Social media strategy: IKEA

We hear a lot how companies are embracing social media to communicate and engage with their costumers. As I was looking for a brand that uses social media I found IKEA.

IKEA has developed several channels to communicate with customers online and build its brand:

• Live support chat: a customer support chat is available 24 hours through the website within the US.
• Online catalog: the PDF document allows people to circle items and zoom in to get a better view.  Also, readers can send and print specific pages to themselves or friends.
• Virtual planner: people can download a program to their desktops and plan an entire room virtually from bedrooms to kitchens and even offices.
• Facebook: IKEA has a Facebook page that is frequently updated with photos from IKEA and fans.
• Website: IKEA fans have created www.ikeafans.com, a site that is not affiliated with IKEA in any way. The website was created to give more IKEA information than is available on the internet. Ikeafans has also an account on Twitter.

When IKEA opened a new store in Malmo, Sweden they announced it via Facebook. They decided to create an account for the store manager at the Malmo store. Over a two-week period, employees from IKEA started to upload showroom images to his Facebook photo album. People had the opportunity to use the “tagging” feature to locate items in the pictures and put their name on it. The first person to tag an object got to take it home. This campaign genereated buzz through out Facebook and users started including links and images in their own profiles and across news feeds. IKEA managed to promote its new store via its customers who were eager to spread the word.

This video describes the campaign in detail: