Gender Differences in Instagram Hashtag Use

ABSTRACT

This article draws on two theories—uses and gratification and the James–Lange theory of emotion—to investigate gender differences in Instagram hashtag use. The study content analyzes 1,382 Instagram posts with the hashtag #Malaysianfood and categorizes them as informative/emotional and positive/negative. The results show that compared to male users, female users tend to use emotional and positive hashtag descriptions. This study also finds a positive relationship between the number of hashtags used and both the number of followers and likes. Finally, the results suggest a high satisfaction with Malaysian foods based on the number of positive and negative hashtags. Academically, this study adds to the limited Instagram and hashtag literature, expands the online gender behavior literature to hashtags, and introduces hashtag sentiment to measure user satisfaction. Companies should consider gender preferences in Instagram, and other social media, hashtag use to attract and keep target customers.

本文借鉴了两理论使用与满足和情感探讨Instagram标签使用的性别差异杰姆斯–兰格理论。学习内容分析1382 Instagram职位标签#马来西亚食品分类信息/情感和正/负。结果表明，相比男性用户，女性用户更倾向于使用积极的情绪和标签的描述。本研究还发现一个积极的关系标签使用数、数量的追随者和喜欢之间。最后，实验结果表明，与马来西亚食品基础上的正面和负面的标签数量的高满意度。在学术上，这项研究增加了有限的Instagram和标签的文学，扩展在线性别行为文学标签，标签和介绍了情绪来衡量用户满意度。公司应该在Instagram考虑性别偏好，和其他社会媒体，标签用来吸引和留住目标客户。

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• hashtag
• instagram
• #Malaysianfood
• online behavior
• social media

Funding

This work was supported by the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Research University Grant [grant numbers: Q.J130000.2529.08H90].

Highlight

• Women used more emotional hashtags per post than men.

• Men used more negative hashtags than women.

• There was a strong and positive relationship between the number of hashtags and the number of likes.

• The hashtag is a UGC element that can be used to measure user satisfaction and feedback.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Research University Grant [grant numbers: Q.J130000.2529.08H90].