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1. Introduction
Instagram is a mobile photo and video capturing and sharing service that has emerged in recent years, and rapidly become popular as a new social media platform. Users can capture and share their life moments with friends instantly through a sequence of filter operated pictures and videos (Hu et al., 2014). Consumers use their phones to take pictures and share them with family, friends, and strangers all around the world on multiple platforms (e.g. Facebook and Twitter) (Salomon, 2013). Instagram also allows consumers to add hashtags and captions, using the “#” symbol, to add keywords that best describe the pictures and videos. In addition, consumers can tag or mention other family and friends using the “@” symbol, which creates a link from their posts to the referenced consumer’s account. They can also comment on or favorite posts. These actions show in the consumer’s “updates” page so that the consumers can keep track of the “likes” and comments on their posts (Hu et al., 2014).
Marketers have become interested in learning about the potential of Instagram as a new business channel for social commerce (s-commerce). According to the 2016 social media marketing industry report, Instagram usage by marketer has increased from 36 to 44 percent among the larger social media platforms since 2015 (Stelzner, 2016). In contrast, the marketer’s use of other social media platforms has decreased across the board: Twitter has dropped from 79 to 76 percent, LinkedIn from 71 to 67 percent, Google+ from 56 to 49 percent, YouTube from 55 to 53 percent, and Pinterest from 45 to 40 percent (Stelzner, 2016). Furthermore, 57 percent of marketers plan to increase their Instagram usage, up from 52 percent in 2015. B2C marketers are more likely to increase their Instagram activity (63 percent B2C vs 48 percent B2B), and are more interested in learning about Instagram (60 percent) than B2B (47 percent) (Stelzner, 2016). Based on the 2016 social media marketing industry report, marketers are eager to improve their knowledge of Instagram (49 percent in 2015 to 55 percent in 2016).
Despite Instagram’s marketer interest and popularity, little empirical research has focused on Instagram adoption as a business channel. Accordingly, this paper examines the consumers’ acceptance of Instagram as an s-commerce...