Social Media Marketing Strategies and Consumer Engagement during the COVID-19 Pandemic : An exploratory study of IKEA, including a multiple-case comparison between the UK, Australia and Sweden.

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Social Media Marketing Strategies and

Consumer Engagement during the

COVID-19 Pandemic

An exploratory study of IKEA, including a multiple-case comparison between

the UK, Australia and Sweden.

MASTER THESIS WITHIN Business Administration NUMBER OF CREDITS: 15 hp

PROGRAMME OF STUDY: International Marketing AUTHORS: Milana Ruljova, Johanna Stenberg

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Master Thesis in Business Administration

Title: Social Media Marketing Strategies and Consumer Engagement during the COVID-19 Pandemic - An exploratory study of IKEA, including a multiple-case comparison between the UK, Australia and Sweden.

Authors: Milana Ruljova and Johanna Stenberg Tutor: Brian McCauley

Date: 2021-05-24

Key terms: Social Media Marketing Strategy, Consumer Engagement, Instagram, COVID, IKEA

ABSTRACT

Background: The marketing efforts made by firms have been forced to change dramatically during the past year as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Online communication and social media platforms have seen a boom in users and firms have been forced to switch both their sales and marketing efforts to the online world. By applying the definition and observable characteristics of Social Media Marketing Strategies (SMMS) in combination with Consumer Engagement Theory, the authors of this paper aim to explore which strategies have been applied by three IKEA Instagram accounts and how social media users are reacting to these applied SMMSs in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Problem: It has previously been suggested to conduct further studies on the combination of social media and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in order to help firms develop stronger and more meaningful consumer relationships. Researchers further suggest that there is a current research gap regarding the factors which might influence user-generated content (such as comments), positive Word of Mouth (WoM) and brand engagement among social media users. Further it was recognized that social media reaches across national borders which leaves room for cross-cultural research to be made on the following consequences.

Purpose: The exploratory purpose of this study aims in developing a deeper understanding of the applied SMMSs by firms and the resulting consumer engagement as well as social media user’s reactions to those strategies.

Research Questions:“What social media marketing strategies (SMMSs) are IKEA applying during the COVID-19 pandemic?” and, “How do social media users respond to IKEA’s social media marketing strategies (SMMSs) during the COVID-19 Pandemic?”

Method: With a relativist ontology and social constructionist epistemology, the study inductively explores the SMMSs applied by three Instagram accounts from the retailer IKEA in Australia, UK and Sweden. Through a case study-approach and the application of qualitative content analysis, the accounts have been analyzed and coded separately by two independent researchers. Intercoder reliability was measured between the researchers through Cohen’s Kappa. The findings from each case were then compared in a cross-case analysis.

Practical Implications: This research will help marketing managers by providing insights into how consumers respond and perceive different SMMS during the COVID-19 pandemic and to enhance their consumer engagement by adapting an appropriate communication strategy to reach their business objectives.

Result and Conclusions: Within the chosen timeframe of 6 months during COVID-19, the analyzed IKEA accounts applied disparate SMMS, namely, ‘Social Commerce Strategy’, ‘Social Content Analysis’ and ‘Social Monitoring Strategy’. The Instagram users' reactions differed across the three accounts, where the strategy which received the most positive consumer reactions, as well as the highest level of consumer engagement, was the ‘Social Content Strategy’ which was applied by IKEA Australia. Thus, the findings suggest that the three Instagram accounts apply unique SMMSs adapted to each country and thus achieve distinctive results in terms of consumer engagement.

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Abbreviations Description

SMMS Social Media Marketing Strategy

WoM Word of Mouth

CRM Customer Relationship Management

IC Information-Centric PC Product-Centric HC Human-Centric C2B Consumer to Business B2C Business to Consumer C2C Consumer to Consumer

ICR Intercoder Reliability AI Artificial Intelligence

COVID-19 The pandemic of the virus SARS-CoV-2 which appeared in late 2019

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction 6

1.1 Background Information 6

1.2 Research Gap 7

1.3 Delimitations 8

1.4 Research Aim and Questions 8

2. Literature Review 10

2.1 Social Media 10

2.1.1 Instagram 11

2.1.2 Types of Social Media Posts and Messaging Appeals 13

2.2 Social Media Marketing Strategy (SMMS) 15

2.3 Consumer Engagement Theory 18

2.4 Word of Mouth (WoM) 21

2.5 COVID-19 22 3. Methodology 24 3.1 Research Philosophy 24 3.2 Research Design 26 3.2.1 Case-study approach 27 3.3 Method 27 3.3.1 Data Collection 27 3.3.2 Sampling Strategy 29 3.4 Data Analysis 33

3.4.1 Qualitative Content Analysis 33

3.4.2 Intercoder Reliability 37 3.5 Research Ethics 39 4. Empirical Findings 41 4.1 IKEA UK 42 4.2 IKEA Australia 44 4.3 IKEA Sweden 45 5. Analysis 52 5.1 United Kingdom 52 5.2. Australia 54 5.3 Sweden 57

5.4 Cross Case Analysis 59

6. Discussion & Conclusion 63

6.1 Limitations & Recommendations for Future Research 65

7. References 67

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List of Figures

Figure 1...56

Figure 2...56

Figure 3...56

List of Tables Table 1: Statistics of Instagram users and population in the UK, Australia & Sweden...30

Table 2: The adopted codebook with individual descriptions of each code...34

Table 3: Categorization of Instagram comments...36

Table 4: Categorization of Instagram Post content...37

Table 5: Total amount of original comments ...41

Table 6: UK Quotes from Original Instagram Comments...43

Table 7: Australia Quotes from Original Instagram Comments...45

Table 8: Sweden Quotes from Original Instagram Comments...47

Table 9: Social Media Users’ Reactions...48

Table 10: Social Media Users’ Reaction in % per Post Type...49

Table 11: Tags per Post Type...50

Table 12: Communication Streams...50

Table 13: Reaction with Covid Related Comments ...51

Table 14: Overview of collected data and corresponding SMMS...59

List of Appendix Appendix 1:...87

Appendix 2:...87

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1. Introduction

This section introduces the context in which the research is carried out, followed by a description of the phenomenon of SMMS and Consumer Engagement Theory. The identified research gap, delimitations and aim of this study will then be stated, followed by the

formulated research questions.

1.1 Background Information

There is an ongoing transformation in the marketing field where online marketing is

increasingly substituting traditional marketing such as printed and broadcasted media (Kumar et al., 2016; Batra & Keller, 2016; Steinhoff et al., 2018; Wongkitrungrueng, 2020). After years of social media development, various social media platforms have emerged, such as Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube, to accommodate the needs of the contemporary world (Azoury & Daou, 2020). Social media has gone from being used as a simple marketing tool to becoming an essential source of market intelligence for firms to create a competitive advantage (Li et al., 2021). To increase user attention and engagement, social media

platforms today are highly dependent on visual content since “a picture is worth a thousand

words” (Azoury & Daou, 2020, p. 8).

