Co-creating the corporate brand on Instagram through hashtags

(1)

#Co-Creating the Corporate Brand on

Instagram through Hashtags

Eva Heithausen

10968059

Master Thesis

University of Amsterdam

Graduate School of Communication

Corporate Communication

Supervisor: Dr. Pytrik Schafraad

Date of Completion: 24.06.2016

(2)

(3)

Abstract

Instagram just announced to have surpassed the milestone of 500 monthly active users and most impressively gained 100 million of these only within the last nine months (Heine, 2016). These facts show that Instagram is a powerful social network where organizations need to establish a strong corporate brand. Brand-hashtags symbolize the corporate brand on

Instagram. However, hashtags are free intellectual wealth that can be used by anyone. Thus, public users of Instagram are able to express their brand image and ultimately co-create the corporate brand by posting the corporate hashtag in combination with associated hashtags. However, the question is whether public users co-create the corporate brand in the company’s intended way and so far no research has addressed the subject of alignment through hashtags. Thus, this study assessed how corporate brands are co-created through the use of hashtags on Instagram. The results revealed that companies do not fully take advantage of co-creational features, like promoting the brand-hashtag, reposting or tagging to influence the public user’s brand image. Further, companies and public users establish hashtag contexts around the brand-hashtag to provide more meaning. These hashtags contexts have to be coherent in order to lead to an alignment. This alignment can further be facilitated through posting implicit pictures.

Future research can deepen the insights into the importance and role of hashtag contexts for corporate branding.

(4)

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1. #Co-Creating the Corporate Brand on Instagram through Hashtags

In a materialized world where people can have products and services in abundance, it can be hard for companies to differentiate themselves from their competitors. Nowadays, not the products and services position a corporation within the market but a strong corporate brand needs to sell the vision and culture as unique value propositions (Chang, 2014; Hatch & Schultz, 2003). Thus, organizations need to create strong corporate brands, which have the power to affect a consumer’s brand experiences and ultimately influences purchasing intentions (Chang, 2014; Hatch & Schultz, 2003).

Especially social media networks like Instagram create influential opportunities for brand building practices, as organizations and consumers alike can express their opinion and thus co-create the corporate brand through visual storytelling (Henning-Thurau et al., 2010).

Although research has started to capture the potential of Instagram as a brand

management tool, no study has examined how corporate brands are co-created through the use of hashtags on Instagram. Especially hashtags give organizations the possibility of analysing whether their brand-hashtag is associated with attributes that the organization would attach to their brand themselves. However, the question how consumers are using the branded hashtags remains. Therefore, the following research question will be answered:

“How are organizations’ corporate brands co-created through the use of hashtags on Instagram?”.

As studies researching hashtags only considered its originating platform Twitter and research on Instagram utilized mainly qualitative methods, this study will contribute valuable insights into how Instagram can be used for co-creational branding purposes using the brand-hashtag by employing quantitative content analysis.

(6)

2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

2.1. #What is the Corporate Brand?

A corporate brand can be defined as the expression and images of an organization's identity, which is in turn defined as the organization's strategic choices. These strategic choices are for example the vision or values, by which the corporate brand is established and that need to be communicated with the organization's consumers (Abratt & Kleyn, 2012).

However, the corporate brand is not exclusively built by the organization but also consumers create their brand image through interactions with brand-associated experiences (Abratt & Kleyn, 2012). Since the corporate brand is co-created by different parties,

organizations need to align their vision, culture and image in order to establish a consistent personality of the corporate brand with which consumers want to identify and interact (Hatch & Schultz, 2001; Hatch & Schultz, 2003). The management's strategic vision represents what the organization seeks to be and lives up to, thus it is important that this vision is represented by the corporate brand (Hatch & Schultz, 2001).

Moreover, it is important that this strategic vision is understood and supported by external stakeholders' images to co-create the brand in the, by the management, intended way (Hatch & Schultz, 2009). Otherwise an alignment between the organizational identity and the

external stakeholder’s image is not even possible. Thus, organizations need to ask themselves if they are communicating their corporate brand effectively and what images external

stakeholders are associating with their brand (Hatch & Schultz, 2001).

2.2. #Co-Creating on Instagram

Especially nowadays, social media networks like Instagram provide a powerful platform for organizations to communicate their corporate brand to consumers in an

interactive way. However, Web 2.0 technologies primarily empowered consumers, who can now express and share their opinions about brands (Henning-Therau et al., 2010; Fournier & Avery, 2011). Thus, organizations are not able to establish a distinctive corporate brand anymore without listening to their consumers. Rather, the company and consumers are engaging in a dialogue through which corporate brand values are co-created (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004). Hence, by allowing users to interact with their corporate Instagram

(7)

profile, organizations give access to information and are displaying transparently their corporate identity (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004).

However, providing this transparency and access, consumer can interpret and judge the corporate brand. This leaves the possibility of misinterpretation and criticism, which can hurt the corporation (Hatch & Schultz, 2009). Therefore, organizations not only need to establish their brand on social media but rather need to monitor what is said about their brand in order to protect it (Fournier & Avery, 2011).

On the one hand, co-creating the corporate brand provides benefits as relationships with consumers can be created with which the company can understand even better what consumers think and need (Ind, Iglesias & Schultz, 2013). This leads to an improvement of products and services, which can cause competitive advantages (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004). In order to benefit the most of the co-creational power of social media networks like Instagram, organizations need to listen, be receptive, provide feedback and act accordingly. This will encourage consumers to keep sharing their ideas and opinions (Ind, Iglesias & Schultz, 2013). Nevertheless, consumers brand expectations could also get damaged, which will shape and ultimately harm the consumer’s brand image.

2.3. #Organizations on Instagram

Established in 2010, Instagram is a relatively new social network that has more than 500 million active monthly users around the world nowadays, making Instagram one of the most popular social networks (Instagram, 2016a). Instagram is a social network to share photos that users can edit with filters and then upload on their profiles. The photos can be provided with a caption and hashtags. In 2013, Instagram has started to promote their app as marketing and communication tool for businesses. Since then, organizations increasingly use the social media app for their corporate branding purposes (Instagram, 2016b). It is argued that organizations try to create interactions with their (potential) consumers to co-create experiences that will influence the consumer’s brand image through branded hashtags.

The way Instagram is used to build these interactions can depend on whether an organization is using the social photo-sharing network already for a long time or has just started. The study by Berg and Steiner (2015) established a distinction between Newbies and Oldies in terms of their Instagram use. Newbies are characterized to be relatively new to Instagram and thus are in an experimental stage where the organization uses the app to reach

(8)

as many users as possible to first create brand awareness. Further, these organizations do not develop a distinctive way of expressing their corporate identity through the caption, reposts or tags.

However, Oldies look back on an extensive Instagram experience. These organizations had time to test and evaluate how to use Instagram most effectively for their branding

purposes. They use Instagram’s co-creational benefits like the caption of a post for questions or call-to-actions. Further, they mobilize their audience directly and also repost and tag more purposefully (Berg & Steiner, 2015). According to the study by Bergström and Bäckman (2013), utilizing these co-creational features, as for example mobilizing the public users to post the brand-hashtag, can increase the level of interaction by almost five times and thus can help to promote the corporate identity more strategically. Therefore, it is argued that Oldies use more co-creative features to get their corporate identity across than Newbies.

