What Should Companies Do to Improve Brand Awareness Through Instagram? The Lens of Signalling Theory

Manuscript type: Research paper Research aims: This study investigates potential factors of electronic service quality dimensions on the improvement of brand awareness among customers through the social media platform Instagram. Design/Methodology/Approach: The study involves 398 respondents across Java Island, Indonesia, and employed a PLS-SEM approach to analyse the data. Research findings: The findings indicate that the electronic service quality dimensions of Instagram, in terms of content relevance, content quality, information quality and contact availability, significantly improve brand awareness. Theoretical contribution/Originality: This study contributes to the electronic service quality and brand awareness literature by validating four potential service quality dimensions of Instagram that are effective instruments for improving brand awareness. Practitioner/Policy implication: This study offers managerial recommendations for companies that see Instagram as a prospective social media tool for enhancing brand awareness. Companies should focus on managing their Instagram accounts by providing relevant content, qualified content, qualified information, and ensuring the availability of their contact details. Research limitation/Implications: To enhance generalisability, we suggest future studies examine how brand awareness improvement could be made across social media accounts with broader customer segments, either SMEs or big corporations.