Mobile devices and other technologies are highly integrated into human lives nowadays, and as a result, digital communication dominates traditional marketing (Azoury & Daou, 2020). As a consequence of that shift, there has been a reallocation of power from businesses to consumers, making marketers reevaluate their current traditional marketing models (Pantano et al., 2019). What has further stimulated the transition from traditional to online marketing is the appearance of COVID-19, which has forced firms to adapt their social media marketing strategies accordingly (McKinsey & Company, 2020; Liu et al., 2020; Li et al., 2021). COVID-19 was first detected in China in the city of Wuhan in December 2019 (Huang et al., 2020). COVID-19 can cause dry cough, fever, myalgia, fatigue, kidney failure and dyspnea and may therefore lead to substantial health impacts (Liu et al., 2020). The transmission of COVID-19 was originally from animal to human but jumped from human to human (Liu et

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al., 2020). As a result, the World Trade Organisation officially reported COVID-19 as a world pandemic, which has drastically disrupted the scope in which we live and work in a

non-foreseeable way (Liu et al., 2020). One of the businesses that has been heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic is the worldwide furniture retailer company IKEA. IKEA was established in Sweden by Ingvar Kamprad in 1943 (IKEA, 2020).

In 2020 IKEA experienced many challenges due to a pandemic where 75% of stores

worldwide were closed for an average of seven weeks (IKEA Financial Report, 2020). After various lockdowns, some of the IKEA stores were reopened for a limited period of time to which made visitors return physically to the store, but the number of store visits was still lower in 2020 compared to 2019 (IKEA Financial Report, 2020). The website visitors also differed in 2020 and reached higher levels compared to the previous year. Even though the physical stores reopened, the online sales still remained high (IKEA Financial Report, 2020), which demonstrates a change in consumer purchasing behaviour caused by the pandemic and lockdowns where people preferred the constant access to browse IKEA products online (IKEA Financial Report, 2020). COVID-19 significantly impacted the supply chain of IKEA and resulted in delays in the logistics system, and affected the availability of products in various locations (IKEA Financial Report, 2020). As a result, COVID-19 affected IKEA’s retail sales, revenue, website visitors, logistics and production (IKEA Financial Report, 2020).

This research will incorporate consumer engagement theory which explains how customer motivations are essential for developing effective SMMSs for the organisation (Venkatesan, 2017). Because of the multiple existing definitions and understandings of the term ‘social media marketing strategy, the authors of this paper have chosen to apply the description developed by Li et al. (2021), published in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science.

1.2 Research Gap

There is a gap in the recently published paper by Li et al. (2021) regarding what types of SMMS are applied by organizations and their outcomes. This study will explore how social media can be used as a tool to help firms develop more robust and meaningful relationships with their customers, as was suggested in a previous study by Agnihotri (2020). It has also been suggested to further research the factors which influence positive WoM and brand

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engagement among social media users (Ramirez et al., 2018). According to Li et al. (2021), the field also recognizes that social media reaches across national borders, which leaves room for cross-cultural research to be made on the following consequences.

Existing data on the offline marketing strategies of IKEA suggests that they apply different approaches depending on the country they operate in (Moth, 2013; Misra, 2014;). However, there is no data on how IKEA operates within social media, specifically on Instagram.

Therefore, this paper will look into the applied SMMS by IKEA and the corresponding social media consumer engagement by conducting a cross-cultural analysis. Due to the current world situation, this paper will investigate the topic in the context of the global pandemic of COVID-19.

1.3 Delimitations

Delimitations decide the scope of the research and define the boundaries of which aspects the researchers will be able to draw conclusions upon (Collis & Hussey, 2014). This paper

focuses on the applied SMMS and the following Instagram users’ reactions to those strategies within three IKEA Instagram accounts during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore the

researchers are not aiming to draw conclusions about or compare how various cultural aspects may impact consumer engagement. The researchers aim to look at which SMMS IKEA is applying when targeting different countries and how the consumers are responding to those strategies and the resulting levels of consumer engagement. However, the researchers will not be able to draw conclusions about how the application of various SMMS has affected financial outcomes for the company. The researchers do not have access to the internal

insights of the IKEA company. Therefore, the researchers will not be able to conclude the functionality or management of the IKEA Instagram accounts. The researchers will only focus on which SMMS is effective during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, the findings of this paper will not be generalisable outside of the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

1.4 Research Aim and Questions

The aim of this study is to identify and create a better understanding of the SMMSs applied by businesses in practice. In order to explore the following Instagram users' reactions to those

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strategies, the study will further analyze the resulting consumer engagement in the form of likes, comments and WoM, as well as the levels of positive versus negative comments of each account. This research will help marketers by providing insights into how consumers respond to different SMMS during the COVID-19 pandemic. It will further guide businesses in

enhancing their consumer engagement by adapting the appropriate communication strategy to reach their business objectives. Therefore, the insights generated by this study will contribute to the development of knowledge in SMMS in the context of COVID-19. In order to bring contribution to the field of study, the following questions have been formulated:

Research Questions:

1. What social media marketing strategies are IKEA applying during the Covid-19 Pandemic?

2. How do social media users respond to IKEA's social media marketing strategies during the Covid-19 Pandemic?

This paper will examine three IKEA Instagram accounts targeting Sweden, UK and Australia to answer the research questions. Each account will be individually analyzed in-depth to understand their characteristics and identify which SMMS is applied by the IKEA Instagram account. The individual analysis will be followed by comparing the results of the individual IKEA Instagram accounts in a cross-case analysis to identify similarities and differences. In order to answer the first research question, the frequency and credibility of IKEA’s two-way communication will be analyzed during the chosen time-frame. Furthermore, the post type and its underlying purpose will be identified, whether it is to sell, increase consumer engaging or for CRM purposes. The second research question will require an in-depth

understanding of the Instagram users’ reactions towards the applied SMMS during the chosen time-frame. Thus, the Instagram users’ comments addressed to the IKEA Instagram accounts will be analyzed and coded as ‘negative’, ‘neutral’ or ‘positive’, based on the expressed sentiment.

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2. Literature Review

This section summarizes previous research conducted on Social Media Marketing Strategy (practical implications, definitions and conceptualization), Consumer Engagement Theory, Word of Mouth (WoM) and the impact of COVID-19 on marketing philosophy to provide the reader with a basic understanding of the topic of this research paper.

2.1 Social Media

Social media initially appeared in the stage of the commercial internet in Tokyo in 1994, where the launch and development of the first social media platforms took place (Aichner et al., 2020). Social media consists of internet-based channels and platforms that encourage real-time peer-to-peer interaction as well as user-generated content (Carr & Hayes, 2015; Dwivedi et al., 2015; Go & You, 2016; Harrigan et al., 2020). People started to use portable electronic devices more due to the affordability of the Internet in the 21st century (Azoury & Daou, 2020). These portable electronic devices are considered convenient and accessible tools for web access and communication amongst people who use these devices and the Internet (Azoury & Daou, 2020). Customer empowerment and technologies that are based on Web 2.0 have caused a move into 'pull' approach in marketing. As a result of that shift, businesses, in order to 'pull' attract new customers now, must pay closer attention to inbound marketing (Azoury & Daou, 2020). This focus requires the development of customer

engagement and CRM, which should be done through the earned and leveraging media, robust content, and persistent activity that underpins brand uniqueness and

customer-centricity (Azoury & Daou, 2020).

