The Levels of Consumers’ Online Brand-Related Activities on Brand-Related User-Generated Content: Measuring Consumer-Brand Engagement on Instagram in Cyprus

  1. Uzunboylu, Naziyet
  2. English
  3. 315 p.
  4. Vrontis, Demetris
  5. Melanthiou, Yioula | Papasolomou, Ioanna
  6. Consumer-Brand Engagement | Brand-related User-generated Content (Br-UGC) | Consumers’ Online Brand-Related Activities (COBRAs) | Instagram | Visual Analysis | Thematic Analysis | Interaction Analysis | Netnography
    • In today’s digital era, the landscape of marketing has shifted from firm-driven communication to consumer-powered engagement. Social media platforms like Instagram have not only revolutionized how brands communicate with their audiences but also empowered users to actively participate in shaping brand narratives through Brand-Related User-Generated Content (Br-UGC). As companies increasingly integrate Br-UGC into their branding strategies, understanding its impact on consumer-brand engagement (CBE) has become a critical academic and practical concern. Despite this growing relevance, prior research has primarily focused on influencer marketing or firm-generated content, leaving a significant gap in our knowledge of how ordinary consumers co-create brand meaning through their own visual, textual, and interactive content. This doctoral thesis aimed to analyse the levels of Consumers’ Online Brand-Related Activities (COBRAs) on Instagram within the Cypriot context, focusing on CBE by developing and empirically testing a conceptual framework to fill this gap in the literature. Through a structured methodological approach comprising a systematic literature review, narrative synthesis, and netnographic empirical analysis, this study proposed and tested a multi-dimensional conceptual framework that explains how Br-UGC influences CBE across different content formats, visual styles, and interaction mechanisms. The results demonstrate that Br-UGC is not only a rich site of consumer expression, but also a strategic lever for brands seeking authentic and scalable engagement. The visual and textual characteristics of posts and stories emerged as critical drivers of likes, saves, sticker taps, and views. Stories, in particular, showed strong creation-level behaviours, especially among followers, due to their ephemeral and algorithmically promoted nature. Conversely, posts displayed stronger consumption- and contribution-level engagement, often involving deliberate visual composition and stronger brand associations. The use of brand mentions and calls-to-action (CTA) also varied across formats, suggesting that content structure significantly mediates user interaction. Importantly, the research confirmed the utility of the COBRAs model as a valuable framework for classifying and understanding varying depths of engagement with Br-UGC. Consumption behaviours such as viewing or tapping, contribution behaviours like commenting or saving, and creation behaviours such as producing brand-themed content were all observable and influenced by both content features and platform format. This multi-layered view of engagement enables a 3 more granular understanding of how consumers interact with brands in digital contexts and provides a basis for refining both academic theory and marketing practice. This thesis offers several key contributions. Theoretically, it advances the integration of consumer engagement literature with visual and interaction-based social media research. Practically, the findings offer guidance for marketers on how to curate or encourage Br-UGC that fosters meaningful engagement without compromising authenticity. Moreover, the policy implications of the study highlight the growing need for transparency in distinguishing between organic Br-UGC and covert brand promotion, especially as brands increasingly amplify user content. Finally, this thesis broadens the theoretical and empirical understanding of how Br-UGC functions within the digital branding ecosystem. It offers a foundation for future studies that wish to explore CBE from a behavioural, visual, and interactional perspective. It is hoped that the insights generated here will inform more ethical, strategic, and impactful uses of consumer-generated content, leading to more participatory and consumer-centric marketing practices in the years ahead.
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