H1: Oldies use more direct co-creative features on Instagram than Newbies to promote the corporate brand-hashtag.

Since Instagram is mainly a social network, where consumers and organizations alike can upload pictures that will be seen by others, it is important to examine the content of these pictures. Users are posting pictures on Instagram to self-brand and express themselves by incorporating products and services into their lives, thus attaching a specific value to the corporate brand (Carah & Shaul, 2016; Chang, 2014). By co-creating the corporate brand, consumers extract benefits from the interaction with the organization. On the one hand, they can gain knowledge about the organizations and on the other hand these interactions will evoke (new) emotions, which will influence the brand perception (Pongsakornrungsilp & Schroeder, 2011; Kristoffersson & Göransson, 2015). To evoke such positive feelings, organizations are trying to inspire their followers and anyone who sees their pictures with the uploaded content on Instagram (Berg & Steiner, 2015). Using Instagram for business

purposes, Instagram (2016c) highlights the claim to “Inspire People Visually With Your Business' Story “. Accordingly, Instagram stresses to be a branding tool that is able to engage and connect organizations and consumers by allowing the organization to present a more personal picture by expressing its identity rather than a tool to promote sales (Instagram, 2016c; Berg & Steiner, 2015).

The study by Chang (2014) investigated whether companies used implicit or explicit promotional strategies to promote their corporate brand on Instagram. The study revealed that organizations used more implicit images that displayed a wider, non-product-focused brand

(9)

picture, whereas the consumers posted explicit images that showed the product or service directly to express themselves through the brands used.

Hence, it is argued that Oldies know about the power of pictures and use them more as an inspiration to engage with the users. Therefore, Oldies promote the brand implicitly and establish their identity on Instagram. Whereas, Newbies use more explicit promotional

strategies when posting pictures, as they are less experienced. Moreover, users also post more explicit pictures since they see Instagram as a self-branding platform where they use the brand and accordingly the brand-hashtag to promote themselves.

H2a: Oldies post more implicit pictures than Newbies.

H2b: Users post more explicit pictures than Oldies or Newbies.

2.4. #The (Brand-) Hashtag on Instagram

Organizations present their corporate identity through the pictures, captions and hashtags they post on their Instagram profiles. Especially, the brand-hashtag is an important feature that is used to express the corporate identity. Thus, based on Abratt and Kleyn’s (2012) definitions of the corporate identity and corporate brand, it is argued that the brand-hashtag symbolizes the corporate brand on Instagram and thus has the power to influence the user’s brand image.

Hashtags can be used and created by anyone by adding the # - sign in front of any word by which this word is transformed into searchable links that can be found by all members of Instagram (Highfield & Leaver, 2015). Thus, by creating a brand-hashtag, the organization is able to be found by users and further connects all pictures that are tagged with the brand-hashtag, which facilitates the creation of a brand community (Chang, 2014).

Moreover, hashtags serve as topic markers that highlight special subjects, ideas, events, locations, or emotions and thus create a specific meaning around the posted picture (Kristoffersson & Göransson, 2015; Highfield &Leaver, 2015).

As discussed in the first section, Instagram is used mostly as a self-branding platform by consumers who upload pictures that depict specific products that are associated with their personal life. However, only posting these branded pictures is not enough but consumers also want their photos to be seen by others to finally receive likes, comments and followers as a sign of status (Page, 2012.; Chang, 2014; Lindahl & Öhlund, 2013). Thus, it is argued that consumers post a lot of hashtags to create more awareness and interaction by which the

(10)

possibility to be found increases (Bergström & Bäckmann, 2013). The same is argued for organizations that are new on Instagram since they first need to create a brand community and also try to reach as many users as possible (Bergström & Bäckmann, 2013).

However, using as many hashtags as possible does not create the most engagement and leads to success. The study by TrackMaven (2016) revealed that the number of hashtags used has a strong impact on the effectiveness of the whole post: up to five hashtags used will create the most engagement. Moreover, the study also revealed that for accounts with less than a thousand followers the level of interaction increased tremendously when more than eleven hashtags were used. As public users are naturally not popular per se and thus normally do not have thousands of followers, it is argued that public users will in general post more hashtags than Oldie or Newbie companies because receiving a lot of likes and generating followers is important as a form of recognition and confirmation.

H3a: Oldies post less hashtags than Newbies.

H3b: Users post more hashtags than Oldies or Newbies.

Not only the frequency of hashtags used will influence the success of an

organization’s efforts to co-create the corporate brand but also what kind of hashtags are used. Inspired by the optimality theory framework, the study by Tsur, Rappoport, Adar, Teevan, Agichtein, and Maarek (2012) proofed that a successful hashtag should be clear, informative and not too complex. Accordingly, a hashtag should not be too long and thus should not be composed of too many single words, as these kinds of hashtags seem to be harder to remember and are not easy to replicate.

Since organizations want Instagram users to co-create their brand in an aligned way, it is argued that they post less complex hashtags, consisting of only one, two or three words in maximum in order to facilitate the imitation. Since Newbies are still in the experimental stage, the question is whether these organizations do not know yet how to best compose hashtags and are thus using more complex hashtags than Oldies?

H4: Oldies use less complex hashtags than Newbies.

To actually measure whether the co-creational strategy of an organization is effective and successful, it is a standard business practice to count the likes and comments a post receives (Carah & Shaul, 2015; TrackMaven, 2016). These likes and comments serve as a measure to deduce how active and engaged public users and followers are with the company’s profile (TrackMaven, 2016). If organizations use co-creational features by, for example,

(11)

encouraging its users to post their brand-hashtag or to like their posts, the organization interacts with their imagined audience and can boost the brand awareness. Moreover, by analysing the interaction and engagement with their Instagram profile, the organization can tailor their Instagram branding strategies accordingly (Carah & Shaul, 2015).

However, since Newbies did not develop a distinctive branding strategy yet and thus do not benefit the most of Instagram’s co-creational features, it is argued that their posts will create less interaction than the posts of Oldies. Moreover, Oldies are active on Instagram for a longer time and could have already generated a larger follower base than Newbies. It is likely, that if an organization has more followers, they will also receive more likes and comments (TrackMaven, 2016).

H5: Oldies generate more likes and comments than Newbies when taking the amount of followers into account.

In order to communicate their corporate brand effectively, it is proposed that organizations select hashtags that symbolize, support and finally establish their corporate identity in a strategically way on Instagram. However, these hashtags need to be interpreted by consumers in its intended way in order to shape the user’s brand image. Thus, associated hashtags can serve as function to guide the user’s interpretation by providing background information and context for the whole post (Scott, 2015; Tsur et al., 2012). The organizations never know who will see their post, thus by using certain hashtags along with their brand-hashtag, organizations can try to bridge the gap between the cognitive environments of the organizations and the (potential) consumer (Scott, 2015). In this sense, hashtags are the aligning mechanism that will enable visibility and interaction and finally will create a brand community (Page, 2012).

