Word of Mouth in Storytelling Rintik Sedu on Instagram Audience Interaction

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-573-7_8How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Word of Mouth; Storytelling; Audience Interaction; Qualitative; Instagram

Abstract

This study examines how storytelling on Rintik Sedu, a popular poetic and narrative emotional Instagram account, generates natural Word of Mouth (WOM) and builds trust among its audience. In today’s digital era, Word of Mouth is highly influential since peer recommendations are seen as more genuine than brand-driven advertising. Using a qualitative approach, in-depth interviews were conducted with five followers aged 19–24 years old who have engaged with the account for over three years. Narrative Transportation Theory was applied to learn how emotional immersion in stories encourages sharing and behavior recommendation. The findings show that followers naturally share content by tagging friends, reposting storytelling content, recommending books, also initiating discussions on Rintik Sedu’s podcasts and movie. Because these tactics are based on genuine emotional connections rather than persuasive marketing, they are trusted. The study concludes that storytelling fosters sustained engagement and turns audiences into reliable advocates who spread Rintik Sedu’s message through genuine Word of Mouth. This illustrates the enduring value of narrative-driven communication in fostering influence and trust in today's online landscape. However, this research is limited to a small sample of young adult Instagram users, thus further studies could expand to larger and more diverse audiences across different platforms to deepen the understanding of narrative-driven Word of Mouth.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Audrey Vania Alodia Hulu
AU  - Lelita Azaria Rahmadiva
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/04/30
TI  - Word of Mouth in Storytelling Rintik Sedu on Instagram Audience Interaction
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Communication and New Media Studies (COMNEWS 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 68
EP  - 76
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-573-7_8
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-573-7_8
ID  - Hulu2026
ER  -