Assessing Instagram as a Business Model

Abstract

New technology offers large amounts of information to many people in an easy way. Bahrain is one of the smallest country in the world in terms of land mass and populations in the Persian Gulf and is constantly upgrading its IT infrastructure to meet the growing challenges in the world. Recently, many Bahraini has started using Instagram as a new approach to promote some products cheaper than the traditional marketing approach. However, the business process model is not clearly defined. The main objective of this paper is to investigate the existing Instagram's business model through formulating the following research question" How Instagram business model is run based on a standard marketing mix?" The research investigated the business through Instagram can usurp by an easier way to connect with customers using all business functions required to implement the process. This paper relied on quantitative methods of collecting the data relevant to four factors associated to the marketing mix, and hypothesis testing was developed to evaluate the phenomenon. The questionnaires were distributed to people who are interested in business through Instagram at two local universities to understand correctly their perception and view about the model. The respondents assigned scores to the factors that they favor better using the Likert scale questionnaire format. The non-probability convenience sampling was chosen as a research method for its simplicity. The findings provided evidence that Instagram's business model is implemented adequately among the people who were interested in Instagram for business in the context of the four elements of the marketing mix, and it could be the first step toward establishing entrepreneurship through Instagram.