Building an online community on Instagram: Hausinki
Arvio, Maria Gabriela (2022)
2022
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2022121228086
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2022121228086
Tiivistelmä
Online communities are virtual spaces where people share knowledge and experiences. Some of their values are trust, empathy, and support. That is why these communities can even influence the decision-making process. Due to virtual communities' role today, more and more organisations create communities for employees or clients to create a better learning and collaborative environment.
The following study pretends to understand how online communities are created and developed on Instagram and simultaneously learn about organic growth strategies on this social media. The Hausinki Instagram page was created from scratch. The target audience consisted of dog lovers living in Helsinki. The time for creating, posting, and monitoring the Hausinki account was five months, from May to September 2022.
The explanatory sequential mixed methods design was the most suitable method for this thesis. First, the quantitative data from Instagram Insights on the Instagram app and the Meta Business Suite platform were analysed. Second, as a follow up to the quantitative results, the qualitative data was collected through semi-structured interviews in order to understand the results better.
The author concludes that it is too early to deduce whether it has been possible to build an online community on Instagram for dog lovers through the Hausinki page. Five months is a short time to grow an online community. The Hausinki page is still growing and creating its identity and relationships with its followers.
The following study pretends to understand how online communities are created and developed on Instagram and simultaneously learn about organic growth strategies on this social media. The Hausinki Instagram page was created from scratch. The target audience consisted of dog lovers living in Helsinki. The time for creating, posting, and monitoring the Hausinki account was five months, from May to September 2022.
The explanatory sequential mixed methods design was the most suitable method for this thesis. First, the quantitative data from Instagram Insights on the Instagram app and the Meta Business Suite platform were analysed. Second, as a follow up to the quantitative results, the qualitative data was collected through semi-structured interviews in order to understand the results better.
The author concludes that it is too early to deduce whether it has been possible to build an online community on Instagram for dog lovers through the Hausinki page. Five months is a short time to grow an online community. The Hausinki page is still growing and creating its identity and relationships with its followers.