Electronic Word of Mouth on Instagram: Customers’ Engagements with Brands in Different Sectors

Abstract

Marketers desire to reach more customers through means of social media, and thus create official accounts on these websites. Instagram, which has become a popular social media website in recent years, allows users to post pictures or short videos through appealing filters; this feature provides opportunity for marketers to promote themselves by creating content. However, not all content generated by marketers achieve a similar response from users: whilst some content achieves a high response from customers and widely spreads through electronic word of mouth (eWOM), others do not. There may be many factors affecting customers’ engagements; however, in this study, we focus on sectoral differences. The question is posed: Are sectoral differences one of the reasons behind the different customer engagement ratios of brand posts on Instagram? In order to answer this question, a comparison was conducted across 100 Instagram posts, posted by brands from 8 different sectors. The results show significant differences between sectors; customers’ engagement with brands in the beverages sector through liking is almost 2.5 times higher than brands in the apparel-luxury sector. Moreover, customers’ engagement with brands in the electronics sector through commenting is almost 8 times higher than brands in the apparel sector.

Keywords

• electronic word of mouth (ewom)
• social media
• instagram
• customer engagement
• sectoral differences