Ways for Finnish companies to achieve university students' brand loyalty on Instagram
Valkeinen, Venla (2024)
2024
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2024121335553
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2024121335553
Tiivistelmä
Brand loyalty is one of the primary objectives that companies strive to achieve. Social media is a powerful tool for cultivating brand loyalty with extensive number of opportunities to interact with customers. In Finland, Instagram is one of the leading social media platforms and stands out as a powerful, visual marketing tool. For Finnish university students – an active demographic on social media – Instagram as a platform is a place not only for interaction but also a source of discovering new brands. Consequently, Instagram is a central platform for Finnish companies that seek to connect especially with younger audiences, such as university students.
The objective was to understand how companies in Finland may achieve university students’ brand loyalty on Instagram. Specifically, the aim was to investigate how customer brand engagement, brand trust, brand communities, brand perceptions, and brand-related content contribute to brand loyalty in this demographic. Therefore, ten university students participated in semi-structured in-depth interviews. Interviewing students from six different field of studies, added depth to the results.
Abduction as a data analysis method enabled the research to start with an established theory, while allowing new perspectives to emerge from the data. A theoretically framework was initially developed from the literature review but remained adaptable to emerging perspectives found from the data. In addition, thematic analysis enabled to detect patterns and themes that appeared in the data.
The research results indicate how university students value brand trust on social media. University students are active Instagram users who seek see brand-related content that they find unique, relevant, and entertaining. Also, positive brand perceptions, such as professional brand image on Instagram, foster loyalty. On the other hand, the students do not necessarily want to be part of brand communities or engage with brands on Instagram, but they value emotional connections with brands.
The objective was to understand how companies in Finland may achieve university students’ brand loyalty on Instagram. Specifically, the aim was to investigate how customer brand engagement, brand trust, brand communities, brand perceptions, and brand-related content contribute to brand loyalty in this demographic. Therefore, ten university students participated in semi-structured in-depth interviews. Interviewing students from six different field of studies, added depth to the results.
Abduction as a data analysis method enabled the research to start with an established theory, while allowing new perspectives to emerge from the data. A theoretically framework was initially developed from the literature review but remained adaptable to emerging perspectives found from the data. In addition, thematic analysis enabled to detect patterns and themes that appeared in the data.
The research results indicate how university students value brand trust on social media. University students are active Instagram users who seek see brand-related content that they find unique, relevant, and entertaining. Also, positive brand perceptions, such as professional brand image on Instagram, foster loyalty. On the other hand, the students do not necessarily want to be part of brand communities or engage with brands on Instagram, but they value emotional connections with brands.