Instagram marketing for local food outlets in India: The impact of daily story highlights, number of instagram followers, posts about the food outlet by existing customers, frequency of instagram posts and number of views on the purchase intention of the users

Abstract

Recently, almost all businesses have been keen to tap into the social media marketing activities in social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc., in order to promote their products and restaurants are no exception. These social media marketing activities can be successful only if the businesses know which social media platform can be the most effective and know what exactly do customers want and how their buying decisions can be manipulated. Instagram is the second most accessed social network behind Facebook, which sees nearly a billion monthly active users and about 500 million daily stories. What was once a simple image sharing app has now become a key business platform for many multinational brands and entrepreneurs alike, helping them to improve their customer engagement. With lockdowns and social distancing due to Covid19 having spurred the usage of Instagram, it has become ever so important for businesses to include Instagram in their marketing toolkit. This study aims to analyze Instagram's role in improving the businesses of local food outlets. The impact of daily story highlights, number of Instagram followers, the posts about the outlet made by existing customers, the frequency of Instagram posts and the numbers of views of posts on the purchase intention of the Instagram users are to be studied.