While browsing YouTube, I came across a very unique Internet Marketing campaign based on the Social Media platform, Facebook. As a way to promote a new location, IKEA created a Facebook account for the future manager of this location. The first phase of this Social Media Marketing campaign was to add friends within the geographic region the store was opening in (dubbed “network” by Facebook). The next phase involved uploading pictures of “showrooms” or fully decorated and designed mock rooms.
Those two phases are pretty basic; add friends and post pictures on a Social Media platform of what you’re selling. The innovative part is what IKEA did with those pictures. As each picture was posted, it was labeled with a caption informing viewers that the first person to tag themselves on a particular object displayed in a showroom would win that object. They posted 12 pictures on this Facebook account within a two week span of time. The results of this Internet Marketing campaign and how they were able to use the Facebook platform is what is really notable.
Every time you are tagged in a picture on Facebook, that picture then shows up in your friends’ news feeds as well as on your actual profile page. It will come up in the “Photos You are Tagged In” category as well. Therefore, when one person would tag themselves in these photos, they were in turn exposing all of their Facebook friends to this picture and the caption informing their friends of the giveaway, too. Most people have Facebook friends that live in the same network so by exposing one person in that network to a new product or service in their area, you are able reach thousands more. The exposure to this Internet Marketing campaign increased exponentially with each person who participated by tagging themselves.
This model of Internet Marketing through Social Media is a fantastic way to gain exposure to products or services within a particular network of people. It’s also an Internet Marketing campaign that could easily be taken global. A side benefit of this campaign was that it spawned a life of its own. The participants began to request more photos and share the photos with their friends and this residual exposure was at no additional cost. The simplicity of this campaign compared to what is accomplished is applaud-able. Way to go, IKEA. Bravo!
Here is the video: