INSTAGRAMING IN RUSSIA

Abstract

Instagram’s 200 million subscribers place it among the most popular Participatory Sensing Systems (PSSs) on the Internet today (de Melo et al. 2013). With its 62 million Internet users (Comscore, 2013), Russia is quickly becoming a powerful online market. With five million active daily users, Russia follows Brazil and US and comes ahead of UK by number of users (Alexa.com 2014).Being an early adopter of many technologies, the fashion industry actively uses image-based platform, by posting shots from runway shows, outfits of the day, pre-viewing new lines. Instagram is a no language barrier tool that is proving suitable for the visualization in the fashion industry.By observing the biggest Russian retailers TrendsBrands Instagram activity over a year, this paper outlines the most efficient way of brand communicating to consumers through images only as opposed to other mixed channel social media platforms employed, e.g. Facebook or Twitter. It studies the use of the most popular hashtags, influence of the photo sharing frequency as well as specific cultural behavior, which illustrates the promising potential of PSSs for the study of Russian online fashion environment. It also analyses the visual content that creates the biggest buzz. This research is complimented by in-depth interviews with a consumer sample from Trends-Brands follower to access the consumption interaction from the individual’s perspective.Deriving from Olbrich and Holsing (2011) business model of social shopping communities, Instagram is taken as an example. Discussing the phenomena of saling through Instagram, makes this platform a perfect example of social shopping community, which is are a mix of both: online shopping platform and social networking. Users of Instagram can share, comment, tag as well as purchase products online. Social shopping is a development of an online community that plays the role of both connecting consumers by communication and shopping (Olbrich and Holsing, 2011).Building up also on the Jenkins spredability (2013) theory as well Kozinetz (2010) nethnographic approach this research paper draws upon the distinctive features of Instagram as the channel not only to engage in the consumer-brand communication but also to communicate the consumption experience. This paper sets managerial implications for marketing communication managers who wish to conduct a successful strategy in Russia on Instagram.