ABSTRACT

This study assessed the engagement metrics and social media strategies used by some food and nutrition related Instagram accounts. A retrospective content analysis and a desk review design was adopted for the study and a total of 6708 posts were selected from 20 Nigerian-based Instagram profiles. Data on food and nutrition accounts, level of engagement and social media strategies were collected using a social status© software. The IBM SPSS version 25.0 was used to analyse the data. Descriptive statistics was computed for the continuous and categorical variables. Pearson correlation was used to investigate the association between strategies and engagement of selected Instagram accounts. A P-value of less than 0.05 was accepted as statistically significance. Result revealed that 9ja foodie and Askdamz had the highest number of followers with 330,224 and 263,903 respectively. Most (68.1%) of the post was recorded from health promotion profiles of Ketonaija, Optimum foodie and Lose it Nigerian with (12.0%), (11.6%) and (10.1%) respectively. Askdamz (7.8%), Ayoola food Nigeria (7.2%), Nourish right (4.7%), Food and Calorie (4.1%) and Askddietitian (4.0%) received a considerable proportion ofthe total posts made. Most (68.1%) ofthe posts were made by health promotion profiles while 31.9% were made by food industry brands. 9ja foodie recorded the highest number of followers (330,224), reactions (2475.23+6451.92), comments (209.36 + 252.24), interactions (2684.60 +6648.46) and tags (5.16+ 2.38) while Eating Healthyng (1.43 ±7.61) recorded the highest engagements. For the food companies, Pepsi Naija (309,706) had the highest number of followers, reactions (1003.42 + 2950.14), comments (82.79+ 236.08) and interactions (1087.33+ 3050.15) while Poweroil Nigeria (0.70+ 2.02) and Hollandia Yoghurt (7.33+ 4.13) had the highest engagements and tags respectively. The engagement strategies showed that the profiles adopted similar posting strategies ranging from carousel album (20.2%), reels (32.7%), image (38.4%) and video (8.8%). Image recorded the highest number of percentage with (38.4%). Profile type was positively associated with post type (r = -0.02**, p = 0.00), reactions (r = 0.04**, p = 0.00) and interactions (r=0.04**, p=0.00). A positive correlation was reported between post on reactions (r=l .00 , p=0.00) and interactions. The number of tags significantly influenced the reactions (r=0.05^, p=0.00), comments (r=0.08**, p=0.00) and overall interaction rates (r=0.06“, p=0.00). Social media content should be tailored to suit not only the target audience, but also the social media channel being used and the desired engagement. Health promotion practitioners and organizations can learn from other types of brands and consider using few oftheir strategies and more positive content to relay healthy eating messages.