Abstract/Summary

This paper examines customers' engagement with a product on Instagram from discovering a product to the decision to buy it or not to buy. The study was organised around two social engagements: obtaining product information and accessing users' comments/feedback about products. The study investigates how the use of Instagram affects the engagement with a particular product. A survey was conducted to investigate the prevalence of this new journey among Saudis who are already involved with social media and have active Instagram account. The survey was conducted with 264 Saudi participants from 27 cities in Saudi Arabia. The sample consists of 132 males and 132 females. Most of the participants were highly educated: 43.6% held a bachelor’s degree and were aged between 25 to 30 and 19 to 24 years old. Approximately 48% were employees in different sectors. The majority were from three cities: Riyadh, Jeddah and Mecca. In general, the findings demonstrate that high quality live photos, short videos and the availability of long written descriptions about products make Instagram a top discovery and evaluation tool when seeking more information about new products. On Instagram normal people become celebrities and influencers in a very short period. Influencers on Instagram who have huge number of followers may exceed a million, are more trusted and extremely guide their followers buying behaviour