Outdoor-sports brands’ Instagram strategies: how message attributes relate to consumer engagement

Brands increasingly use social media to engage with consumers as part of their marketing efforts. This study analyzes the Instagram strategies used by three global outdoor-sports brands and their respective effects on consumer-brand engagement, operationalized as the number of ‘likes’ and comments received by posts. Content analysis conducted on Instagram posts from Arc’teryx, Salomon, and Patagonia focused on messages’ textual, visual, and technical attributes. The results indicate that task- and interaction-oriented posts received more ‘likes’ than self-oriented ones. Brand messages that were shorter, included photos and/or ‘cute’ visuals, or mentioned other Instagram users were found to motivate consumer engagement on Instagram. These findings will facilitate social media marketers’ development of effective Instagram branding strategies.