Analyzing the Perspectives of Instagram Followers of Iranian Public Libraries about Users` engagement and Features of pages` Content

The aim of present study was Analyzing the Perspectives of Instagram Followers of Iranian Public Libraries about Users` engagement and Features of pages` Content.

The study was conducted with a quantitative approach and survey method. The research community included followers of Instagram pages of Iranian public libraries. out of 602 of the research population (the followers of Iran’s public libraries pages), 235 followers were selected as the research sample using Krejcie and Morgan table. Data was collected through a questionnaire. Participants' responses to the questionnaire were analyzed using SPSS and descriptive and inferential statistics.

The results showed that the majority of participants in the study believe that receiving information about library events and news and being aware of library resources are the most important motivations for them to follow the Instagram pages of public libraries in Iran. Respondents considered library posts in Instagram relatively good and had a mediocre view of their own engagement with library posts. The relationship between user engagement and motivation, membership duration and age of users variables is significant and direct, and the relationship between user engagement variable and membership variable is significant and inverse. In other words, the relationship between user motivation and their engagement has been significant and direct, so that the more motivated users have more engagement. However, the relationship between membership and engagement has been reversed, meaning that people who were not members of public libraries were more likely to participate in the Instagram pages of public libraries. Also, the relationship between the time variable of membership and engagement is significant and direct. In other words, the longer a person has been in public libraries, the more involved they are in the Instagram pages of public libraries. There is also a positive increase between the two age and user engagment variables, and with increasing age, the engagement has also increased. Finally, the variable correlation coefficient of education level and user egagement showed that the users with higher education level have the higher engagment rate. Also, no significant relationship was observed between the feature of the content provided variable and the population variables.

Instagram is an effective tool for marketing libraries and their services. Based on the result of present research, it is recommended that librarians provide more of the following contents for their Instagram posts: brief and useful information about library resources, and announcement of upcoming events. Also, as users are more engaged with videos and photos, using these formats in library posts, would bring more attention of users. Keywords: social network marketing, Instagram, user engagement, public library