Triathlon Posts On Instagram: What Are The Most Engaging Appeals For User Interactions?

Abstract

A brand’s identity reflects the core values of a brand.
Meanwhile the brand image are users’ associations with
the brand. Therefore, to know users’ perceptions and to
possibly obtain congruence between the brand identity and
the brand image, it is immensely important to implement
an efficient marketing strategy. Hence, this study’s
main aim is to analyse the differences of image appeals,
comparing the sports event identities and the sports
events’ brand images and their effect on user interactions.
A content analysis was conducted, with an overall sample
of 629 Instagram images of five triathlons. An especially
for this study developed codebook was employed. The
most frequent appeals were people, athletes, urban
surroundings, running as a sport, the start-/finish line as
event momentum and concentration as an emotion with
90% showing a positive tone. Posts displaying people,
emotions, a positive tone, and the start-/finishing line
obtained higher interaction rates. Posts including women
or swimming showed high mean values in interactions but
were rather underrepresented. The results contribute to
the literature on social media marketing within the field of
sports events by exploring Instagram post appeals from
the perspective of the organisers, and the users and their
impact on user interaction.