and green initiatives. Ideally, participants walk away with valuable lessons learned.

It flows fastinfo overload, said Cochrane Road Self Storage Manager Gina Six Kudo (@CochraneStorage). I like the interaction and idea exchange aspect, I always learn something.

Bossier Self Storage Manager Richard Hart (@Storage_Boy) said his favorite #StorChat tip was learning how to get tenants to leave video testimonials. Robert Madsen, vice president of U-Lock Mini Storage Group (@StorageMadMan), said he benefited most from discussions on technology tools like Google Docs and blogs.

Six Kudo and Madsen are also contributors and moderators on Self-Storage Talk (www.selfstoragetalk.com), the industry's largest online community, which is available 24/7. SST currently boasts approximately 4,700 members. Membership is free.

All self-storage professionals are invited to participate in #StorChat on Wednesdays, 1-1:30 p.m. PST. More information can be found at http://bit.ly/storchat.

The owners of Murphys U-Store-It purchased Stop N Store Self Storage in Algonquin, Ill., for $2.8 million, or $51.09 per square foot. Built in 1986, the 54,800-square-foot facility has 394 self-storage units on nearly 6 acres.

Jack and Phil Murphy, father and son, own more than 10 self-storage facilities in Illinois. Phil Murphy is also CEO and founder of Storage By The Box, a ship-and-store, by-the-box storage option that allows customers to ship and retrieve boxes for storage through a secure online portal.

Sean Delaney, a senior associate and John Pasquesi, an associate in the Oak Brook office of Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services, had the exclusive listing to market the property on behalf of the seller, an individual, and the buyer. The marketing campaign yielded more than 20 tours of the property and 11 offers resulting in the property selling for 100 percent of its original list price.

Marcus & Millichap specializes in commercial real estate investments. The company has more than 1,200 investment professionals in offices nationwide.