UPS has a huge Facebook following and Amanda Phillips, MD & head of strategy at Volume, examines how it’s managing its mammoth social presence
UPS is a global package delivery company that handles more than 15 million packages a day in over 220 countries and territories.
As a global services company, UPS faces one of the trickiest challenges in successfully circumnavigating social media. Insufficiently-moderated social channels in this space can quickly descend into a free-for-all of negativity. With UPS serving over six million customers every day, naturally the page attracts the minority of disgruntled customers who wish to air their grievances.
Direction
UPS has approached its Facebook channel with a multi-pronged approach. Firstly, it looks to promote and seed its key messaging: the power of logistics. However, UPS realises logistics is a potentially challenging concept for your everyday customer; therefore the brand goes to great lengths to position itself as helpful and accessible. It seeks to leverage its various sponsorships to spark debate and provide a host of engaging content for its audience.
Alongside the primary news feed engagement, UPS then provides two key services for its customers; both easily visible and accessible. UPS’ ‘My Choice’ offers solutions to one of the most common customer headaches; missed deliveries, while the ‘Track a Package’ widget offers to connect users with customer service representatives quickly and effectively.
Page: facebook.com/ups
Number of likes: 1,019,854
Talking about this: 45,615
1: The human face of UPS is immediately brought to the fore with employee images on the cover photo.
2: Image-driven content brings logistics – a typically dry subject – to life without compromising brand integrity.
3: A service-led company will naturally receive complaints, but UPS makes a point of responding to all queries.
4: UPS leverages its sponsorships well, but must ensure it doesn’t alienate non-sports fans with balanced content.
Engagement
The number of fans talking about the brand is well over 400,000 which, relative to the amount of likes, is huge. Typically, content will reach about 10 per cent of your audience organically, and UPS’s engagement far outstrips that.
The tone is friendly and engaging, but without compromising the integrity of the brand. Many companies fall foul of Facebook etiquette by communicating informally on one level with consumers, but failing to provide the necessary, more formalised customer service function that many users will visit the page specifically for.
UPS excels at leveraging its various athlete and sport sponsorships, but it can feel a little too overly focused towards sports. While content such as specially-designed infographics, exclusive videos and new statistical insights into sport all represent interesting, valuable and shareable content; it could alienate users that aren’t as enthusiastic about basketball and Formula 1. UPS does break this up somewhat by seeking to tell some of the quirkier stories from across its vast workforce. This adds a human-interest element to the page and furthers a positive and warm perception of its staff.
UPS has recognised the majority of complaints are about missed/lost deliveries, and deals well with negative comments. Although the experience is tarnished slightly by foul language and poor grammar from other users, perhaps moving this to a dedicated widget might still allow the user interaction to happen but also make sure it’s not displayed full frontal on the homepage.
With so many companies still unsure how to successfully navigate this tricky social channel, UPS offers a solid benchmark. The posts are creative and leverage assets well.
While the heavy focus on sports-related content may not appeal to the majority of customers, the authenticity with which it delivers its communications mean the positives far outweigh the negatives.
Overall rating: 7/10
