How emotional and informative content actually affects your brand's Instagram performance
Every day, Instagram users collectively hit the "like" button over 1.65 billion times. For brands trying to cut through the noise, understanding what drives those taps is essential.
Recent research analysing nearly 47,000 Instagram posts from 59 major brands has uncovered some surprising truths about what actually drives engagement on the platform. The findings challenge conventional marketing wisdom and offer a roadmap for brands looking to build genuine community connections.
Here's the headline finding: emotional content consistently outperforms informative content when it comes to generating likes and comments. This might seem intuitive, but the research goes deeper, revealing which specific emotional approaches work—and which backfire.
The study examined posts across six sectors including apparel, automotive, beverages, food, retail, and health and beauty. Brands ranged from Nike and BMW to Coca-Cola and Sephora. The consistency of findings across such diverse categories makes the insights broadly applicable.
Not all emotional content is created equal. The research identified four emotional categories based on two dimensions: valence (positive vs. negative) and arousal (high energy vs. low energy).
Positive High Arousal — Content that evokes excitement, amazement, admiration, or anticipation drives significant engagement. Think of the rush of watching an athlete break a record, or the awe of a stunning product shot. This category showed the strongest positive effects on both likes and comments.
Negative Low Arousal — This was the surprising winner. Content featuring pensiveness, thoughtfulness, or contemplative moods—often characterized by the presence of human faces—generated the highest comment rates. Why? Faces are powerful. Humans are hardwired to process facial expressions, and thoughtful, reflective imagery invites viewers to pause and engage more deeply.
Positive Low Arousal — Calm, serene content (think peaceful landscapes or relaxing lifestyle imagery) helps generate likes but doesn't spark conversation. Use it to maintain steady engagement, but don't expect it to drive community discussion.
Negative High Arousal — Content conveying anger, anxiety, or urgency actually decreased likes. While this approach might grab attention, it doesn't translate to the positive engagement metrics brands typically seek on Instagram.
Here's where many brands go wrong: treating Instagram like an advertising channel.
The research found that most informative appeals—product features, pricing, deals, and promotional content—have a negative impact on engagement. When brands pivot to hard-sell tactics on Instagram, followers respond by engaging less.
Why does this happen? People follow brands on Instagram primarily for entertainment and inspiration. When posts suddenly feel like advertisements, they signal a persuasion attempt that conflicts with why users are there in the first place. It feels like a bait-and-switch, and audiences respond by scrolling past.
Not all informative content fails. Two approaches actually work:
Before posting, ask: "What will this make someone feel?" rather than "What information does this communicate?" The goal is emotional resonance, not information transfer.
Human faces—especially those showing contemplative or thoughtful expressions—drive engagement. Whether it's customers, employees, or ambassadors, faces invite connection in ways product shots simply can't.
For maximum reach and likes, create content that generates excitement and positive energy. Celebrate achievements, showcase inspiring moments, and capture peak emotional experiences.
If building community conversation is the goal, slower, more contemplative content invites reflection and response. Give people something to think about, and they'll tell you what they think.
Instagram isn't the place for hard selling. Your followers already know who you are—that's why they followed you. Trust that relationship and focus on deepening it through valuable, engaging content rather than converting every post into a transaction opportunity.
Your brand can absolutely be present in your content—just don't make it the star. A visible logo or natural brand mention works. A product dominating every frame doesn't.
These findings point to a fundamental tension in social media marketing: the pressure to drive immediate sales versus the opportunity to build lasting community relationships.
The research suggests that brands who resist the urge to constantly promote and instead focus on genuine emotional connection will see better engagement metrics. Over time, that engagement builds the kind of community loyalty that translates to business results—just not in ways that can be attributed to any single post.
Instagram works best as a relationship-building tool, not a conversion channel. The brands that understand this distinction, and build their content strategies accordingly, are the ones that will thrive.
This post draws on research by Rietveld, van Dolen, Mazloom, and Worring, which analysed 46,900 Instagram posts from 59 brands across six sectors to understand how visual and textual content affects customer engagement.