Identifying and Investigating Types of Consumer Relationships with Brand Communities on Instagram

The present study aimed to identify and to investigate different types of favorable and unfavorable relationships between consumers and brand communities on Instagram.
In this research a multi-case study approach has been adopted in which the cases were 8 participants who followed some brands from restaurant and clothing industries on Instagram.
The findings revealed 15 different types of relationships between consumers and brand communities on Instagram, among which, 9 items including self, love, best friend, casual friend, fling, colleague, emergent, acquaintance, and animosity, were previously introduced in the extant literature. 6 of which (including two-tier, fan, respectable acquaintance, stranger, potential and declining) were the contributions of this research. These 15 types of relationships were ranked and classified based on their favorability for brands.
This research showed that consumers build a variety of relationships with brand communities on Instagram some of which are very positive and some are negative.