Abstract
Netnography is a methodical tool which is picking up the pace in the online communities. It originates from the field of ethnography and anthropology. The experiences shared by the online communities and interactions of the participants are highlighted by this revelatory method. This study will observe the effects of Instagram in evolving the trust of users, activities of netnography and their use among the Instagram community. The study aims to explore the opportunities of Instagram ethnography while considering the present literature and its inspection as both a research tool and an engaging platform. This research will also give the outlook of using analytical tools like Instagram analytics or Google analytics for amalgamation of the data.
Introduction
The digital era is prevailing more than two decades and social media is the major part of it. Social media and online communities took a long jump in the recent times. Everyday changing technology and inventions has led and provided the consumers with all the necessary powers. The new age technology has connected all the people together under one roof. Now the whole world seems like a small village as we can connect to anyone anywhere. And it is very important to understand the various aspects of these communities which connect us to the whole world. Researchers are working on the activities of the online communities with the help of certain methods and technology driven interactions. Netnography, an arena of ethnography is a qualitative research method based on precise techniques and applied approaches use for online communities which helps to understand the actions, conduct and participant’s relation in the community (Vannini, 2019). This method helps the researchers to administer the online consumers and to analyze detailed behavior. Kozinets, the inventor of this method has censoriously provided the awareness about the digital community participants and recognized an online atmosphere that provides accuracy and integrity in the market (Chao, 2015). Experiences shared through these online communities and observation of the members is highlighted by this explanatory research method.
Online communities are increasingly becoming the vigorous source of sharing the information all over the world. Everyday many people join these online communities and social media so that they do not feel disconnected with the world and do not leave behind the progression in the society. This displays that the members of these communities extremely depends on the communication and interactions. The participants share their common interest, feelings, thoughts and insights about the society. Although, in the online communities it is not possible to have physical presence still the members show and highly rely on the feelings and emotions of each other as this is a part of human nature. Online communities are computer based which uses the internet and the members make contact with each other in a moderately open and apparent environment by interactions and communication.
Instagram is a popular tool which is used by the people to endorse their business or to involve with people having similar interests and taste. This can lead to trust between the consumers of the community. This study will observe the effects of Instagram in evolving the trust of users, activities of netnography and their use among the Instagram community. The study aims to explore the opportunities of Instagram ethnography while considering the present literature and its inspection as both a research tool and an engaging platform (Kozinets, 1999). It will reflect the inclinations of the Instagram through netnographic measure and diffusion method discovering a research question. This research will give the viewpoint of using the analytical tools like Instagram analytics or Google analytics for amalgamation. This study also shares the understandings on members trust in virtual community and it further adds the insights into the reconciling effect by considering the brand trust and community identification (Mahfuzul, 2022).
This study will answer the research question which is “What effect Instagram can have in evolving the trust between the members and benefits for business by using the netnography?”
Implications of research
In the recent times the Instagram community has seen tremendous growth and it is important to analyze it to discover its potential. The major tool of digital marketing is the online consumers, also it is very critical to study the consumers for the conception endorsement. To run a successful business it is important to study and understand the consumer behavior which lead to new insights for the tool and techniques for the marketers. Digital platform has contributed in changing the behavior of the consumers as they spend one third of their time on the online networking sites and most of the time they spend on Instagram (Lang, 2010). The time consumers spend on Instagram is a valuable resource for the marketers to study the engagement and brand trust. Instagram community is the one of the biggest and fastest growing community with high engagement rate. The primary motive of this research is to examine the Instagram community, consumer involvement and intentional behaviors with netnographic technique (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). This will help to establish the understanding of consumers towards the brand trust and how it can profit their business. This study will also help to provide the insight into the facilitating effect by considering the brand trust and customer identification.
Unification of netnography in instagram community
This study is based on the methodology.i.e. netnography which is purely online qualitative research. This methodology follows the in-participation observation method where the researcher needs to participate in the online community through communication, association and contact (Kozinets, 2015). The process of data collection and analysis is consistent and same can be done by the steps provided by Kozinets in the online observation of the Instagram community (Ardley et al., 2019). It is very important for the research to identify the community which is relevant and highly active in the community. Instagram have participants of similar interest and from different backgrounds which interact in the community generating the rich and valuable data for the researcher. While communication with the participants in the community, researcher must share the expression of interest and then only proceed with the data collection from the community. The data collected can be in the form of texts, audio messages, videos and photos. As a researcher, it is important to follow the ethical guidelines for the online study.
The brands on the Instagram must follow the standards for the engagement of the consumers.
In Figure 1 it is very interesting to know that the members of the brand community gets influenced by each other which lead to the high engagement rate of the Instagram community. The participants communicate in the natural environment sharing their emotions, feelings, experiences and feedbacks in the community. These online communities keeps on progressing with time. Furthermore, communities have some focused groups which are confide to their own procedures and protocols. Instagram engagement tool.
The analysis of Instagram community can be done by networking and collaborating with the elements of the intensive community. Instagram is more dedicated towards interactive engagement through comment, share, like, save and create. This phenomenon is vigorous and requires consumer engagement to understand the rich data in the form of text, audio or video. Instagram is an online community so Netnography is the best tool to understand the community. Many researchers consider that the data collected through netnography is more accurate as it is collected in the natural environment and the researcher cannot influence the participants. The participants are more likely to share the truth on these platforms as the community takes care of the anonymity of the consumers and they feel much secured being on the online communities.
