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Instagram is a social media platform that has quickly evolved from a photo-sharing application to a successful marketing tool. It holds various business opportunities, and its rapid growth helps showcase the business offerings. Its innovative use of adverts entices clients, and its visual nature complements the social media marketing strategy. Thus, looking at the dynamic nature and growth of the platform, this chapter outlines the past research trends in the literature of Instagram marketing as the primary objective. This structured review undertakes the study of 76 articles based on defined inclusion and exclusion criteria and analyzes the literature in different contexts. This chapter includes the hybrid review (narrative and framework-based), and findings from the literature highlight a significant influence of Instagram marketing on users. During the brief description of the literature in a different context, the numerous research gaps are outlined with future research directions based on the ADO framework. Lastly, it also presents a broader overview of the managerial and theoretical implications based on the literature of Instagram marketing.

Purpose: This paper aims to explore how Instagram can be used as a communication channel in green marketing digital mix through content analysis of posts published on the official Instagram account of bio&bio, the first Croatian organic food store.

Method: Using a case study approach, qualitative content analysis was implemented in the period from January to May 2020. A total of 93 textual posts published on the official bio&bio Instagram account were analysed and then categorised using Carlson, Grove and Kangun's categorisation of the following five types of environmental claims – product orientation, process orientation, image orientation, environmental orientation and combination.

Findings: Instagram in the first line serves as the promotion channel. Although Instagram de-emphasises textual description in favour of image use, which makes it different from other social media platforms, this study showed how companies can send effective green messages using the appropriate environmental-oriented claims to their audience and in that way raise the awareness about their products and position themselves as good corporate citizens.

Research limitations: The results derived from this case study cannot be generalised since they are based on a single case in one country.

Originality/value of paper: The paper represents the first research on how Instagram can be used as a communication channel in the context of green marketing digital mix in the Republic of Croatia. The results derived from this case study can serve as a ground floor for future researches on how companies can use Instagram as a communication channel embedded in green marketing digital mix.

Introduction: As a type of poverty, relative poverty can be defined as being below the average welfare of society. Basic needs can be afforded, but individuals can’t take advantage of the welfare created by society. Today coding the reflection of welfare, sharing experiences has new meanings by new social media means. Instagram is especially preferred in visual sharing because of its filter options, live feed, or story mode. These features help the message sender to increase the effect of the message and the receiver to understand the reality with its different dimensions. It is not shocking that the images of welfare and its indicators are shared increasingly in social networks because storytelling in this media is fed. The visual strengthening is underlining the possession of the owner and the deficiency of the non-owner from their perspectives.

Purpose: This study examines the emotional effects of ideal life images shared on Instagram on other individuals. The aim is to reveal and define the meaning ascribed to such fractions of life with a visual appeal by people who cannot lead this kind of life.

Methodology: In accordance with the Social Learning Theory, the study assumes that people with relative poverty take notice of their own poverty through social media. The study investigates the emotions manifested by individuals who take notice of the things that they lack through social media. Thus, a qualitative study was designed and conducted using a phenomenological approach. The phenomenon of this study is failing to have. The objective of the study is to understand and determine what the individuals who do social comparisons feel they lack. For this purpose, the fundamental research questions of this study are as follows: RQ1: What are the main categories of Instagram posts that evoke a sense of deprivation in individuals?; RQ2: What do glamorous Instagram posts mean to individuals who are above the relative poverty threshold? The data gathered via the in-depth interview technique were analyzed using the computer-assisted qualitative analysis program (MaxqDa 2020). Qualitative content analysis and descriptive analysis were the forms of analysis used in the study.

Findings: The fact that there are negative links between passively consuming information on social media and well-being is supported by previous studies. This study exposes the experiences of “failing to have” due to upward social comparison in individuals who are above the relative poverty threshold in Turkey. The categories of shared content that evoke the feeling of deficiency in the participants are as follows: Travel/vacation, participation in social life, physical attractiveness, material possessions, and professional/academic career. The participants of the study are individuals who are above the relative poverty threshold for Turkey. The participants want to have “more than what they already have.” For this reason, it can be suggested that the main keyword summarizing the findings of the study is “more.” The study demonstrates that failing to travel and participate in social life deeply affects the participants and causes them to experience negative emotions.

Through social media communities, politicians communicate personal or even private information and seek to take advantage of the possibilities to connect with both influential personalities and ordinary people. Politicians' Instagram use can be understood as a way of producing visual flows of professional, personal and private practices.

The current research seeks to compare the ways in which the leaders of the three major political parties in Greece (New Democracy, SYRIZA and KINAL) form their ‘image’ through their Instagram posts during a multiple consecutive elections (pre-)electoral period (2019 European, Prefectural/Municipal and general elections) and a nonelectoral period (2018), in order to trace similarities and differences in the communication strategies of the abovementioned politicians during these periods. Among others, politicians post private aspects of their lives during both periods; they focus predominantly on the formation of a positive self-image, instead of attacking their political opponents and increase the number of personal images during the (pre-)electoral period of our study.

To explore the digital landscape, narrowing to Instagram, as a cultural space to advance sociological understanding of elite athlete mother identity meanings and lives.

Relativist narrative inquiry is outlined as a theoretical and methodological approach to expand sociological research on motherhood and sport, by exploring big and small stories on social media sites. Elite athlete mother's mediated self-portrayals on Instagram are theorized as identity stories (re)created and made possible, by cultural narrative resources.

An example of big and small story research is outlined from a larger case study of elite athlete figure skating mothers' self-portrayals on Instagram as they negotiated motherhood, and a professional sport career. Thematic narrative analysis findings include a big story plot in the post-partum period: negotiating intensive mothering and career. Two small stories that fed into fluid meanings of this big story plot are also presented: holding the baby close and working mum/new mumtrepeneur. These findings show nuanced contradictions of contemporary motherhood meanings, within sportswomen's personal and public digital stories.

A big and small story approach grounded in narrative inquiry holds value to learn more about the contemporary digital landscape's shaping of the meanings of sportswomen's identities and lives. Future research is recommended using this approach on additional social media platforms (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) to expand intertextual understanding of elite athlete mother identities in socio-cultural context, tapping into these underexplored naturalistic data resources.