In June 2014, in a bar in Amsterdam, three friends discovered something interesting. All of them had been sharing pictures of their feet on beautiful floors on their Instagram accounts. They had this thing with floors. That night they kind of spontaneously decided to create an Instagram account, they added the tagline “when feet meet nice floors, make a selfeet”, and so their little adventure began. Meet Edith Beurskens, Josha Jansen and Pien van Wijmen.
Could you give a little introduction of the people behind the project?
We are three friends from Amsterdam. We met while working for Marie-Stella-Maris, a Dutch company selling natural mineral water and natural care products. We are Edith Beurskens, Art Director at Marie-Stella-Maris; Josha Jansen, Marketing Communications Manager at Marie-Stella-Maris, and Pien van Wijmen, freelance Communications Specialist & illustrator. We all live in Amsterdam and we love creating new things, beautiful and smart design, brands with style and an honest story, discovering new music in great new places. And, of course, we are crazy for beautiful floors!
What has changed since the moment of creating I Have This Thing With Floors back in 2014?
We talked about sharing our own photos and about regramming the pictures from others that we came across that appealed to us. We got excited to make it a social platform, where people from all over the world can find and share the most beautiful floors they come across. Within weeks it became clear that people were enjoying our concept. The amount of followers grew insanely fast and lots of people began to share their creations with #ihavethisthingwithfloors. Many other #ihavethisthingwith… (e.g. red, clouds, carpets, flowers, etc.) accounts and hashtags have been created after June 2014. It seemed like we’d set a trend.
How did you gain such a big following?
Just by using the hashtag. Within a few months our account was tagged and named by huge bloggers, international magazines like Vogue US and celebrities like Reese Witherspoon – after she posted an IHTTWF we gained around 30.000 followers in 24 hours. Even Instagram itself blogged about us. We’ve had many great peeks in the last year and a half, but our biggest achievement is hitting the 500.000 followers only 15 months after we started.
Based on what criteria do you decide to repost someone’s photo on the Instagram account of IHTTWF?
Our decision to post a photo on our Instagram is based on brightness, colours and if it’s a new and interesting floor.
What makes you different from your competitors?
We are a highly involved and committed community. We didn’t start our Instagram account to earn money with it. We want to focus on the involvement of our followers by regramming ‘normal’ people like you and me, instead of focussing on clothes and brands.
You don’t add the location to the photos, how come?
We do, mostly, but not all locations are known.
Every photo features a nice floor and feet. Are you thinking about collaborations with footwear brands (e.g. socks, shoes), places or stores that sell nice floors?
This might be an option, but we don’t want to become too commercial. It should stay fun for the community and followers should still be able to get featured.
What will the future bring to I Have This Thing With Floors?
The future will bring even more nice people that are sharing beautiful floors. It’s unbelievable how many there exist!