However, in the ongoing process of corporate branding on Instagram, it is important to constantly manage the brand-hashtag thoroughly. The brand-hashtag and its associated

hashtags seek to position the company within Instagram by expressing the unique corporate identity (Hatch & Schultz, 2008). To differentiate themselves from their competitors, companies need to communicate a coherent corporate brand, otherwise public users will not feel attracted and do not seek to follow the company’s profile (Hatch & Schultz, 2001). Moreover, companies need to monitor how their brand-hashtag is used by public users in order to understand what kind of brand image is established independently (Hatch & Schultz, 2008; Fournier & Avery, 2011).

(12)

An effective co-creation of the corporate brand has occurred when the associated hashtags represent the public user’s brand image on the one hand and when they are similar to the corporate identity on the other hand. Thus, it is argued that if organizations, especially Oldies, use co-creative features like, for example, promoting the brand-hashtag, posting implicit pictures and using not too complex hashtags, they are able to better communicate their corporate brand. Further, it is argued that this strategic use of Instagram is able to influence the user’s brand image and creates an alignment of the contexts build around the corporate brand-hashtag through associated hashtags. Based on these observations the following sub-question will be answered: R2: Is the corporate brand, which is expressed

(13)

3. METHOD

3.1. The Cases

Since the research question of this master thesis addresses the co-creation of a strong corporate brand, the basis for the sample are the most liked brands in Germany. Each year, the international market research agency YouGov awards in collaboration with the German business magazine “Handelsblatt” the “Brand of the Year”. The “Brand of the Year” is assessed for 26 categories and is based on over 700.000 online interviews, which are conducted over a one-year time frame. German citizens aged 18 years or older are asked to value their most preferred brands according to six different evaluation criteria: general impression, quality, price/performance ratio, customer satisfaction, willingness to recommend, and employer image (YouGov, 2015).

In order to get a decent sample, it was examined which of the most liked brands had an Instagram account including an explicit brand-hashtag. Since Instagram is a social network where users document their lifestyle, four brands were selected that represent important categories of “fashion”, “beauty”, “food”, and “consumer electronics” of the Instagram community.

Finally, the following brands were selected: C&A with its brand-hashtag #CandA for the category “fashion”. C&A is a Dutch brand and only has an English Instagram account that is dedicated to serve all Europe and has been using Instagram since November 2015 (27 weeks). For the category “beauty” Nivea with its brand-hashtag #NIVEA was included into the

sample. Interestingly, although Nivea is a German brand and has different Instagram accounts for different countries, it is using English and German as their languages on the German Nivea Instagram profile. Furthermore, Nivea has been using Instagram already since December 2012 (177 weeks). For the category “food” Dr. Oetker with its brand-hashtag #droetker has been selected. This brand has a special German account for which German is the only language and is also a rather new user of Instagram since July 2015 (41 weeks).

Finally, for the category “consumer electronics” Samsung with its brand-hashtag

#SamsungDeutschland was chosen. Samsung has a special Instagram profile for the German market for which German is the main language and has been using Instagram already since May 2014 (103 weeks) (see table 2 in the appendix for the sample overview).

Thus, the final sample consists of four corporate brands that are most liked in Germany in their special category. This selection represents on the one hand German brands and none

(14)

German brands and further allows the distinction into Newbies (C&A and Dr. Oetker) and Oldies (Nivea and Samsung) based on their time since using Instagram.

3.2. Sampling and Research Design

In order to analyse how the organization’s corporate brands are co-created through the use of hashtags on Instagram, a quantitative manual content analysis and an automated semantic-network analysis were conducted. Both analyses operated on two different levels. On the one hand, the organizations’ (C&A, Dr. Oetker, Nivea, and Samsung) Instagram profiles and on the other hand public Instagram user profiles, which were posting one of the organization’s brand-hashtags, were analysed.

3.2.1. Quantitative Manual Content Analysis

To answer the hypotheses, the unit of analyses for the manual content analysis were the caption (H1), the pictures (H2a and b), the hashtags (H3a and b, H4) and the comments, likes and followers of the whole Instagram post (H5).

To gather a sample of 200 Instagram posts (representing ten percent of the automated content analysis sample) systematic sampling was conducted. For each company and corresponding public user profiles 50 Instagram posts (25 company, 25 public users) were manually downloaded from the Instagram website https://www.instagram.com/. Starting from the day of data retrieval (12.5.2016) every second Instagram post of the companies and public users were saved by making screenshots until the required amount for each sampling unit was reached.

To find public user posts using the specific brand-hashtags (#CandA, #droetker,

#NIVEA, #SamsungDeutschland), the brand-hashtag was entered into the search function of the website. However, the search function does not make a distinction for capitalization. Thus, the brand-hashtags for C&A and Nivea were altered into #canda and #nivea. This posed the difficulty that the hashtags #canda and #nivea are also used for different purposes than expressing associations to the corporations by the public users. Thus, after searching for the hashtags #canda and #nivea, public user posts were only selected when the picture of the post was clearly associated with the company. Of this sample, 12 % (24 posts) were selected randomly for inter-coder reliability purposes.

(15)

For the manual content analysis, a codebook was developed to operationalize how Oldies, Newbies and public users make use of Instagram. The codebook operates on two different levels of analysis as there are the organization’s Instagram and the public user’s Instagram posts. In total, the codebook consisted of 14 variables. All coding was conducted by using the Qualtrics program except for variable six. This variable specified the complexity of hashtags and was coded in Excel for better reliability.

First, both levels of analyses were coded for formal categories specifying the coder, the identification number and the company or public user (see appendix for the codebook). Second, the sample was coded for substantive categories, which were divided into the four units of analyses: caption, picture, hashtag and the whole post. Four variables measured the purpose of the caption, the mobilization used in the caption and whether the caption was mentioning a repost or a tagging. Further, the pictures were coded with one variable measuring whether they were implicit or explicit Three variables measured which brand-hashtag was used, the total number of brand-hashtags and the complexity of brand-hashtags. Finally, the whole post was coded for the number of likes, comments and followers for each company. For the inter-coder reliability, 12 % of the full sample were coded by a second coder. After the first round of coding, three variables did not report satisfying Krippendorff’s Alpha scores. Thus, changes were conducted to make these variables stronger: more detailed descriptions for variable responses were included and the variable six that represented the weakest scores was ultimately coded in Excel. Coding the complexity of hashtags was difficult to assess in Qualtrics as the procedure had to consist of several steps for better reliability. Therefore, Excel was chosen as in the sheets the three steps were better feasible. First, all hashtags of the sample were copy/pasted manually into an Excel sheet. Then, the hashtags were sorted according to the number of words the hashtag consisted of and finally the total hashtag count for each specific word count was coded.

