Photographs are inherently tied to sharing. With people carrying their smartphones with integrated cameras with them at all times, it has become even easier and more attractive to take photographs of every moment of their lives and share it with friends or an audience of strangers, for example on the photo-sharing platform Instagram. This thesis deals with the sponsored posts on Instagram, which has become one of the most used social platforms in Denmark in recent years. The aim of this thesis is to explore the potential associated with companies’ use of sponsored posts on Instagram seen from the perspective of private users.

To investigate this we conducted a focus group interview and three individuals interviews. In addition to this we engaged in a three-month virtual ethnographic investigation through our profile @specialeglimt on Instagram. Our intension was to engage and communicate with other users, while observing the sponsored posts and engagement on Instagram. During this period we documented our observations and experiences in field notes. Our study is divided into three research parts, which combined lead to the answer to our research question. Each of the three research sections lead to an understanding of the field and the content of these three parts now will be described:

The first part consists of a qualitative focus group interview that seeks to understand the private users’ usage of Instagram. The 8 participants in our focus group interview were recruited through our Instagram-profile @specialeglimt. The results from the interview, along with our field notes, provide knowledge about the participant’s use of Instagram such as their reason for being on Instagram and what they post. Furthermore we obtained insight into how the private users engage with other users on Instagram and how they perceive sponsored posts.

The second research part consists of the three individual interviews that seek to understand the private users’ perception of and attitude towards the sponsored posts on Instagram. Moreover, this part is based on the results from the first research part and the knowledge we obtained from our three individual interviews. Our field notes and experiences with sponsored posts through @specialeglimt once again supplemented this research part.

The third research part attempts to deepen the knowledge about both the challenges and opportunities of the sponsored posts on Instagram. This research part is based on the results from our first and second research part as well as theory about companies’ usage of social platforms such as Instagram.

Through our analysis we investigated that private users use Instagram as a platform for self-presentation as well as to maintain and create relationships with other users. The challenges consist in creating sponsored posts which private users perceive as inspiring and relevant. Most of the private users scroll through their newsfeed without noticing the sponsored posts, but others found them relevant to them and their usage of Instagram. One of the opportunities is that the private users of other social media platforms have, over time, accepted the presence of sponsored posts for instance on Facebook and we therefore assume that it is only a matter of time before these posts will be accepted on Instagram. Our thesis examines that there is a great potential for companies’ use of sponsored posts on Instagram if they manage to create an emotional connection with the private users.