Social media are online platforms, websites and apps where social media users share pictures and videos, chat and exchange their own experiences (Schivinski et al., 2016). The fast-paced growth of social media usage across the world has fundamentally changed the society we live in and how consumers behave in all aspects of marketing (Lamberton & Stephen, 2016). In 1999, it was predicted in the Journal of Interactive Marketing that “all marketing is, or soon will be, interactive marketing” (Glazer, 1999, p. 3), which slowly has become a reality through the growth of social media channels over the past decades. Nowadays, social media marketing is an essential tool for marketers to understand, communicate with and nurture the relationship with their consumers (Kumar et al., 2016). The firm generated content positively

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affects customer behaviour effectively in social media because consumers are given a voice through likes and comments (Kumar et al., 2016). Depending on the firms' objectives, social media can proactively generate online traffic, stimulate sales, increase brand awareness, or reactively by emphasising analysis and monitoring (Li et al., 2021). The strategic objectives in social media may vary from simply being transaction-based to being relational-oriented (Rydén et al., 2015). The traditional marketing era is not entirely forgotten because the most successful and effective marketing strategies are when and where digital/social media

marketing is integrated with traditional marketing. This combination and integration result in better message communication to potential audiences and more effective outcomes (Azoury & Daou, 2020). Traditional marketing mainly focuses on the value from purchase behaviour through customer lifetime, whereas SMMS instead provides value through consumer

engagement. Consumer engagement generates both direct and indirect value for the firm through direct customer purchases and indirect product referrals and WoM to other customers (Kumar & Pansari, 2014; Venkatesan, 2017). Social media platforms serve firms as a

marketing tool for customer relationship management (CRM), customer service, sales promotion, advertising channels and branding activities (Ashley & Tuten, 2015).The advancement of social media platforms has enhanced and facilitated the CRM process, decision making in business (Libai et al., 2010; Abbas et al., 2019), as well as the

identification and development of a loyal customer base (Trainor et al., 2014; Harrigan et al., 2020). Hence, social media has gone from being used as a simple marketing tool to becoming a source for market intelligence and, ultimately, a crucial tool for firms to achieve a

competitive edge over their competitors (Lamberton & Stephen, 2016; Li et al., 2020).

2.1.1 Instagram

Visual social media has increasingly gained popularity over the years (Rietveld et al., 2020), which has resulted in Instagram becoming one of the most popular platforms worldwide (Che et al., 2017). Instagram is a social media platform where social media users can share and upload short videos and pictures via their accounts (Robinson, 2020). Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom are the founders of Instagram in 2010 (Robinson, 2020). Instagram allows its users to add text underneath the posts, use geotagging and hashtags to organise photos, and tag photos (Robinson, 2020). Instagram became one of the most prominent social media tools

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and is today used by politicians, businesses, non-profits, news sites and individuals (Robinson, 2020). Comments, followers, and likes are known as measuring tools for identifying engagement on Instagram (Erkan, 2015). The maximum audience engagement does not exceed 30 seconds on Instagram. Thus, brands and businesses try to attract audience attention within that 30 seconds. The main message on Instagram is always integrated into the beginning of the post in the case when the post does not consist of curiosity or displays the story for the audience to watch it (Azoury & Daou, 2020). Audiences are more interested and easily attracted to content that is shorter in time (Azoury & Daou, 2020). This is why marketers and businesses should deliver their message within shorter times in the form of a few seconds (Azoury & Daou, 2020). If marketers and businesses managed to grab audience attention within the first seconds, they would be most likely to look for more information or click on the link (Walter & Gioglio, 2020). In the case when businesses and marketers would not succeed to grab the audience's attention within the first seconds, the result will be that the audience will keep scrolling down the feed-in Instagram for more relevant content and more exciting information (Walter & Gioglio, 2020). It is evident that 93% of well-known brands have a strong presence on Instagram and use it as a tool for their social media marketing strategies (Sangvikar et al., 2019). The previously mentioned core functions of Instagram aim for businesses to find and maintain the connection with their target audience (Varma et al., 2020). Instagram is considered an essential channel for businesses due to its high popularity and opportunity to create engagement and connection with the target audience or customers (Levin, 2020). The users are empowered to share their knowledge and experience regarding a service or a product through social media platforms like Instagram (Nielsen, 2013; Levin et al., 2020). 84% of consumers' trust is built on C2C and WoM, which is valued and trusted much more than paid advertisement (Nielsen, 2013; Levin et al., 2020).

Instagram announced that 1billion monthly users were reached in June 2018 (Levin, 2020). The result of Instagram shoppable opportunity and experience comes through integrating visuals and Instagram posts which creates a completely new channel for retail (Levin, 2020). Thus, the products or services displayed through the images can easily and directly be bought with just one click, which makes it a tremendous selling channel vital for businesses and brands (Levin, 2020). Growing and enhancing social media nowadays is so crucial like it was never before (Levin, 2020).

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The social media platform Instagram is the primary source for data collection in this paper because of the importance of visuals in today's marketing environment (Che et al., 2017). Previous research even suggests that social media users are more willing to engage with a brand, product or service and make a final purchase on Instagram instead of Facebook (Phua et al., 2017). Furthermore, the domestic IKEA accounts were more established and active on Instagram than other social media platforms.

2.1.2 Types of Social Media Posts and Messaging Appeals

In social media marketing, the content itself is crucial for the companies since it allows them to create connections with their audience through sharing and posting (Ahmad et al., 2015). Content marketing is heavily based on the consumers' knowledge and understanding and aims to provide additional value (Ahmad et al., 2015). Consequently, it encourages the creation of trending and exciting content for the consumers, which results in the creation of brand awareness and consumer engagement (Ahmad et al., 2015). Therefore, it is crucial in content marketing to focus on quality as opposed to quantity (Ahmad et al., 2015).

When it comes to creating the message strategy and media planning for social media marketing, businesses tend to stay where the consumers are (Ashley & Tuten, 2015). Such places include social networks, microsites, video sharing sites or microblogs since the perceived ease of use and consumer reach are often higher on those platforms (Ashley & Tuten, 2015). The applied social media strategies vary drastically depending on the type of industry, available resources, and the particular firm's marketing objectives (Kordzadeh & Young, 2020; Li et al., 2021; Ashley & Tuten, 2015). Nevertheless, the most appropriate messaging and communication strategies suggested by academics are not always the ones that marketers in the real world are using. Previous research shows that brands are more likely to use functional appeals in their messaging strategy (Ashley & Tuten, 2015). The researchers themselves, however, advocate a greater focus on other types of messaging strategies since entertainment often is a stronger motivator for consumer engagement than informative content (Ashley & Tuten, 2015).

Regarding the construction of the messaging sequence on social media, firms need to consider that the messages will always be viewed in context and not individually since all

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content exists in various streams (Ordenes et al., 2019). Both Kocielnik & Hsieh (2017) and Ordenes et al. (2019) suggest that a continuous message stream containing the same type of posts will reduce the level of consumer engagement and instead suggest a complementary approach with cross-message content to increase message sharing between consumers. Lee et al. (2018) supported this conclusion by claiming that a persuasive messaging strategy had a positive effect on consumer engagement and that an informative strategy had a negative impact when applied in isolation. Furthermore, the emotional messaging strategies in social media results in a more significant impact and higher numbers of shares and likes (Swani et al., 2013; Lee et al., 2018). Previous social media research suggests a distinction between the message content effect of the emotional appeals and informative appeals in posts (Akpinar & Berger 2017; Lee et al., 2018). This paper will distinguish between the different types of posts mentioned above and adjust the categories to accommodate this research.

Information-centric (IC)

The informative appeals often include textual content, created to appeal to the rational side of the consumer through the provision of information of the attributes of the products and brands (Yoo & MacInnis 2005; de Vries et al., 2012; Lee et al., 2018; Rietveld, 2020). Informative appeals provide relevant descriptions and information regarding the product in the post (Rietveld, 2020). The positive effects of information-centric posts include better customer understanding and reduced customer purchase uncertainty (Stafford & Day, 1995; Yoo & MacInnis 2005; Rietveld, 2020).

Product-centric (PC)

Similarly to previous studies, the categorization of “product-centric” posts was identified based on brand product positioning within a certain post (Felici, 2004; Karimova, 2020). Product-centric posts that include brand products receive higher consumer engagement than other posts (Felici, 2004; Karimova, 2020). Instagram users tend to perform positive actions after viewing a brand product, such as following the viewed account, doing information searches or even making a decision towards a final purchase (Facebook, 2019; Belanche et al., 2020). However, in previous studies, experience-oriented posts have been claimed to gain better engagement than product-oriented posts (Erkan, 2015).

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Human-centric (HC)

Researchers have previously looked at user engagement towards Instagram content (Bakhshi et al., 2014). The Instagram images or videos that involved human faces were considered one of the post categories that result in higher social media user engagement than other posts on Instagram (Bakhshi et al., 2014). As a result, Instagram content that involved humans got 38% more likes and 32% more comments than information-centric content. Like previous research, Marwick (2015) also demonstrated that such Instagram content, including human faces, results in better engagement. Whereas, it should be taken into consideration that this study focused on user pages instead of brand pages. Similarly to previous research, the pictures containing human subjects were coded by the researchers of this paper as 'human-centric. (Bakhshi et al., 2014; Marwick, 2015).

2.2 Social Media Marketing Strategy (SMMS)

SMMS has been defined as “an organization’s integrated pattern of activities that, based on a

careful assessment of customers’ motivations for brand-related social media use and the undertaking of deliberate engagement initiatives, transform social media connectedness (networks) and interactions (influences) into valuable strategic means to achieve desirable marketing outcomes” (Li et al., 2021, p 54).

Social Media Marketing Strategy (SMMS) is a topic that in various forms have been discussed by researchers (Kumar et al., 2013; Zhang et al., 2017; Felix et al., 2017).

However, there has been a lack of consistency of potential meanings and definitions, which has made it challenging to create a collective understanding of the term across the research field. Previous research in SMMS has consequently been very isolated and directed towards specialised fields, which further has complicated the process of creating a general

understanding of the term (Lamberton & Stephen 2016; Li et al., 2021). The article published by Li et al. (2021), managed to construct a collective definition applicable across different industries and is one of the most recent efforts providing an updated and generalized conceptualisation and definition of the term.

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There are four different types of SMMS, depending on the level of achieved consumer engagement and established strategic objectives of the firm; Social Commerce Strategy, Social Content Strategy, Social Monitoring Strategy and Social CRM Strategy (Li et al., 2021). The following section will provide a thorough explanation of each of the four types of SMMSs.

Social Commerce Strategy

The Social Commerce Strategy often implements a one-way communication stream with generally low levels of consumer engagement (Li et al., 2021). Hence, the aim of this strategy is not to create engagement or conversation with the social media consumers, but instead with the sole purpose of selling their products or services (Rydén et al., 2015). This strategy is short-term oriented with a transactional nature and might be considered the strategy with the lowest level of maturity (Grönroos, 1994). The consumers are often reactive and passive, and the exchange made between the firm and the consumers is solely focused on financial

resources in exchange for the firm’s promotional offerings (Li et al., 2021). Hence, the firm’s selling capabilities are essential for this strategy, where the goal is to synergize the effects of social media and other selling channels (Li et al., 2021).

Social Content Strategy

The Social Content Strategy aims to deliver valuable and timely content to accommodate the needs and wants of the consumers as opposed to a channel for product promotion solely (Järvinen & Taiminen, 2016). The goal then becomes to boost sales through a

customer-centric strategy with valuable content and higher levels of consumer engagement (Malthouse et al., 2013; Hollebeek & Macky, 2019). The strategy applies a two-way

communication stream and aims to create brand awareness, encourage customer interactions and spur positive WoM (Swani et al., 2017). They, therefore, apply both firm-generated content (posted by their effort) as well as user-generated content as a result of the customer to customer interactions through comments and sharing content related to the brand. Two-way communication allows the firm to exchange their valuable content with persuasion capital, network assets and positive WoM from their consumers, which will help achieve customer loyalty and sustainable brand trust (Li et al., 2021). Thus, the firm must understand the

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underlying motivations of consumer engagement and consumer interactions to develop engaging marketing content (Malthouse et al., 2013; Li et al., 2021).

Social Monitoring strategy

The Social Monitoring Strategy is primarily focused on analyzing and observing behaviours of social media consumers and discovering and responding to their needs and complaints expressed online (Van Noort & Willemsen, 2012). As opposed to the previously mentioned Social Content Strategy, the Social Monitoring Strategy requires the marketers' involvement throughout the whole communication process from the content creation and delivery to the consumer reactions (Barger et al., 2016). The firm would then take advantage of the two-way communication stream by learning and reacting to consumer behaviours online to improve consumer satisfaction levels and customer relationship management efforts (Li et al., 2020). Furthermore, firms need to adopt this type of SMMS to possess competencies in responding to customer requests and complaints to avoid the potential damage that negative WoM can have on a firm's brand image and reputation (Kim et al., 2016).

Social CRM Strategy

The Social CRM Strategy possesses the highest level of strategic maturity and aims to combine the benefits of CRM through customer retention and the benefits from social media in the form of consumer engagement (Malthouse, 2013). The strategy requires a more complex communication stream which includes interactions between the firm and consumer, internal interactions within the firm as well as communication between the consumers with the aim of empowering and engaging consumers and creating beneficial relationships for both parties and ultimately lead to better performance of the firm (Li et al., 2021). This type of strategy allows firms to enhance consumer engagement even further through one-to-one interactions (Li et al., 2021), and consumers are more willingly contributing with innovative ideas and value co-creation (Jaakkola & Alexander 2014). The firm, therefore, needs to develop competencies regarding social CRM; organizational learning in terms of innovation and relationship management is imperative when creating a successful Social CRM Strategy (Li et al., 2020).

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2.3 Consumer Engagement Theory

In the context of social media, consumer engagement is referred to as the interaction between the customer with a business content on social media (de Vries et al., 2012; Oh et al., 2017; Devereux et al., 2020). Consumer engagement is associated with concepts like relationship marketing, brand loyalty, market orientation (Barger et al., 2016). Engagement in social media has previously been defined as the action of commenting, sharing, and liking posts from a brand (Tsai & Men, 2013; Schivinski et al., 2016; Perreault & Mosconi, 2018; ). Consumer engagement has, in previous studies, been a frequently used measurement for performance evaluation in social media strategy effectiveness (Kordzadeh & Young, 2020). Consumer engagement theory emphasises the importance of understanding the customers' underlying motivations to develop an effective SMMS since the heterogeneous motivations can affect social media behaviours and, ultimately, the outcome of the SMMS (Venkatesan, 2017). The intensity and strength of the connections between firm and customer in social media are vital factors of consumer engagement level, consisting of transactional and non-transactional components (Kumar et al., 2010). The level of consumer engagement has previously been viewed as a continuum (Malthouse et al., 2013; Dolan et al., 2016; Li et al., 2021). The level of engagement can vary from simply liking a page to co-creation (Malthouse et al., 2013; Dolan et al., 2016; Li et al., 2021).

Consumer engagement theory emphasises the importance of input from the customers and the firm (Harmeling et al., 2017). Customers' feedback has become a vital aspect of a firms' marketing strategy because of its contributions to product innovation (Cui & Wu, 2016). Kumar et al. (2010) stress that consumer engagement results in retention, higher consumer acquisition and share of wallet. Also, the firm can receive benefits in both intangible (e.g. feedback which helps to improve the product) and tangible (e.g. profit, higher revenues, market share) ways from consumer engagement (Pansari & Kumar, 2017).

The study by Harmeling et al. (2017) demonstrates how the theory of consumer engagement emerges and evolves with intent to be the foundation for understanding the process, which helps in accomplishing objectives in the marketing field. Furthermore, the authors describe what consumer engagement is and stresses that it differs from engagement marketing (Harmeling et al., 2017). The differentiation between these types of engagements refers to

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strategic efforts of the firm, such as difference in firm objectives, information flows, customer value assessment, degree of customer control and customer focus on education (Harmeling et al., 2017). Effective engagement marketing can result in a more robust quality of post-purchase service, innovation promotion of customer-centric products, and lower acquisition costs (Nambisan, 2002; Malthouse et al., 2013). Consequently, engagement marketing can be understood by how firms intentionally put effort to empower and motivate customers to make further measurements of contribution resulting from the customer’s voluntary efforts towards marketing functions (Harmeling et al., 2017). Consumer

engagement is “behaviours through which customers make voluntary resource contributions

that have a ‘brand’ or ‘firm’ focus but go beyond what is fundamental to the transaction’’

(Jaakkola & Alexander, 2014, p. 248; Harmeling et al., 2017, p.314). Brodie et al. (2016) describe consumer engagement as the voluntary investment of customer’s operant resources (behaviour, skills, emotions and knowledge) and operand resources (equipment) within service systems into brand interaction and communication processes. In line with Brodie et al. (2016) and their broader understanding of engagement, Kumar and Pansari (2016, p.2) describe it as “the attitude, behaviour, the level of connectedness (1) among customers, (2)

between customers and employees, and (3) of customers and employees within a firm”.

However, the main contributors to the field have previously been considered to be Hollebeek et al. (2014), who conceptualizes the term’ consumer brand engagement’ as a “consumer’s

positively valenced brand-related cognitive, emotional and behavioural activity during or related to focal consumer/ brand interactions.”

Even though consumer engagement is considered beneficial for the consumer and the firm, it can also have the opposite effect. The negative side of consumer engagement may include the use of firm hashtags to harm the firm (Hill, 2014). The accessibility to various platforms and their tools can be used by the customers to their own benefit and result in negative WoM, which harms the firm (Van Doorn et al., 2010). The inflated costs caused by high

expectations and negative WoM will increase the firm’s vulnerability (Harmeling et al., 2017). It is therefore essential for firms to monitor and improve their strategies to enhance their consumer engagement through positive WoM (Harmeling et al., 2017).

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Digital media and its interactive nature provide opportunities by exchanging and sharing information amongst the seller and the customer (B2C) and information exchange amongst customer to customer (C2C) (Sashi, 2012). This C2C interactivity that the seller initially constructs both for new and existing customers aims in community creation which helps the seller to develop solutions through the understanding and identification of the problems (Sashi, 2012). Therefore this type of interaction is the opposite of the traditional role of relationships between the seller and customer. Moreover, customers are considered to be the ones who can impact others' purchase decisions through C2C interactivity and information exchange (Sashi, 2012). A consumer engagement cycle was developed by Sashi (2012) featuring seven elements, which are interaction, satisfaction, retention, commitment,

advocacy, engagement and connection. Consequently, the consumer engagement matrix was developed based on the interactivity degree and emotional bonds between the seller and the buyer (Sashi, 2012). It has been also identified that customers who are engaged are not just loyal or satisfied, but there are stronger connections or even 'attachment' to the firm's service or brand (Gallup, 2012). Already engaged customers who were satisfied with a purchase, service or product and repeat their purchases from the same seller (retention) can recommend this seller/product to others through, e.g. blogs, WoM, comments or social networking (Sashi, 2012).

One of the critical resources for the primary business objective of profit growth is customers (Kumar et al., 2016). Due to homogeneous products/services and intense competition, it is hard and not enough to deliver satisfaction to customers just by selling (Kumar et al., 2016). Therefore the firm must show initiative in an attempt to engage customers in different ways, not just in product purchase, but also in finding a way to influence them to leave feedback about their purchase, to make referrals, and engaging in C2C interactions (Kumar, 2013). Customers who did not show their interest in traditional marketing channels mainly base their final purchase decision on C2C and WoM, which business can take advantage of within their B2B and B2C communication (Kumar et al., 2010; Kumar et al., 2016). When the customer constantly leaves feedback about the product that allows the seller to improve it based on customer needs, wants, and criticism, it is called customer knowledge (Kumar et al., 2016). Employee engagement (EE) is considered one of the aspects that influence consumer engagement, which consists of elements such as employee commitment, employee

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satisfaction, employee loyalty, employee identification, and employee performance (Kumar et al., 2016). The quality of employee communication with customers results in creating an overall perception of the brand (Sirianni et al., 2013). The EE score can be improved by following specific activities that will add value to the organisation and its culture (Kumar and Pansari, 2014).

2.4 Word of Mouth (WoM)

Social media engagement does not only include a two-way communication flow between the brand and the consumers but rather includes a complicated network of others of which interactions may influence brand engagement (Chandler & Lusch, 2015; Storbacka et al., 2016). Around three billion brand impressions are generated daily within different social media platforms through the electronic WoM (Berger, 2014). Customer to customer interactions through social media has proved to be essential in consumer decision-making since social media users perceive content related to brands to be trustable and valuable in decision-making when their friends and family post it as opposed to brand channels themselves (Naeem & Ozuem, 2021; Boerman & Kruikemeier, 2016; Chiou, Hsiao, & Su, 2014). These findings are in accordance with Ordenes et al. (2019), whose research suggests that managers who wish for their content to be shared by followers online should focus on messages that facilitate conversation between consumers instead of exerting demands. Previous research suggests that the most influential factor that creates engagement among social media users is social responsibility (Naaem & Ozuem, 2021). The users feel an obligation to help their peers evaluate different brands and talk about their experiences and interactions with the brand (Naaem & Ozuem, 2021). According to earlier research Batra and Keller (2016), the best reason for consumers to share social media content is to create

relationships with their peers and maintain them . Furthermore, negative WoM has been suggested to damage brand engagement and decrease trust levels for brands (Estrella-Ramón & Ellis-Chadwick, 2017). Strong trust between the consumer and brand is essential in

establishing commercial and interpersonal relationships. Therefore, it is considered one of the most significant contributors, resulting in different types of information exchange between the two parties (Shek et al., 2003).

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2.5 COVID-19

During the past year, the world has changed dramatically as we all have seen and

experienced. Many people have changed their perspective about the world and life due to COVID-19 (He et al., 2020). The consequences of COVID-19 did not only result in a health crisis where many lives were taken away, but it also caused extraordinary and frightening cultural and socio-economic asymmetry consequences (Amanatidis et al., 2021). Many countries have created special committees to fight COVID-19 and its upcoming outcomes, where protective measures have been adopted and implemented for public health safety by most governments (Amanatidis et al., 2021). These measures include wearing masks, lockdowns, restrictions, and regulations regarding physical distancing amongst people (Amanatidis et al., 2021). Due to the tight relationship between government structures and social media (Chen et al., 2020), most of the official messages, warnings, guides and announcements were transferred to the public through various social media channels and social media platforms (Saire & Panford-Quainoo, 2020). These social media platforms through which the announcements were made were mainly Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, including specific communities that were transferring information to the public regarding the importance of following rules to fight the COVID-19 (Saire & Panford-Quainoo, 2020). Social media during the period of COVID-19 is an ideal place for the facilitation for the spread of faster and more effective governmental information and guides, including updates on diagnostic treatment and information about patients (González-Padilla &

Tortolero-Blanco, 2020; Adly et al., 2020; Kushner, 2020), as well as information transfer regarding fake or falsified factors related to the COVID-19 virus and advice on how to act (Malecki et al., 2021).

Thus, in modern marketing history, COVID-19 is considered the most significant and most influential environmental change, which has impacted marketing philosophy, consumer ethics and corporate social responsibility (He et al., 2020). COVID-19 resulted in a change in consumer behaviour in the form of irrational behaviour and decision making during a pandemic by panic buying a vast amount of things from the shelves (Sharma & Jhamb, 2020). Pandemic and lockdowns forced consumers to adapt to new changes and change their way of shopping (Sharma & Jhamb, 2020). As a result, consumer buying behaviour

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significantly shifted to online shopping from traditional shopping (Reddy, 2020). In spite of the increased number of social media users and shopping in social media, it was also

established that there is a shift in customer buying preferences in the choice of products within social media (Sharma & Jhamb, 2020). Customer buying preferences have shifted from fashion products in favour of medical and personal care (Sharma & Jhamb, 2020). During COVID-19 businesses have shifted their focus from long-term goals to short-term goals (He et al., 2020). The changes in core marketing concepts caused by COVID-19

continue to evolve and reform the marketing environment forcing businesses to enhance their entrepreneurial skills and hypermobility through adaptation to changes and develop new marketing strategies (He et al., 2020). Consumers' consumption behaviour has changed due to the COVID-19 outbreak in the form of lower spendings on unnecessary products or services, resulting in a significant fall in firms' revenue (Kantar, 2020; Want et al., 2020).

These changes caused in consumer buying behaviour due to COVID-19 are not permanent, although some will become permanent (Sharma & Jhamb, 2020). Society will most likely survive this pandemic and slowly recover, whereas the adoption of online/digital shopping will most likely remain permanent (Sharma & Jhamb, 2020). This situation can be grouped into two groups; the first is the massive shift from consumer traditional buying behaviour where people shopped in a physical store. The second is the adoption of digital shopping (Sharma & Jhamb, 2020).

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3. Methodology

The following section introduces the research philosophy and research design of this study. This is followed by the method, data collection, sampling strategy, data analysis, and research ethics. This section will provide an overview of the structure of this report and the applied methods for the creation of the following analysis.

Campbell (2016) described ‘methodology’ as “the study of how research is done’’ (p, 658). Researchers must apply an appropriate methodological framing that is aligned with the theoretical topic to address the study's formulated research questions (Easterby-Smith et al., 2018). The methodology section aims to justify why and how the applied methods are used in this paper (Creswell, 2014).

3.1 Research Philosophy

In order to comprehend scientific research, one must familiarize oneself with the methods, methodology and underlying philosophical assumptions which have been applied. Regarding the philosophy of this research, two primary philosophical constructs must be considered, namely ontology and epistemology (Collis & Hussey, 2014).

Ontology can be described as the basic assumption which the researchers hold concerning the nature of reality and can hence be considered the heart of the research design (Easterby-Smith et al., 2018). The positivist view assumes that social reality is external to the researcher and objective in nature, which implies that there is only one reality that everyone perceives as the same (Collis & Hussey, 2014). However, the interpretivist view believes that reality is a socially constructed phenomenon that is subjective in nature and implies that there is room for multiple realities perceived differently by different people (Collis & Hussey, 2014). Since the aim of this paper was to explore social media marketing strategies and the perceived reality by Instagram followers, the interpretivist paradigm and relativistic ontology are deemed most aligned with the aim of this study. A relativist ontology denies that there is simply one universal truth for all but instead claims that individuals are subjectively

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constructed (Smith, 2008). Hence, the relativist and subjectivist view puts great value on the views of those who are being affected by the topic under study (Sloan & Quan‐Haase, 2017). The adaptation of a relativist ontology can be argued for since the researchers of this paper collected data from followers and their perceptions of reality through the analysis of comments, interactions and expressed feelings. The researchers were also aware that their assumptions and views of reality would influence the results of this study, which is often part of research following an interpretivist paradigm (Collis & Hussey, 2014).

Epistemology has to do with what the researchers will be accepting as valid knowledge (Collis & Hussey, 2014). A positivist view here would aim to remain objective and

independent towards the studied subject (Collis & Hussey, 2014). In contrast, an interpretivist view would make the researchers close to the subject studied as possible and might even include participative inquiries (Collis & Hussey, 2014). Due to the nature of the phenomenon under study and the aim of this research, the interpretive paradigm and a social

constructionist epistemology were considered the most suitable. The social constructionist epistemology adopts the belief that reality will be best constructed and understood by collecting knowledge from those affected by it (May, 2002) and was suitable in the combination of an exploratory research design (Crowther & Lancaster, 2012). The application of a social constructionist epistemology for this research was justified as the authors of this study collected data on the individual perceptions of reality of Instagram followers. Furthermore, this research design enabled the researchers to collect relevant data and evidence within a small time frame and limited financial resources (May, 2002), which were in line with the parameters of this study.

The interpretivist researcher aims to build the legitimacy of the applied approach through induction (Malhotra et al., 2017). Collis and Hussey (2014) define inductive research as “a

study in which theory is developed from the observation of empirical reality” (p. 7). The

researchers of this paper have applied an inductive research approach where general

assumptions were made based on particular instances (Collis & Hussey, 2014). The analysis of the three IKEA Instagram accounts provided further insights and helped in developing general assumptions about the resulting consumer engagement and social media user reactions generated by the various SMMS in the context of COVID-19.