Finally, all 13 applicable variables reported (highly) satisfying Krippendorff’s Alpha scores of above α = 0.60. V4 “Brand-hashtag used”, α = 0.95; V5 “Number of hashtags used

in total”, α = 0.69; V6 “Complexity of hashtags used”, α = 0.96; V7 “Purpose of caption”, α

= 0.89; V8 “Mobilization of the imagined audience”, α = 1; V9 “Mentioning of repost”, α = 1; V10 “Mentioning of tagging”, α = 1; V11 ”Implicit or explicit picture”, α = 0.90; V12

(16)

3.2.2. Automated Semantic-Network Analysis

In order to answer the sub-question whether the corporate identity expressed through the corporate hashtag is aligned for the organization and the public users, the automated

semantic-network analysis focused on the hashtags used in each post. It was argued that the hashtags used along with the specific brand-hashtag are providing a certain context for the corporate brand. However, of what kind of contexts the corporate brand is established of cannot be revealed with predetermined categories by conducting a manual content analysis. Since the context lies implicitly within the hashtag use, an automated semantic-network analysis is more appropriate (Hellsten, Dawson, & Leydesdorff, 2010). An automated semantic-network analysis is able to map related words based on the similarity in the

occurrence patterns of these words (Leydesdorff & Welbers, 2011). By detecting the strength of correlation between the key hashtags, the semantic-network analysis is able to construct and compare implicit, meaningful components, which represent the different contexts build around the corporate brand-hashtag (Hellsten et al., 2010).

Before conducting the automated semantic-network analysis, a decent sample had to be drawn that provided the relevant words for the analysis. For this purpose, in total 2000 Instagram posts, have been automated and manually downloaded from the Instagram website

https://www.instagram.com/. Since by the day of data retrieval, the Newbie companies C&A

and Dr. Oetker had only 192 posts published, a census sample has been drawn for these two companies in order to have substantial material. Therefore, a systematic sample was drawn for the Oldie companies Nivea and Samsung in order to also cover the companies’ total publishing period. Thus, for Nivea every fourth picture and for Samsung every fifth picture has been included into the sample. Finally, the final sample of the companies consisted of 768 (192 x 4) Instagram posts. To reach the required amount of 2000 posts in total, 1232 posts (308 x 4) of public Instagram users posting the corporate brand-hashtags have also been downloaded automatically and manually.

The automated download was carried out by using an API that is connected to a package called InstaR that is run by the R Project1, which is a free software developed for statistical computing and graphics (The R Foundation, 2016). Through this method the complete data for the companies Dr. Oetker, the user posts using the hashtag #droetker and the hashtag #samsungdeutschland could be downloaded. However, the program does not make a

1

(17)

distinction for languages. Thus, the output had to be cleaned for the user posts of the hashtags #droetker and #samsungdeutschland to only include German or English posts.

The company posts for C&A, Nivea and Samsung had to be downloaded manually as the program, due to a technical mistake, did not download the required amount of posts. For the public user groups of C&A and Nivea, the hashtags also had to be downloaded manually from the Instagram profiles due to complications of the corporate hashtags. To find public user posts using the specific brand-hashtags #CandA and #NIVEA, the brand-hashtags were again entered into the search function of the website. Due to the same complications as explained above it was not possible to select every second public user post for #canda and #nivea. Thus, starting from the day of data retrieval, every second public user post was observed for which the picture was clearly associated with the company. If the language of these posts was also either German or English, the post was included into the sample.

Finally, for every company and corresponding user group, one Excel file (eight in total) was generated into which the hashtags were manually copy/pasted either from the output of the InstaR package or the Instagram website directly. All eight excel files were cleaned by deleting any #-signs, emojis and special characters to finally only include the hashtags texts used in every post.

The automated semantic-network analysis was conducted following the different steps suggested by the Pajek Manual (Vlieger & Leydesdorff, 2010). First, a list of the 75 most used hashtags for each group by using the program FrequencyList was compiled. The amount of hashtags was limited to 75 as a visualization with more words is difficult to interpret. Second, a word/occurrence matrix for each group was produced by the program FullText by which the hashtags are used as variables and cases. These matrices were imported into SPSS to extract the latent components. These components represent the networks of related

hashtags that construct the implicit contexts around the corporate brand-hashtag. In the final step, the remaining components were visualized as two-dimensional word networks using the

Pajek program (Vlieger and Leydesdorff, 2010). Finally, the visualization, in which the nodes

represent the hashtags and the lines the correlations between the hashtags, was adapted manually to the results of the factor analysis (Leydesdorff & Welbers, 2011).

(18)

4. RESULTS

In order to analyse how the organizations - C&A, Dr. Oetker, Nivea and Samsung – used co-creational features of Instagram depending on whether they belong to the Newbie and Oldie group, H1 to H5 were analysed by using SPSS.

4.1. Results of the Manual Content Analysis

H1 stated that Oldies use more direct co-creational features on Instagram than Newbies to promote the corporate brand. Therefore, H1 was analysed using multiple

contingency tables (see table 3 - 5 in the appendix) to look at the relationship between Oldies’ and Newbies’ purpose of the caption, the mobilization of the imagined audience within the caption and whether Oldies and Newbies reposted or tagged someone else in their posts.

The analysis revealed that there were no significant differences between the Oldies’ and Newbies’ on the type of caption purpose and mobilization employed in the caption. In general, all companies use the caption of their posts more for none co-creational purposes and none of the companies really used the possibility of mobilizing their imagined audience by their posts. The co-creational features of reposting and tagging are more used by the Oldie than the Newbie companies. Nivea and Samsung reposted in 10 % of their posts, whereas C&A and Dr. Oetker never reposted, X2 (1, N = 100) = 5.26, p = .022. Further, Oldies tagged someone else in 54 % and Newbies in 30 % of their posts, X2 (1, N = 100) = 5.91, p = .015. There was a significant association between the type of company (Oldie or Newbie) and the reposting and tagging behaviour. Thus, H1 can be partially accepted as two out of four (reposting and tagging vs. purpose and mobilization) of the co-creational features are significantly more used by the Oldie than the Newbie companies.

H2a hypothesized that Oldies post more implicit pictures than Newbies and H2b proposed that public users post more explicit pictures than both company types. The results of the contingency table (see table 6 in the appendix) show that Oldies (17.9 %) post less

implicit pictures than Newbies (29.2 %) and public users (52.8 %) post more implicit pictures than both company groups together (47.1%), X2 (2, N = 200) = 6.50, p = .039. Thus, both hypotheses are rejected.

However, looking at the results for each company separately indicates that within each group, the strategy to post pictures implicitly or explicitly differs significantly. Whereas Samsung posts 76 % implicit pictures, Nivea (0 %) only posts explicit pictures. C&A also

(19)

posts more explicit pictures (64 %) than Dr. Oetker (12 %), X2 (3, N = 100) = 48.16, p < .001. Accordingly, the posting behaviour of pictures also differs when splitting up the public users into their corresponding groups (see table 7 in the appendix). Public users posting the brand-hashtag #SamsungDeutschland only post implicit pictures (100 %), whereas public users using the brand-hashtag #NIVEA post more explicit pictures (79.2 %). The same results as for the Newbie companies can also be found for the public users. Using the hashtag #CandA more explicit pictures (60 %) and for #droetker more implicit pictures (60 %) are posted, X2 (4, N = 100) = 35.23, p < .001. Concluding, there was a significant association between the type of company, the Oldie/Newbie distinction, the public users and the posting behaviour of pictures.

