Perbandingan Social Media Engagement pada Konten Instagram Universitas di Indonesia dan di Luar Negeri: Peran Visual Aesthetics dan Message Orientations

Abstract

This study’s objectives are (1) to compare the effectiveness of Indonesian (versus overseas) universities in managing their Instagram content; indicated by level of social media engagement with the content, and (2) to answer these following questions: whether it is visual aspect (visual aesthetics) or verbal aspects (message orientation) of the content is more powerful in determining social media engagement with social media content. There are 20 universities; the top 10 Indonesian and top 10 overseas universities based on Webometrics rankings; observed. A content analysis was conducted to analyze all data using ANOVA. There were 7,483 data in photos and videos was taken from all Instagram contents on those 20 universities’ Instagram accounts posted between 1 January and 31 December 2022. Findings suggest that Instagram content of Indonesian universities are most likely to gain stronger engagement if classical aesthetics and task-oriented message were adopted as a combination for their content strategy. However, for overseas universities, stronger engagement was obtained when task orientation was adopted than when the other two orientations were implemented. Meanwhile, visual aesthetics didn’t have any significant difference on social media engagement for overseas universities.