Winning post strategies that generate engagement: A QCA approach

Purpose: Fashion companies are using an increasing amount of resources to generate social mediacontent to provoke an impact and engage customers. A wrong message or image – but also an inaccuratecombination of the different elements that characterise a post – can jeopardise brand reputation. Theway...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Berbegal Mirabent, Jasmina|||0000-0001-5145-2179, Caballero, Xenia
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2023
País:España
Institución:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
Repositorio:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/392554
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2117/392554
https://dx.doi.org/10.3926/ic.2267
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Social networks
Qualitative research
Instagram
Qualitative comparative analysis
Content engagement
Post
Impact strategy
Xarxes socials
Investigació qualitativa
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Economia i organització d'empreses::Direcció d'operacions
Descripción
Sumario:Purpose: Fashion companies are using an increasing amount of resources to generate social mediacontent to provoke an impact and engage customers. A wrong message or image – but also an inaccuratecombination of the different elements that characterise a post – can jeopardise brand reputation. Theway brands communicate with potential customers is of utmost importance as it creates its onlineidentity and presence, and this is ultimately linked to customer loyalty. Given that a post containsdifferent elements (e.g., image, people, background) this study seeks to explore which combination(s) ofelements should brands consider to generate superior user engagement with their posts.Design/methodology: After conducting a comprehensive literature review on social media marketing aset of critical factors that relate to content engagement are envisioned. Next, drawing on complexity andconfiguration theories, we perform fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to identifydifferent strategies (i.e., combinations of critical factors) companies might follow to engage withcustomers successfully. The empirical application focuses on the Instagram activity of a retail clothingcompany. Findings: The findings reveal that posts conducive to superior engagement should: (i) be simple,product-related or experience-related, (ii) use few but meaningful hashtags that are representative of thebrand, (iii) show people’s faces, and (iv) send an inclusive message.Practical implications: This study sheds new light on how brands should communicate on socialmedia networks to generate improved impact for their posts.Originality/value: This study goes beyond traditional approaches that overlook the joint effect of thedifferent strategic design choices (i.e., combination of critical factors) for posts on the outcomes ofinterest (in our case, number of likes, comments and views).