H3a predicted that Oldies post less hashtags than Newbies and H3b suggested that public users post in general more hashtags than both company types. A contingency table was assessed (see table 8 in the appendix) that showed that Newbies post mostly only one to five hashtags, whereas Oldies post mostly more than eleven hashtags in their posts, X2 (2, N = 100) = 75.49, p < .001. Hence, H3a was rejected. However, H3b was accepted since public users post significantly more hashtags than both company types, X2 (4, N = 200) = 127.61, p < .001.

To answer H4, which proposed that Oldies use less complex hashtags than Newbies, another contingency table (see table 9 in the appendix) was assessed. The results show that there is no difference between Oldies and Newbies, as both company groups use mostly less complex hashtags consisting only of one (X2 (12, N =89) = 42.12, p < .001), two (X2

(13, N =77) = 53.58, p < .001) or three words (X2 (5, N =73) = 11.91, p < .036).

However, Oldies (57.83 %) use these less complex hashtags slightly more than the Newbies (41.97 %). For complex hashtags, no significant difference could be found for the use of hashtags consisting of 4 words. However, hashtags compiled of five or more words are more posted by Newbies than Oldies, X2 (1, N =23) = 6.97, p < .008. Hence, H4 was rejected.

To test whether Oldies generate more likes and comments than Newbies when taking the amount of followers into account (H5), two independent t-test were conducted to compare the means of the Oldies and Newbies on the ratio of likes and comments (see table 10 in the appendix). In order to assess the independent t-test, the likes and comments were computed into ratio variables for each company and then divided by the amount of followers. Finally, one combined ratio variable for likes and one combined ratio variable for comments were

(20)

computed. On the day of data retrieval, C&A had 49.000 followers, Dr. Oetker 36.300, Nivea 76.200 and Samsung 48.500 followers. On average, Oldies generate less likes (M = 15.8, SD = 3.5) than Newbies (M = 17.1, SD = 4.8) per 1000 followers. This difference was significant,

t(90) = -1.51, p = .051.

However, no significant difference was found for the amount of comments based on the amount of followers for the Oldie and Newbie companies. Thus, H5 is partially rejected for the amount of likes Oldies generate in comparison to Newbie companies. However, to reveal whether there is a difference within the Oldie and Newbie groups, independent t-tests were conducted for each group separately (see table 11 in the appendix). Although, C&A has more followers than Dr. Oetker, C&A (M = .08, SD = .08) generates significantly less

comments than Dr. Oetker (M = .21, SD = .15) per 1000 followers, t(36) = -3.88, p = .010. The results for the amount of likes within the Newbie group were not significant. Moreover, no significant differences have been found for the amount of likes and comments based on the amount of followers within the Oldie group.

4.2. Results of the Automated Semantic-Network Analysis

To finally analyse whether the corporate brand expressed through the corporate brand-hashtag is aligned for the Oldies and Newbies and their corresponding public user groups, principal component factor analyses were conducted for each company and their public user groups on the 75 most used hashtags with (orthogonal) Varimax rotation (eight PCAs in total). The components were limited to six maximum, as more factors are difficult to interpret and visualize in the hashtag-networks produced in Pajek. None of the hashtags indicated a variance of zero, therefore all hashtags were kept for the analysis. To test the reliability of the six components, Cronbach’s Alpha was computed and factors with scores less than .65 were removed. To reveal the most important components, the EigenValue (EV) and Explained Variance (R2) were consulted and finally the components were labelled interpretively and subjectively based on the factor loadings and word clusters (see component matrices 12 – 19 in the appendix).

Interestingly, the special brand-hashtag (#CandA, #droetker, #NIVEA,

#SamsungDeutschland) of each company did not load dominantly on any of the six most important factors. Therefore, additional principal component factor analyses without restriction of factors were conducted to reveal any possible factor loadings of the brand-hashtags. Nevertheless, all brand-hashtags were not associated with any components

(21)

specifically. However, since the brand-hashtags were actually the centre of attention for the alignment analysis, they are kept into the visualizations by putting them into the centre of the hashtag networks. As a result, the visualizations show that all brand-hashtags are correlated to all hashtag contexts simultaneously.

To finally visualize the components of the factor analysis, each hashtag network was assigned a specific colour palette related to the actual brand colours (turquoise = C&A, red = Dr. Oetker, blue = Nivea, black = Samsung). Each node represents one hashtag that is associated with the brand-hashtag. Same colours were assigned to the nodes representing the same factor. The lines in the visualization represent the correlation between the hashtags.2

For C&A, five components were finally kept for the visualization as the third component reported a Cronbach’s Alpha score of less than .65. The reliability of the most dominant component was improved by deleting the hashtag #CANDA and finally reported a Cronbach’s Alpha score of  = .87. The hashtags that cluster around the first factor indicate a context of “Fit and Strong Mothers”. The second factor also represents sports, more

specifically “Yoga”; the third factor is build around “Fashion for Children”, whereas the fourth factor represents “Health”. The hashtags that cluster around the fifth factor provide the context of “Summer Fashion”. For the public users posting the brand-hashtag #CandA (or rather #canda) four components were kept due to too low reliability of the fourth ( = .50) and fifth factor ( = .63). Thus, the dominant factor demonstrates the topic of “Child

Modelling”, the second factor shows “Fashion Bloggers”, the third factor indicates “Women’s Fashion”, whereas the fourth factor is build around the “Fashion Community of Instagram”. As can be seen by figures 1 and 2, the implicit contexts for the company C&A and the public users posting the brand-hashtag #CandA are very different. Only the third component

“Fashion for Children” of C&A and the first factor “Child Modelling” of the public users is somehow related (represented through the same mint green colour) as both components are representing hashtags dealing with children.

2

The hashtag networks have to be read clockwise, starting from the left the contexts are decreasing in dominance.

(22)

Figure 1: Hashtag contexts for the company C&A around their brand-hashtag #CandA.

Note: The turquoise node represents the brand-hashtag #CandA, light blue nods = 1. factor

“Fit and Strong Mothers”, light green = 2. factor “Yoga”, mint green = 3. factor “Fashion for Children”, darker turquoise = 4. factor “Health” and bright green = 5. factor “Summer Fashion”.

Figure 2: Hashtag contexts for public users posting #CandA.

Note: The turquoise node represents the brand-hashtag #CandA, mint green = 1. factor “Child

Modelling”, green = 2. factor “Fashion Bloggers”, dark green = 3. factor “Women’s Fashion”, sky-blue = 4. factor “Fashion Community of Instagram”.

2. 3. 4. 5. 1. 2. 3. 4. 1.