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3.2 Research Design

The research design provides a detailed plan for executing a research study (Collis & Hussey, 2014) to reduce uncertainty and clarify the research evidence (Sontakki, 2010). This study utilized a qualitative multiple-case study design, where three IKEA Instagram accounts targeting different nationalities were analyzed independently. The three accounts were considered as multiple cases, since they have posted different content and potentially applied contrasting SMMSs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Three types of research designs exist: Explanatory, Causal and Exploratory (Sontakki, 2010; Yin, 2014). The explanatory design aims to provide theory to answer how and why things are the way they are (Creswell, 2007). In contrast, the causal design instead aims to describe the phenomena as it exists (Collis & Hussey, 2014). The exploratory design is often applied when the goal is to identify what is happening, look for new insights, pose questions, and put the phenomena under study in a different light (Yin, 2014). Hence, the aim is to clarify concepts, discover explanations, discard impractical theories, and formulate a hypothesis (Yin, 2014). An exploratory research design was chosen for this study since it is aligned with the social constructionist approach (May, 2002). The exploratory design further allowed the researchers to explore new insights of the phenomena in a context that lacks an adequate body of

knowledge (Collis & Hussey, 2014), which is the case for the phenomenon of SMMS in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Similarly to recent research within social media, the exploratory research design was combined with a qualitative approach (Laestadius et al., 2016; Benetoli et al., 2017; Naeem & Ozuem, 2021). The reason behind choosing a

qualitative approach was that it allowed for explorative research on real-life cases (Marshall & Rossman, 2016), with the aim of better understanding the patterns as well as consumer behaviours in response to the various SMMS applied by IKEA during COVID-19 (Percy et al., 2015).

Qualitative research consists of thorough and detailed explanations, which require context and background of the study, such as systematic, detailed information regarding the research setting, observed transactions, phenomenon processes and study participants (Polit & Beck, 2010). It further assists in unfolding the experiences of social media users, which allow the researchers to study the phenomenon more openly (Moustakas, 1994). In

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comparison to a quantitative study approach, the qualitative study is indicated to generate more in-depth insights (Barnham, 2012), which better suits the purpose of this study.

3.2.1 Case-study approach

The case study approach remains very popular in qualitative studies among management scholars nowadays (Welch et al., 2011; Welch et al., 2013; Symon et al., 2018). The case study approach is aligned with qualitative research, where single or multiple cases are investigated by the researcher during a specific time frame through detailed data collection using different sources (Creswell, 2007). There are three types of case studies: single case study, multiple case study and intrinsic case study (Stake, 1995). A single case study chooses one case to demonstrate the issue, whereas a multiple-case study chooses one concern or issue within several cases (Creswell, 2007). The popularity of the case study approach is mainly due to the desire of researchers to develop various views of reality that are not driven by theory or rule (Flyvbjerg, 2010).

The qualitative approach combined with multiple case-study was found as the most suitable research design for this study. This study design was chosen since it allows the researchers to make a thorough exploration of the various SMMSs adopted by the three different IKEA Instagram accounts, the social media user reactions, and the resulting consumer engagement levels the various strategies have resulted in during the COVID-19 pandemic.

3.3 Method

The research method is the process of collecting data, technique and the tool which researchers use to explain what steps have been done in the study (Campbell, 2016).

3.3.1 Data Collection

The primary data is the data that is being collected and generated from an original source or a person (Collis & Hussey, 2014). In contrast, secondary data is collected from an existing source, naming it as ‘already existing data’ (Collis & Hussey, 2014). This study includes data from the three IKEA Instagram accounts of Sweden, the UK and Australia. As stated in the

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paper by Li et al. (2020), academic experts within the field of research recognize that social media reaches across national borders, which leaves room for cross-cultural research to be made on the following consequences (Li et al., 2021). The individual IKEA accounts from previously mentioned countries displayed various amounts of posts and comments.

The primary data for this study consisted of data visuals and text (comments) underneath each visual post. Instagram comments are considered a public domain and can be accessed free by anyone. All primary data was collected during the time period of July 1st 2020, and December 31st 2020. The researchers individually analyzed each post during the time frame of 6 months and the first initial 50 comments attached to each of the posts. The secondary data was gathered from various sources such as books, academic articles and social media, which resulted in the creation of the literature review for this study.

IKEA Case

IKEA is a home furnishing retailer founded by the Swede Ingvar Kamprad in 1943. IKEA's entry into the international market took place in 1963 when they opened their first store in Norway (Lewis, 2020). By the early 21st century, the chain had already become the world's biggest furniture retailer, operating in over 300 stores all across the world (Lewis, 2020). Today, there are 433 stores, and the chain continues to expand (Statista Research Department, 2021). The specialization of IKEA is in low-priced manufacturing goods and easy packaging, which their customers assemble at home (Lewis, 2020).

IKEA manages social media networks in each country in which they operate, communicating in a non-coherent manner across the various countries, but always in line with the brand's core values (Misra, 2014). Despite the various social media platforms used, IKEA's main online communication channel is considered to be their website (Burt, 2011). As a result of the government announcement regarding the COVID-19 restrictions, IKEA imposed certain CSR (corporate social responsibility) measures and made changes to some of its online features (IKEA, 2021).

The result of lockdowns caused by COVID-19 affected IKEA in many various ways during 2020. Based on the IKEA Financial Report (2020), the retail sales in 2020 were 39.6 billion which is lower than it was in 2019 known as 41.3 billion. Number of IKEA store visits amounted to 825 millions in 2020 and is lower compared to 2019 which is 1 billion (IKEA

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Financial Report, 2020). Meanwhile IKEA stores were reopened during/after lockdowns, the online sales managed to remain strong, which resulted in an increase of 45% in online purchases in 2020 in comparison to 2019 (IKEA Financial Report, 2020). Production of IKEA’s furniture was freezed due to pandemic and lockdowns which significantly affected the supply chain resulting in problems in logistics and delivery delays (IKEA Financial Report, 2020). Consequently as a result of supply chain problems, the IKEA inventories dropped significantly (IKEA Financial Report, 2020). Even though IKEA has faced many challenges in 2020, it still managed to recover pretty quickly which resulted in solid and strong financial results. IKEA is still in the process of recovery, by enhancing their supply chain and investing in their social media, by hiring and training employees to manage customer communication (IKEA Financial Report, 2020).

Cross-Case Analysis

Different prevention strategies were used against COVID-19 by different countries. This has resulted in countries operating in different patterns and pace to balance the initially chosen strategies. Similarly to previous research, this paper will explore the effects of various national COVID-19 strategies by applying a cross-case analysis method (Blum & Dobrotic, 2021). Each case represents its context and differentiates itself from others, which results in a holistic study of multiple cases (Yin, 2018). Multiple cross-case analysis for this study was carried out on three IKEA Instagram accounts that operate in different countries, such as the United Kingdom, Australia and Sweden.

3.3.2 Sampling Strategy

Choice of Countries

The IKEA Instagram accounts of Sweden, Australia, and the UK were used as the basis for this report's analysis. The motives for choosing these three particular countries are because of their differentiating COVID-19 strategies, higher levels of social media users' activity as well as the language fluency of the research team. The population and Instagram users statistics within the chosen countries can be seen in Table 1.

