The Russian ad agency of IKEA added a new facet to the already multi-sided social image of the Swedish furniture retailer. IKEA’s new Instagram profile doubles as a website showcasing one of the retailer’s collections.
IKEA is definitely no stranger to new technologies, its augmented reality-enabled mobile apps being an edificatory proof of that. While Instagram is not new, it’s in any company’s best interest to build a strong online presence that covers a lot of social networking sites. The retailer’s ikea_ps_2014 Instagram account has one goal and one goal only, to showcase the PS collection for customers from the Russian market (and possibly from other slavic countries).
When clicking (or tapping, if you happen to use the mobile version of Instagram’s website, or even the Instagram mobile app) on any of the 34 exhibits, a new Instagram account appears with the details of that particular piece of furniture. The social network’s grid structure and tagging features were put to really good use in this particular case, as the ikea_ps_2014 looks very much like a stand-alone website without the additional costs.
Come to think of it, IKEA’s Russian ad agency managed to save the company quite a lot of money which otherwise would’ve been spent on a separate domain, hosting, a team to build a new website from the ground up (that last part no longer takes so much time nowadays, since there are many capable content management systems out there).
At press time, the ikea_ps_2014 account only had 13,392 followers, which I assume it’s only a fraction from the Russian audience of the retailer. However, as the Instagram profile gains momentum, I bet that a lot more people will join the trend.
IKEA’s approach should serve as an example for other marketers, as this idea could turn into a win-win situation, both for Instagram and for companies looking to extend their online presence. On one hand, this stands to prove that Instagram’s functionality can be expanded, and on another hand, it shows how companies could have a greater reach by turn their attention to communication channels that aren’t typically used for marketing.
This new Instagram profile comes a couple of weeks after the Swedish company almost shut down IKEAHackers.com, an independent site that showed people how to use the pieces of furniture in ways IKEA designers had not thought about.
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