OUTDOOR SPORTS BRANDS’ STRATEGIES FOR BUILDING INSTAGRAM BRAND COMMUNITY BY JENNIFER SHIYUE ZHANG THESIS Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Advertising in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2020 Urbana, Illinois Adviser： Assistant Professor Leona Yi-Fan Su ABSTRACT Over 56% of the world’s population now live with social media (“Digital in 2019,” n.d.). Most direct-to-consumer brands are now using social media as a market tool to communicate with consumers, and the outdoor industry is no exception. Instagram, as the second most popular social networking medium globally, is a popular place to share photos and videos within the online brand community. Most outdoor brands maintain Instagram accounts as a part of their online brand community to interact with followers. This research examines 957 Instagram posts from three leading outdoor sports brands, namely, Arc’teryx, Patagonia, and Salomon via content analysis. The purpose of this study is to investigate post orientations and sports types across the three target brands, and gain insights into their Instagram practices by examining visual elements, textual attributes, and technical factors. Results suggest that outdoor brands with different followers took diverse strategies to build either a transactional or relationship Instagram brand community. Findings from this study offer important implications for researchers as well as practitioners in the domain of social media brand management. ii In loving memory of my father, Junqin. You are my hero. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This thesis would not have been possible without support of many people. There are no proper words to express my sincere gratitude to my advisor, Dr. Leona Yi-Fan Su. Thank you for leading me to pursue the academic journey and providing true guidance throughout my master study. It is my pleasure to have such a wonderful mentor like you. I am thankful to Dr. Sela Sar and Dr. Kevin Wise for serving on my thesis committee, sharing their expertise, and providing valuable comments. I also thank all the professors from the Department of Advertising for their teaching. I gratefully acknowledge the contribution of my cohort, Yujie Wei, for sharing the tedious data coding work with me. I would also like to thank Hilary Morris, Charles Terry, and Zoe Xiaoyu Xu for their insightful feedback and editing advice. I cannot forget close friends who went through hard times together, cheered me on, and celebrated each accomplishment: Shuang Chen, Violet Yiqing Jiang, Yunyue Li, Yinan Liu, Zhuoran Ma, Jingxin Xi, Jiu Xu, Ming Xu, Chupei Wang, Zixin Zhang, Jinming Zhao and Yujia Zheng. Thank you for your thoughts, phone calls, texts, and being there whenever I needed a friend. Finally, my deep gratitude and love to my late father Junqin Zhang, my mother Fengling Wang, and my boyfriend Xiaofeng Wang. Thank you for your continuous love, trust, care, and support. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................ VII CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................. 1 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW .................................................................................. 5 2.1 ONLINE BRAND COMMUNITY AND CONSUMER ENGAGEMENT .............................................. 5 2.2 INSTAGRAM AS AN ONLINE BRAND COMMUNITY VEHICLE .................................................. 7 2.3 HEURISTIC SYSTEMATIC MODEL IN INSTAGRAM COMMUNITY ........................................... 10 CHAPTER 3 METHODS ....................................................................................................... 18 3.1 SAMPLE AND DATA COLLECTION ...................................................................................... 18 3.2 CODEBOOK DEVELOPMENT AND CODING VARIABLES ........................................................ 19 3.3 CODER TRAINING AND RELIABILITY.................................................................................. 22 3.4 DATA ANALYSIS............................................................................................................... 23 CHAPTER 4 RESULTS ......................................................................................................... 24 4.1 PREVALENCE OF POST TYPES ............................................................................................ 24 4.2 PREVALENCE OF SPORTS TYPES ........................................................................................ 25 4.3 VISUAL ELEMENTS ........................................................................................................... 26 4.4 TEXT ATTRIBUTES ............................................................................................................ 27 4.4.1 Photo Credits............................................................................................................ 27 4.4.2 Brand-Sponsored Athlete References ........................................................................ 27 4.4.3 Quotations ................................................................................................................ 28 4.4.4 Caption Length ......................................................................................................... 28 4.5 TECHNICAL ATTRIBUTES .................................................................................................. 29 v 4.5.1 Media ....................................................................................................................... 29 4.5.2 Emojis ...................................................................................................................... 29 4.5.3 Purchase Links ......................................................................................................... 30 4.5.4 Hashtags................................................................................................................... 30 4.5.5 Geotags .................................................................................................................... 31 4.5.6 Account Mentions ..................................................................................................... 31 4.5.7 Account Tagging ....................................................................................................... 31 CHAPTER 5 DISCUSSION .................................................................................................. 33 5.1 POST ORIENTATION AND TYPE DISTRIBUTION ................................................................... 34 5.2 SPORTS TYPE DISTRIBUTION ............................................................................................. 35 5.3 VISUAL ELEMENTS ........................................................................................................... 37 5.4 TEXT ATTRIBUTES ............................................................................................................ 38 5.5 TECHNICAL ATTRIBUTES .................................................................................................. 39 5.6 LIMITATION AND FUTURE RESEARCH STUDIES .................................................................. 40 CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................. 43 REFERENCES........................................................................................................................ 45 TABLES .................................................................................................................................. 57 APPENDIX A. TEXT CODEBOOK ...................................................................................... 68 APPENDIX B. VISUAL CODEBOOK .................................................................................. 84 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Target Outdoor Sports Brands Candidates and Their Instagram Performance............... 57 Table 2. Comparison of Three Brands’ Instagram Performance and Consumer Engagement ..... 58 Table 3. Prevalence of Post Types in Terms of Brands .............................................................. 59 Table 4. Prevalence of Sports Types in Terms of Brands ........................................................... 60 Table 5. Prevalence of Visual Elements in Terms of Brands ...................................................... 61 Table 6. Distribution of Caption Length in Terms of Brands ..................................................... 62 Table 7. The Number of Media Items and The Media Type of The First Item in Terms of Brands ............................................................................................................................... 63 Table 8. Top Ten Most Frequent Hashtags ................................................................................ 64 Table 9. Distribution of The Number of Hashtags in Terms of Brands ....................................... 65 Table 10. Distribution of The Number of Mentions in Terms of Brands .................................... 66 Table 11. Distribution of The Number of Tags in Terms of Brands ........................................... 67 vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION “The mountains are calling and I must go.” The short but compelling quote from one of America’s most influential naturalists, John Muir, is enshrined by many outdoor lovers and has encouraged increasingly more people to travel outside