Case Study: Square achieves Instagram success through community curation with Buffer

Square’s Community Curation Strategy

Square, a financial-technology company that provides payment and business tools to millions of sellers, faced the challenge of turning a vast but underused community into a consistent source of meaningful social content while conveying the company’s purpose of economic empowerment. The goal was to grow an engaged Instagram audience and demonstrate the real impact of Square’s products without relying solely on traditional brand posts.

Square’s solution was a community-curation strategy built on high-quality user-generated content and purpose-driven storytelling: they cultivate relationships with sellers, share their stories and visuals, run Instagram Stories takeovers and series like Heart + Hustle, and feature product-forward imagery. The approach created a steady content pipeline, boosted engagement, amplified small-business stories, and helped Square build an audience of more than 1,000,000 across social channels (including about 50,000 Instagram followers) while reinforcing their mission to empower entrepreneurs.

Square

Nick Dimichino

Social Media Lead