Instagram

In recent years, determining the most effective time to post on Instagram for increased engagement has become a central concern for digital marketers. Despite its significance, research on this topic remains limited. This study adopts an exploratory research approach to analyze Instagram posts from selected Western countries (Europe and America) and Iranian businesses. The data were collected during the period from February 21, 2022, to March 21, 2022, employing web scraping tools. Classification algorithms, including XGBoost, K-NN, SVM, and Linear Regression, are employed for modeling, with results favoring the XGBoost method for accuracy. The study reveals optimal posting times between 12 and 3 pm for Western Countries businesses and 9 and 12 am for Iranian businesses. Furthermore, it suggests Sunday as the best day for posting in the West, contrasting with Thursday in Iran. In summary, this research underscores the differing ideal posting times in Iran and the West, emphasizing the challenge of constructing a uniform model for all countries.

Pedagogic discourse is inherently multimodal, and teaching is a multimodal experience that takes place through the integration of (spoken) language and an array of other communicative modes. Similarly, modern multimedia platforms, such as Instagram, also have the potential to be used as multimodal educational tools that make use of different modalities alongside text. As such, the present study aimed to analyze three prominent Instagram pages, including BBC Learning English, Learning English with Oxford, and Learning English with Cambridge, through the multimodal discourse analysis toolkit proposed by Ledin and Machin (2020). Qualitative data analysis was run to analyze the data. The findings of the study indicated that the English Language Teaching (ELT) pages analyzed employed a diverse array of semiotic resources, spanning from the incorporation of various images to the careful selection of different colors and typography to effectively convey their intended meanings. Additionally, the visual representations employed in the posts were largely consistent with, and in some cases, complementary to the overall content of the posts, and the underlying messages they aimed to convey. Specifically, the visual representations in the ELT pages were purposefully designed to reflect the culture of the English-speaking community as a clear means of reinforcement.