“Social media marketing on Instagram: factors affecting consumers’ behaviour to Instagram ads”.

Abstract

Social media have become essential in our everyday life and, concurrently, they have become essential in running a business activity. The integration of social media in marketing has radically changed how enterprises communicate with their customers and vice versa. Indeed, traditional one-way communication from the firm to customers, has turned to be a mutual relationship, where firms' decision-making process is contingent on consumers’ needs and actions. Among all social media, Instagram, thanks to its visual nature, growing trends, advertising options and high engagement rate, holds massive opportunities for businesses. Advertising on Instagram has seen rapid growth over the past few years, fostering its transition from a visual-based photo sharing app to a channel for e-commerce marketing. Sponsored contents on Instagram help companies to reach out their target audience, increase their awareness and showcase their products in an easier and cost-effective way. In order to create compelling and attractive contents, however, businesses have to know what are the driving factors that lead consumers to engage with brand-generated sponsored contents. Following a review of the antecedents factors influencing consumer engagement towards social media advertising, the objective of this work is to investigate consumers' attitude towards Instagram ads and their intention to click, like, follow and purchase an advertised product. The present study further aims to study how marketers can design social media advertising to successfully attract customers. Through a within-subjects experimental design, this paper pursue to test the effectiveness of different dichotomous advertising elements on the Instagram Stories for a fictitious brand that manufactures sustainable denim products. The roles of emotional appeal, informativeness, human presence, positive arousal and promotional incentive are taken into consideration.