Comparing the effectiveness of different organic growth strategies for Instagram

• Autor(a) principal: Pereira, Catarina de Noronha Macedo
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/26946
• topic: Social media; Instagram; Organic growth; Followers; Engagement; Digital interactions; Firm-generated content; Redes sociais; Crescimento orgânico; Digital; Seguidores; Interações; Conteúdos; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Economia e Gestão

Instagram is becoming one of the top social networks, having recently reached 1 billion monthly active users. Marketers use it not only for advertising, but also for building up a substantial follower base of potential consumers who can provide insights and grant credibility to the brand. As such, digital marketing experts debate on which is the best strategy to grow organically on Instagram, i.e. to attract followers without relying on paid advertisement. This dissertation empirically tests three organic growth strategies through an experiment performed on two Instagram brand pages – one with an emotional appeal to its content, and the other with a rational appeal. The first strategy (Content strategy) is based on posting content regularly, while also using hashtags and geotags. The other two strategies (Engagement and Follow) rely on interacting with target users, either by writing comments or following them. Throughout four weeks, the daily impacts on follower count and average engagement were tracked. The results indicate that the Follow strategy is the most effective at generating follower growth, for both emotional and rational brands. On the other hand, having a strong Content strategy is the best way to foster engagement. A key finding is that the growth and engagement generated by the strategies are significantly higher for the emotional brand. This implies that marketers must present their brand’s Instagram content in a more sentimental way, adapting to the visual-oriented culture of this social network, otherwise the results of their organic marketing efforts will not reach their true potential.