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Table 1

Statistics of Instagram users and population in the UK, Australia & Sweden

Country Source Population Source Instagram Users Instagram Users % United Kingdom (Plechr, 2021) 68.18 m (Tankovska, 2021) 30.36 m 37.25

Australia (O'Neill, 2021a) 25.74 m (Degenhard, 2021a) 10.7 m 41.56

Sweden (O'Neill, 2021b) 10.15 m (Degenhard, 2021b) 5.1 m 50.24

The three countries have had different experiences regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and have applied different strategies to tackle it. This will provide the researchers a unique opportunity to compare and contrast the applied SMMSs and how they are received by the social media users in different contexts of COVID-19. Therefore, the researcher's decision regarding the choice of countries was a result of language fluency, social media activity, and the differentiating COVID-19 strategies.

Australia

The first case in Australia of COVID-19 was detected on January 25th 2020, in the state of Victoria (Parliament of Australia, 2020). Australia adopted proactive measures towards the disease and closed all borders to non-residents by March 20th (Burke, 2020). The returning Australian residents were obligated to spend two weeks in quarantine whilst under

supervision in hotels from March 27th (Schneiders, 2020). By the end of March, Australia further imposed rules regarding social distancing and began to close services that were not considered essential (ABC News, 2020). The second wave of cases emerged during May and June, which was mainly localised in Melbourne. Therefore, Victoria went through a second lockdown that lasted for approximately four months and ended on October 26th with zero new recorded cases (Briggs, 2020). By April 27th, the total number of confirmed cases summed up to 29,718 and 910 deaths caused by COVID-19 in Australia (Worldometers, 2021).

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UK

COVID-19 reached the UK by late January 2020. The UK shortly thereafter launched a public health campaign, intending to slow the spread of the virus. The UK also launched a four-stage strategy to handle the virus: contain, delay, research, and mitigate (GOV.UK, 2020a). A lockdown was imposed on March 23rd, where all non-essential travels were banned, and schools and business were closed (GOV.UK, 2020b). By early September, most of the schools reopened, which led to a significant increase of cases and caused local

restrictions to be re-imposed gradually. Different sets of restrictions were additionally

imposed during the following three months (BBC News, 2020a). In December, a new variant of the virus caused a rise in cases which led to other countries banning incoming travellers from the UK (BBC News, 2020b). Despite this, there was a temporary ease of restrictions during Christmas in the country. By April 27th, the total amount of deaths caused by COVID-19 summed up to 4,406,946 confirmed cases and 127,434 total deaths in the UK (Worldometers, 2021).

Sweden

As opposed to other countries, Sweden has relied mostly on voluntary actions from their citizens, combined with some restrictions in certain parts of society. Sweden has imposed regulations regarding the number of people allowed for public gatherings and the closing of specific public services considered non-essential (Regeringskansliet, 2020). On December 18th, newer and stricter regulations were put into place, and an extension of the pandemic law was established to increase the power of the government (Löfgren, 2020). The more lenient approach that Sweden has adopted, and the focus on the economy has been a worldwide topic of debate and has received heavy critique from both their inhabitants and internationally (Bjorklund & Ewing, 2020). An investigation of the measures taken in Sweden was published on December 25th, which heavily critiqued the applied strategy and straightforwardly states that “the strategy of protecting the elderly has failed”

(Coronakommisionen, 2020, p.2). By April 27th, the total number of confirmed cases caused by COVID-19 summed up to 938,343 and 13,923 total deaths in Sweden (Worldometers, 2021).

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Choice of Time Frame

Primary data was collected during July 1st 2020, and December 31st 2020. This period was chosen since all three nationalities were heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic at the time and experienced lockdowns and restrictions of various kinds. Australia, and specifically the state of Victoria, experienced a local lockdown that lasted for four months and ended in October (Briggs, 2020). In contrast, the UK were more heavily affected by nationwide lockdowns with stricter regulations, including online teaching for universities and

non-essential retail industries being closed (GOV.UK, 2020a). Sweden, however, remained open excluding lockdowns and instead communicated recommendations to their population, including instructions that are beneficial to stay safe. These contrasting strategies make the three particular cases interesting to explore further and make comparisons regarding potential consequences. Furthermore, a smaller time frame of six months was chosen since it allowed the researchers to include multiple accounts and conduct a more thorough analysis of each case.

Choice of Sampling

The sampling method provides some fundamentals for research judgements and refers to a limited number of a population, universe or item (Sontakki, 2010). Since some of the posts contained over 200 comments excluding responses, it was necessary to apply a sampling technique. Since social media research often includes massive amounts of data, researchers must cope with the associated challenges through sampling techniques (Andreotta et al., 2019). However, there is no previous consensus on sampling techniques in huge social media datasets (Lewis et al., 2013). Therefore, the researchers of this paper decided to include the first 50 comments and the corresponding responses to be included as a basis for the analysis of this study. Since some of the most recent comments could be written months after the actual time of posting, the researchers concluded that the most accurate reactions of the social media users and two-way communication streams would be captured closer to posting. Therefore, a random sampling technique was not considered since the researchers concluded that comments that were made long after the actual time of posting were not considered an accurate indicator for the identification of two-way communication, which is crucial for this study purpose. Instead, a purposive sampling technique was applied where certain criterias

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were set, based on the researchers’ judgement in order to make a choice regarding the research sample (Sibona & Walczak, 2012).

3.4 Data Analysis

3.4.1 Qualitative Content Analysis

Similarly to previous studies in the context of social media, the authors of this paper chose to apply a qualitative content analysis (Laestadius et al., 2016; Laestadius et al., 2019; Kerr et al., 2020; Chan, 2021). Qualitative content analysis helps in reducing the material which has been collected and requires the researchers to remain focused on the pre-selected aspects, which are essential to determine when answering the research questions (Flick et al., 2014). This method hence, allows researchers to describe meaning to qualitative data in a systematic way (Mayring, 2000; Schreier, 2012). The method was chosen since it allowed the authors to qualitatively analyze the Instagram feeds through the interpretation of post types and text in the form of comments from the three Instagram accounts of @Ikea_australia, @ikeasverige and @ikeauk. The material was categorized based on a codebook that contained all the relevant aspects which were part of the interpretation of the material (Flick et al., 2014). The researchers developed the codebook, shown in table 2, which was used as guidance to designate codes to the data collected from the three IKEA Instagram accounts.

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Table 2

The adopted codebook with individual descriptions of each code.

CATEGORY CODE DESCRIPTION

Code for Post Human-centric (HC)

Information-centric (IC)

Product centric (PC)

A post that includes humans as the focus.

A post that includes any sort of text as the main focus.

A post that includes the product as the main focus.

Code for Comments Negative (1)

Neutral (2)

Positive (3)

Complaints or angry/sad emojis regarding customer service, product, shipping, COVID safety measures. Emojis that do not demonstrate any sort of sentiments or emotions such as house or flowers. Tagging friends in

comments.

Compliments, positive sentiments or reaction in the form of emojis (smile or heart), regarding the brand content or the product.

Code for Customer Relationship

Management (CRM)

One-way communication

Two-way communication

No reply from company to customer enquiries.

Customer enquiries are being addressed by the company.

Code for Word of Mouth