(23)

For Dr. Oetker, also five components were finally kept as the sixth factor reported too low reliability ( = .11). The reliability of the first factor could be improved to = .81 by deleting the hashtag #lecker. Finally, the hashtags clustered on the dominant factor indicate an implicit context of “Apple Cake”. The second factor is build of hashtags representing

“Berries”, the third factor consists of hashtags symbolizing “Ice Cream”, whereas the fourth factor represents “Baking”. Finally, the fifth factor embodies a “Blogger’s Recipe”. Likewise, the factors, traced for the public users posting the brandhashtag #droetker, were reduced to five as the sixth factor did not report a satisfying Cronbach’s Alpha score. Thus, based on the hashtags clustered on the dominant component for the public users, the first factor is labelled “Food Photography”. The second factor represents “Baking”, the third factor “Loss of Weight”, the fourth factor symbolizes “Berries” and the fifth factor is labelled “Breakfast”. The visualizations (figures 3 and 4) for the Dr. Oetker group show that the company and the public users both established implicit contexts of “Baking” (yellow nodes) and “Berries” (orange nodes).

Figure 3: Hashtag contexts for the company Dr. Oetker around the brand-hashtag #dreoetker.

Note: The red node represents the brand-hashtag #droetker, dark red = 1. factor “Apple

Cake”, orange = 2. factor “Berries”, light orange = 3. factor “Ice Cream”, yellow = 4. factor “Baking”, light yellow = 5. factor “Blogger’s Recipe”.

1.

2.

3.

4.

(24)

Figure 4: Hashtag contexts for the public users posting the brand-hashtag #dreoetker.

Note: The red node represents the brand-hashtag #droetker, pink = 1. factor “Food

Photography”, yellow = 2. factor “Baking”, light pink = 3. factor “Loss of Weight”, orange = 4. factor “Berries”, carnation pink = 5. factor “Breakfast”.

Nivea’s six components could all be kept into the visualization as all reported satisfying Cronbach’s Alpha scores of above .65. The reliability of the third factor could be improved to .92 by deleting the hashtag #beautycare. The hashtags of the first cluster are very diverse and seem to have nothing in common on the first sight. However, all hashtags have a positive character and comparing it to the second factor, it became clear that the first

component demonstrates “Positive Day Care”. Thus, the second factor is labelled “Girl’s Night Out” based on the clustered hashtags. The third factor represents “Nivea’s Classic Past”, whereas the fourth factor symbolizes "Wellness with Nivea”. The fifth factor shows “Beauty Skin Care” and the sixth factor represents “Typical Instagram hashtags”. The public users are posting hashtags, which are clustered to very different components. The sixth factor had to be deleted due to a not satisfying Cronbach’s Alpha score. Thus, the first factor

represents other “Cosmetic Brands” with which Nivea is associated. The hashtags of the second component are related to “Glossybox products”, the third factor consists of hashtags dealing with “Lip Care”, whereas the fourth factor represents “Makeup”. The fifth factor was

1.

2.

3.

4.

(25)

labelled “Body Care Essentials”. The visualizations (figures 5 and 6) show that the implicit contexts built around the corporate brand-hashtag #NIVEA are very different for the company and the public users. Only the fifth factors “Beauty Skin Care” of the company and “Body Care Essentials” (both turquoise nodes) of the public users share some similarity as both hashtag contexts can be associated with general body care.

Figure 5: Hashtag contexts for the company Nivea around the brand-hashtag #NIVEA.

Note: The blue node represents the brand-hashtag #NIVEA, blue-purple = 1. factor “Positive

Day Care”, purple = 2. factor “Girl’s Night Out”, dark green = 3. factor “Nivea’s Classic Past”, light blue = 4. factor “Wellness with Nivea”, turquoise = 5. factor “Beauty Skin Care”, light blue = 6. factor “Typical Instagram hashtags”.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

(26)

Figure 6: Hashtag contexts for the public users posting the brand-hashtag #NIVEA.

Note: The blue node represents the brand-hashtag #NIVEA, black = 1. factor “Cosmetic

Brands”, grey = 2. factor “Glossybox Products”, white = 3. factor “Lip Care”, light grey = 4. factor “Makeup”, turquoise = 5. factor “Body Care Essentials”.

For Samsung, only five components were kept for the visualization as the fifth component reported a too low Cronbach’s Alpha score. The hashtags clustered on the first component represent “Nature” and the second factor was labelled “Architecture” based on the loaded hashtags. The third factor symbolizes “City”, whereas the fourth factor represents “Travelling” and the fifth component is represented through hashtags dealing with the “Underground”. As the labels of the factors show, public users attach similar associated hashtags to the brand-hashtag #SamsungDeutschland. The first factor was labelled “Frankfurt City” based on the clustered hashtags. The second component represents also “Architecture”, the third component symbolizes the “Instagram community” and the fourth factor deals with the “Warsaw Instagram Meet 2016”. Finally, the fifth factor also represents “Travelling and Exploring”, whereas the sixth factor symbolizes the “Photo of the Day”. As can be seen by the visualizations (figures 7 and 8), the company and the public users have three similar implicit contexts of “Architecture” (light grey nodes), “City” (dark grey nodes), and “Travelling” (lighter grey nodes) build around the brand-hashtag #SamsungDeutschland.

1. 3.

4. 5.

(27)

Figure 7: Hashtag contexts for the company Samsung around the brand-hashtag #SamsungDeutschland.

Note: The black node represents the brand-hashtag #SamsungDeutschland, grey = 1. factor

“Nature”, light grey = 2. factor “Architecture”, dark grey = 3. factor “City”, lighter grey= 4. factor “Travelling”, white = 5. factor “Underground”.

1. 3. 4. 5. 1. 2. 3. 4. 2.

(28)

Figure 8: Hashtag contexts for the public users posting the brand-hashtag #SamsungDeutschland.

Note: The black node represents the brand-hashtag #SamsungDeutschland, dark grey = 1.

factor “Frankfurt City”, light grey = 2. factor “Architecture”, beige = 3. factor “Instagram community”, flesh-coloured = 4. factor “Warsaw Instagram Meet 2016”, lighter grey = 5. factor “Travelling and Exploring”, brown = 6. factor “Photo of the Day”.

Comparing the visualizations, it can be seen that Oldies indeed reach a slightly higher level of alignment than Newbies. Based on the amount of aligned factors and their importance for each company and respective public user group, Oldies reached alignment for four of their hashtag contexts, whereas Newbies count three aligned hashtag contexts (see table 1).

Moreover, Oldies achieved perfect alignment for two hashtag contexts as both the company and the public users attached the same importance. Newbies, on the contrary, did not reach an alignment in importance with their public users.

However, the difference between the Oldie and the Newbie companies is very slim as within each group, there is one company that reaches more alignment than the other. Hence, the distinction for the amount of alignment can be drawn more significantly for each company separately but not based on the Oldie/Newbie distinction.

C&A has only one factor representing a hashtag context that shows some similarity. Whereas, for C&A “Fashion for Children” has only a medium importance, the relevance for the public user group is two factors higher. Thus, children play a more important role for public users within their hashtags associated with the brand-hashtag #CandA.