Trust of users and customer engagement
For some people trust is very important and they take it very seriously too. They also believe in trusting the brands. Consumers live, eat and sleep with their brands, this is how they show their loyalty (Chiu et al., 2010). Consumers can make the brands and they can remove any brand from the market. Brands can have a positive influence on the customers by effective communication, customer engagement and active interaction. The brands which are available online they run different strategies to gain the trust of online consumers. Once the trust is build it gives immense satisfaction to the consumers are they find themselves being part of the particular brand. These consumers can influence the other community people by their experience and feelings. Even they can guide the other members about the different products.
Brand engagement is one of the important aspect for any brand no matter if it is a small or large enterprise. Brand engagement can be evaluated on the basis of certain factors like consumers perception about the brand, consumer touchpoint brand stands and the relationship between the brand and the consumer itself. The positive relationship between the brand and the consumer can lead to the brand engagement which result in brand trust. Therefore, trust of users and customer engagement is a very important aspect for the service brands which use the social media channels (Solem and Pedersen, 2016).
Activities of netnography
Activities of Netnography involves six different steps to analyze the data. To begin with analysis of the qualitative research is required which means choosing the community on which research needs to be focused. To answer the research question this study funnels down the focus on the Instagram community, brand trust, participants engagement and impression management. In the netnographic study the interaction with the consumer is the most important part of the data collection. In the online environment the interactions are recorded in the form of the online observations. Basically, the researcher uses the observation method in the online community for a particular time frame and asks the respondents to share their experiences or feelings regarding the research question and finally proceeds systematically. Some researchers carried out the interviews with the participants too (Kozinets, 1999). This method of observation, interaction and engagement looks familiar with the traditional ethnographic study (Anon, 2010). After the data collection the next step is to explore the amalgamation of the digital community.
Thus, the data collected will be analyzed through Netnographic analysis. Online community members build a strong community and relationship with other members where they can share their experience and feelings, learn from each other which helps in influencing the society and the culture (Kozinets, 2020).
Anticipated results
The probable results of this study are to add in the brand research of digital community and to find the existing relationship between the brand and the consumers. Furthermore, the study is anticipated to connect and develop a brand culture network which helps in accessing the online brand communities, their benefits and the culture of customer engagement. The results can be achieved by using the Netnographic method of brand customer engagement and by its analysis.
The outcome will also unwind the effects of brand trust on consumer identification. However, this relation has not been explained by many researchers in the previous studies but the outcomes can disclose the arbitrating effects of Instagram community in constructing the trust amid the digital community and brand benefits. The outcomes will unwind the exact potential of a social digital platform for understanding the consumer behavior for large and small business (Shamim, 2017).
Instagram and google analytics
Instagram and Google analytics are the tools for the analysis of participants in the form of coding as Netnography is used to analyze the digital communities. To use the Google analytics one has to create a Google account to route research and gather the data. The investigator will need the little understanding of the coding method. The technique is easy to implement and understand, and the researcher can collect ample amount of data from the online communities. Likewise, Instagram analytics is the tool focused on the Instagram community. It does not need any particular skill set for the analysis, it’s just the researcher need the Instagram account. Instagram and Google analytics have diverse set of consumers which makes it more focused online community for the research (Shamim, 2022).
The study is focused on relating the coding of Google analytics and the Instagram analytics with Netnography. This relation will provide more exact outcomes of understanding the consumer and the online community. It can help the brand to create its business for more purposeful opportunities. It will be easier to gain the trust of the consumers if the outcomes are accurate (McAlexander et al., 2002). The dashboard provides the full report of the audience in various segments separately with reference to the content, traffic and engagement.
Researchers can easily study these reports and analyze the data with the help of the Netnography. The analytics also helps in understanding the consumer behavior and their perception too. The dashboard shares the detailed information regarding the consumer activities in the Instagram analytics. The Eldorado of data is available in the form of text, videos and audios. The researcher needs to have the observer’s eye to understand the data and work upon it.
Conclusion
Online communities are expected to grow extensively as the population on these communities are increasing day by day especially on the social media like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and WhatsApp. The social media has helped the brands to grow on these platforms with social marketing. Brands can put up their ads on these platforms which can be accessed by the consumers (Plunkett, 2013).
Netnography is a tool where online environment is analyzed and participants are being observed with their level of engagement (Sandlin, 2007). This method is still new in the field of marketing and needs more development and refinement. Sometimes it becomes difficult to observe the attitude, motives or the privacy behavior of the consumer. For this part Kozinets (2015), has mentioned that studying the human behavior i. e anthropology is also the part of Netnography. The results will be more accurate if we study the human and their social behavior. The use of Netnography is vast and limitless as we are in an era of online communities.
It is further suggested that the use of Netnography as a tool needs to be more frequent for the marketers. The marketers can draw many strategies for their brands based on the observations of the researchers which will help in the growth of the brand. The tool also believes to build a trust among the consumer and the brands. As mentioned earlier, the online communities are having extensive traffic which will help in the growth of the brands as well as of the digital communities.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
