Ikea på Flickr

Flickr is rapidly becoming a favoured sport for artists and aesthetes of all kinds. "Lovers of the big blue box and all its contents" are no exception - Ikea Lovers alone has 935 members sharing Ikea related photos and discsussing hacks, catalogues and plastic-bag pricing. There are over 2,500 photos in this group alone, and over 50,000 photos on the site tagged with 'ikea'.

Some are expressive or artistic shots of proud people in their minimalist Swedish kitchens, some just flags, stores and products. The sheer wealth of content here is evidenced in the Flickr slideshow video that accompanys Jonathan Coulton's Ikea song. here is a free, open image bank around a brand.

Digg-ing Hacks

Ikeahacks potential is already being realised. One of the most innovative hacks uses a tabletop to make guitars (pictured above). This story is linked to from boing-boing.net and has been 'Dugg' 1974 times making it the top all-time result on Digg for an 'ikea' keyword search.

This "$1500 guitar from a $15 IKEA table" story has attracted alot of attention and shows that social bookmarking services can quickly spread user-generated content online and turn it into valuable brand-engaged web traffic.

Ikea-Friends?

Contrast Ikeahacks to Ikea's own 'Friends' site. It require membership contains information about the Ikea Friends Credit Card (pictured above) details of in-store events and promptions, 'Friends chat', pirate fancy-dress competitions and an E-Newsletter.

I can't imagine who would find this site particularly useful - enthusiastic consumers have already created their own forums, networks and communities and the feel here is immediately corporate and impersonal - it feels and reads like a series of press releases and promotional literature. The tips, recipes and stories can all be found in greater number elsewhere alongside genuine consumer news & reviews.

'Friends' do not try and sell each other high-interest Visa cards - ill-conceived and badly named.

Ikea Hacks

Ikeahacker.blogspot.com encourages people to send in alternative uses they have found for Ikea products. From enamel-painted lamps (pictured above) and dining room dog-beds to bookcases-turned-beds, there are a whole host of ingenious, alternative uses for Ikea furniture.

There are also forums with ideas, advice and sneak peeks of in-progress projects. 2006's best hacks include a pillow-case come skirt and inspiration the author has found on Flickr and been e.mailed directly. There's even 'The Genius Ikea Hack Contest' offering prizes of 'Genius Pads' for the most genius idea for an Ikea hack.

This sort of competition may well have informed Ikea's own marketing strategy. Working with Shycast they've recently encouraged users to create videos based on the brand. Asking people to "break the rules of bed making" there is a $5,000 first prize for the best entry. Joe Mandese identifies this as an attempt to eye real-world behaviour of their fanatical consumers amd Shycast's Mr Peloso talks of "users becoming quasi celebrity spokesman" for the brand, in the future perhaps even doing press tours "treating them like endorsers, because they have ideas that the media would like to hear".

This kind of competition is an interesting niche for Shycast as they can tap into promotional budgets as opposed to targeting traditional PR, TV or search budgets.

IKEAFANS: Personalising the IKEA Experience

"IKEAFANS.com Adds Blogs, Galleries and Article Database
The largest online community of IKEA customers and fans provides what IKEA itself cannot - personalized service" - it's run by a couple in Virginia, USA.

The big one - this site claims to offer what Ikea cannot and includes extensive forums discussing a huge range of topics, and IKEApedia, FAQs, tutorials and a library of member-authored help-files.

It's also a place to show off customised Ikea furniture and finished projects in the galleries, or detail every problem and solution you come across for entertainment and to help others in 'Progress Blogs'.

The community is closed requiring a membership & login to access the majority of content. It is however free, and whilst it trips over the toes of (the far superior) Flickr in the photo-sharing department there is great value in Ikeafans members as they are active contributors to the brand and in reality are reducing the need for expensive 24-hr customer support through their collective enthusiasm.

Ikea or God?

A Swedish poll last year put Ikea ahead of God! Swedes were found to have more trust in the flat-pack furniture giant than in the Church (via Expedia's Twitter Watcher).

Ikea through a Lens

Monica Moody's I Love Ikea! Squidoo lens is another interesting example of how people express their interest in brands. An ikea-lover, "a wife, a mother of 2 toddlers, a business owner and an artist" her lens is neat and well-conceived.

There's a useful selection of content on the page:
- An explanation of what Ikea is
- Deeplinks to useful sections of the ikea website
- Tips for shopping trips
- Links to Ikea-related books on Amazon
- Flickr images
- Ikea comedy & games
- Embedded ikea-related video
- A section called "When Good Ikea Goes Bad"
- and of course a place to sign and show your love for Ikea, with 7 comments.

This site is not a forum or a blog but a page of syndicated information and advice relating to a specific corporate entity by a seemingly satisfied customer. Helping to promote his through submission of feeds to RSS directories and submitting particularly innovative or amusing stories to bookmarking networks traffic to this useful little page could be increased.

This page could be developed into a localised consumer network around Monica Moody's favourite Ikea in Frisco, Texas - bring together some Google Sketchup artistry and she could share the experience via Google Earth. Several of these communities linked together could produce Google Earth layers with global store locations, Google Maps integration (now available in new BMWs in Germany) and share experiences.

A step further from the Ikea Website's 'Ask Anna' having localised customer services personnel assisting in such forums might be useful.