Dr. Oetker has two aligned factors, although their relevance is opposing. The importance of the hashtag context “Baking” increases by two points for the public users. Whereas, the importance of the hashtag context “Berries” decreases by two factors compared to the importance Dr. Oetker attaches to “Berries”.

Same alignment patterns can be found for the Oldie companies Nivea and Samsung. Nivea has only one aligned hashtag context representing contexts of “skincare”, which has the same low importance for both the company and the public users.

However, Samsung has three aligned factors. Both the company and public users attach the same relevance to the hashtag context “Architecture”. The importance of the context “City” increases by two points, whereas the level of relevance for the hashtag context

5. 6.

(29)

“Travelling” decreases by one factor for the public users. Hence, Samsung reaches the highest level of alignment between the company’s corporate identity, expressed through the corporate brand-hashtag, and the public user’s brand image.

Table 1: Level and importance of alignment of hashtag contexts

Company vs. User

Contexts

by Decreasing Importance Level of Alignment

1 2 3 4 5 6 Presence in Both Position of Presence Newbies C&A C Fit and Strong Mothers Yoga Fashion for Children Health Summer Fashion - 1 + 2 U Child Modelling Fashion Bloggers Women’s Fashion Fashion Community of Instagram - - Dr. Oetker

C Apple Cake Berries Ice

Cream Baking Blogger’s Recipe - 2 + 2 - 2 U Food Photography Baking Loss of Weight Berries Breakfast - Oldies Nivea C Positive Day Care Girl’s Night Out Nivea’s Classic Past Wellness with Nivea Beauty Skin Care Typical Instagram hashtags 1 0 U Cosmetic Brands Glossybox Products

Lip Care Makeup Body Care Essentials

-

Samsung

C Nature Architecture City Travelling Underground -

3

0 + 2 - 1 U Frankfurt city Architecture Instagram

community Warsaw Instagram Meet 2016 Travelling and Exploring Photo of the Day

Note: Aligned factors are highlighted with same colours for each company separately. The

(30)

5. DISCUSSION

Instagram gives companies various possibilities of interacting and engaging with their followers and other public users. Especially by establishing a certain brand-hashtag and promoting it strategically, companies can communicate a strong corporate brand, which represents their corporate identity effectively. However, by using brand-hashtags companies allow public users to co-create their corporate brand and are thus risking a misinterpretation of their corporate vision and values (Hatch & Schultz, 2009; Abratt & Kleyn, 2012). It was argued that a successful co-creation of the corporate brand, represented through an alignment between the hashtags used by a company and public users, depends on the Instagram

experience of the companies. Oldies, like Nivea and Samsung, have been using Instagram already for several years and are thus experienced in how to use Instagram’s co-creational features best for their own benefits. Whereas, Newbies like C&A and Dr. Oetker, which have been operating their Instagram accounts for roughly a year, are still in the experimental stage in how to best communicate their corporate brand.

5.1. Oldies and Newbies Use of Co-Creational Features

All companies used the caption of their Instagram posts rather for informational and promotional purposes than really engaging with their audience via questions or call-to-actions. These findings are in line with the study by Bergström and Bäckman (2013), which revealed that companies mainly use Instagram to market their products and services by only sharing information. Although, it was thought that Oldies make more strategic use of the caption, it is rather the case that all companies provide additional information in their caption that cannot be displayed through the photo. Further, there were no differences between Oldie and Newbie companies in the use of mobilization within their captions. Most interestingly, none of the companies encouraged the public users to post the brand-hashtag.

However, many companies promote their brand-hashtag in their bio, which can be found at the top of each Instagram profile. Though, for the selected companies, only C&A

encourages public users to tag their posts using the brand-hashtag #CandA in their bio (see figure 9 in the appendix). As Instagram is mainly used as an app on smartphones, the layout of the app could influence the strategic use by companies and thus explain the lack of mobilization and the informational/promotional purpose of the caption. Since the home feed of Instagram only shows the pictures with the first few words of the caption, it could be

(31)

argued that organizations do not pay that much attention to the caption as public users only scroll through the pictures without any deeper interest in the whole post (see figure 10 in the appendix). Thus, the caption is mainly used for informational and/or promotional purposes without direct mobilization as public users, who actively open a whole post, seek further information about the company and/or the product shown in the picture. Further,

organizations could not see the need in encouraging their (potential) followers to like or comment on their pictures as they might think that public users are intrinsically motivated to like and comment to show their affection to the company.

However, it was revealed that Oldies actually use co-creational features of reposting and tagging more often than Newbies. Thus, it could be argued that Oldies actually could have evaluated the benefit of each of the four co-creational purposes and finally identified reposting and tagging to be of the most strategic aid to establish the corporate brand.

Concluding, despite the fact that Oldies do use reposting and tagging more than Newbies to engage with public users, both company types use Instagram’s co-creational features rather un-strategically. Both groups miss out on potential opportunities to encourage public users to engage with the company. Moreover, all companies miss the chance to influence the public user’s brand image actively by neglecting, for example, to ask questions or to promote the brand-hashtag. Instead of incorporating the benefits of Instagram into their branding strategy, the selected companies rather use the social networks as one-way-communication tool to only distribute organizational information (Grunig and Grunig, 1992). However, Kristoffersson and Göransson’s (2015) study revealed that public users actually expect companies to engage in two-way-communication that should actively facilitate the co-creation of the corporate brand on Instagram.

5.2. Oldies and Newbies’ Picture Posting Behaviour

Instagram labels itself as “a community built on the power of visual storytelling” (Instagram, 2016c). Hence, it was argued that Oldies mainly use Instagram as branding platform to visually tell their story that seeks to inspire public users of Instagram. However, the analysis revealed a reversed effect as Newbies were the ones posting implicitly. By posting explicit pictures, Oldies clearly display a sales orientation that follows a hard-sell approach (Chang, 2014; Okazaki, Mueller, & Taylor, 2010). Oldies use Instagram

strategically to put the services and products into the centre of attention within their pictures. Since Newbies operate their Instagram accounts for a shorter time, they actually use this to

(32)

their benefit as they were able to evaluate what has already been done and what works best on Instagram. By posting implicit pictures, Newbies follow the soft-sell approach that embeds the product into a symbolic content and thus adds meaning to the product (Okazaki et al., 2010). Implicit pictures are able to induce affective positive feelings from the users, which they also expect. Instagram’s public users want companies to evoke feelings of satisfaction, happiness and excitement by posting inspiring content (Kristoffersson & Göransson, 2015).

Since the users are expecting inspirational pictures, this could explain why they actually post implicit rather than explicit pictures. Public users post photos with a company’s product to brand themselves on Instagram (Hatch & Schultz, 2008). However, since the person should be the focus of attention, public users post mostly selfies to promote themselves and not the product (Lavoie, 2015). Hence, the companies’ products are not shown explicitly in their pictures but public users rather express the outcomes of using a certain product. They also seek to inspire others with their pictures and want to establish a positive image of themselves on Instagram. Therefore, these findings contradict Chang’s study (2014) which proposed that public users post explicit pictures to clearly express themselves through certain products.

