Strategic Customer Engagement on Instagram : a case of global Business to Customer (B2C) brands

Abstract: As a relatively new social networking site (SNS), Instagram’s user database has been growing at a staggering rate since it was first launched in 2010. Marketing practitioners have been making efforts on this increasingly popular mobile image (and video) capturing and sharing service to reach the end-users, more importantly, to build lasting relationships with them. Academic scholarship on customer engagement while brands using Instagram commercially remains limited. This thesis addresses the question of what kind of marketing content brands could utilize to engage customers strategically on Instagram in the business to customer (B2C) environment. This study follows literature study, positive paradigm, and employed case study design. The data were collected by qualitative content analysis method from notable brands on Instagram on a longitude basis for one year. Three brand profiles from a variety of industry were tracked during the period. As a result, this thesis found message types and post content that have a significant impact on the followers, likes, and comments, which were treated as manifest variables for consumer engagement. For B2C brands from different industries, this thesis sets out a framework as well as detailed Instagram strategies that correspond with components of post types for achieving different engagement purposes. This thesis focuses on analyzing global B2C brands’ Instagram posts posted on their own Instagram pages. It extends current knowledge on the performance of Instagram customer engagement by developing a framework that helps brands determine their customer engagement strategies by harnessing the power of image.