5.3. Oldies and Newbies’ Hashtag Utilization

For the use hashtags, a reversed effect was also found as Oldies post more hashtags than Newbies. Since hashtags are used on Instagram to group topics and enable the discovery of posts and ultimately accounts, using a lot of hashtags serves as awareness booster and maximizes an account’s reach. Although differently expected, Oldies seem to strategically use higher amounts of hashtags as they are better aware of these benefits than Newbies. Thus, Newbies still need to discover that more hashtags actually improve the accounts effectiveness. As expected, public users use indeed more hashtags than both company types as they clearly want to boost their self-branding efforts on Instagram (Bergström and Bäckmann, 2013).

Moreover, using a lot of hashtags does not only facilitate the co-creation of the corporate brand but also how these hashtags are composed. It was argued that Oldies use less complex hashtags than Newbies. However, these assumptions were not true as both company types have been using less complex hashtags. Thus, a clear strategically distinction between Oldies and Newbies could again not be drawn. However, popular hashtags are simple, direct and short, whereas longer hashtags often represent sentences that can be easily misspelled and are thus uneconomical (Cunha, Magno, Comarela, Almeida, Gonçalves, & Benevenuto,

(33)

2011). Hence, longer hashtags seem to be avoided by Oldie and Newbie companies as misspelled hashtags are not able to be grouped together into topics which can be used for branding purposes.

5.4. Public Users’ Interaction with Oldies and Newbies

Finally, it was argued that Oldies generate more likes and comments based on their follower amount than Newbies. However, this assumption was only partially true.

Surprisingly, Newbies generated more likes despite having fewer followers than Oldies. Since, Newbies post more implicit pictures that evoke positive emotions more easily, it seems logical that the Newbie’s pictures receive more likes as public users feel more attracted to them. Moreover, liking is done faster than commenting as one only has to double tap on the picture without having to think about what to write (Kristoffersson and Göransson, 2015). Therefore, posting implicit pictures could be even able to attract none-followers to like a Newbie’s photo.

Oldies, on the other hand, generate more comments than Newbies which could be based on the pictures’ explicit nature. First, mostly posting product focused pictures could lead to a tiring effect for the Oldie’s followers. They have seen the products already a lot of times and will thus not like the photos that much anymore. Further, by posting explicit pictures that clearly promote a product, (potential) followers will probably have questions about, for example, costs or ingredients that could be asked through comments.

5.5. The Alignment between Companies and Public Users

Based on the strategic use of co-creational features, the pictures, hashtags, likes and comments, it was argued that Oldies achieve a greater alignment of their corporate brand than Newbies. This assumption is supported, though the difference in the level of alignment was rather slim. Interestingly, for both groups the brand-hashtags were not incorporated into any dominant factor but were associated with each hashtag context separately.

Actually, Instagram brands itself as a platform that supports visual storytelling

(Instagram, 2016a). However, this objective does not hold true for the purpose of the hashtags used by companies. As the results revealed, companies do not use hashtags to tell stories but rather they construct contexts that enrich the meaning around the brand-hashtags. So, if companies do not construct coherent hashtag contexts that public users can relate to the

(34)

company, an alignment between the corporate brand and the public users brand image is difficult to achieve. Therefore, as most hypotheses that have been established, were rejected and even presented reversed effects, it can be questioned whether the distinction into Oldie and Newbie companies is responsible for the alignment patterns. As the results have shown, Oldies and Newbies use Instagram strategically but each company type either puts a different emphasis on certain features or both company types do not differ significantly in their

Instagram strategy. Thus, different strategic patterns have to be the basis of the companies’ Instagram use apart from their Instagram experience.

5.6. The Language of the Company’s Instagram Account

As the results have shown, within each group there has been one company that was more aligned than the other. Analysing each company separately, it can be seen that the companies reaching higher alignment (Dr. Oetker and Samsung) operate exclusively a German language Instagram account. Whereas, the companies reaching a lower level of alignment manage their accounts by either using exclusively English (C&A) or German and English (Nivea) as their languages.

Since on Instagram, hashtags are used by organizations to communicate their

corporate brand towards (potential) followers, the choice of language for the account can play an important role for facilitating an interpretation of the hashtag’s meaning. As C&A operates an Instagram account that serves whole Europe, it cannot be questioned that their audience is quite diverse. Since hashtags are one important piece of the caption, the information that is given in these captions will influence the hashtag’s interpretation. When an organization operates their account in one universal language (like English) that addresses different audiences with different cultural and language backgrounds, it can be argued that an alignment between the corporate identity and the public user’s brand image becomes complicated. Moreover, using even two languages could pose more difficulties for public users to interpret the corporate brand’s identity as the company is not depicting a coherent profile.

On the contrary, operating an Instagram account in a certain language dedicated to one cultural audience seems to facilitate the alignment between the corporate brand and the user’s brand image. Samsung and Dr. Oetker are both running special German accounts using only the German language. Even though, these companies also post English hashtags, they reach a higher level of alignment than the companies which use English to communicate with their (potential) followers. Thus, it can be argued that targeting a special audience by

(35)

communicating with them in their language seems to depict a more coherent corporate brand. This coherent corporate brand can be interpreted more easily by public users and thus leads to more alignment.

5.7. The Role of Implicit Pictures

Interestingly, the companies operating a German Instagram account were also the ones posting the most implicit pictures. According to Kristoffersson and Göransson (2015), getting inspired is one main motivator for public users to engage in a relationship with companies on Instagram. Implicit pictures are able to inspire public users more effectively and facilitate an emotional engagement with the corporate brand. Hence, it can be argued that companies, which are posting implicit pictures are able to better communicate their corporate identity that ultimately can be clearly understood by public users. Moreover, since the content of the pictures facilitates interpretation, the associated hashtags conveyed in the caption can be interpreted more easily by public users based on their feelings. Therefore, posting implicit pictures in combination with hashtags leads to a better alignment between the corporate identity and the brand image. Public users get what they expect from the companies and are able to embody the hashtags into their own Instagram posts because they can relate them to their own lives.

5.8. Instagram’s Strategic Aim

The decision to post either explicit or implicit pictures depends on the strategic goal of an organization’s Instagram account. Since, the experience of using Instagram was revealed to have no clear influence on a company’s strategy, it could be argued that the overall aim of using Instagram depends on the general purpose. Since Instagram opened its services for organizations in 2013, Instagram promotes its app to help fulfil business objectives of, for example, “Page Post Engagement”, “Website Conversions”, “Reach and Frequency” or “Mass Awareness” (Instagram, 2016d). Thus, it can be argued that organizations first identify what objective they want to reach by creating an Instagram profile and then tailor their

strategy accordingly. Killian and Mcmanus (2015) further identified that brand managers utilize social media platforms like Instagram to either manage relationships, gather news, convey creativity or entertainment. For example, Dr. Oetker explains on their website that they use Instagram as a recipe collection by using Dr. Oetker’s products (Dr. Oetker, 2016). Therefore, Dr. Oetker is clearly following a creative strategy by posting inspiring recipes with

Co-creating the corporate brand on Instagram through hashtags