Background: Over the past two decades, the media landscape has undergonesubstantial changes. Social media is increasingly replacing traditionalmedia, which has influenced the way of advertising. Social mediaplatforms enable a two-way communication between brands and itsconsumers. However, it remains a challenge for brands to create relevantand attractive content in order to market themselves and build strongrelationships with consumers on social media.

Purpose: The aim of the study is to investigate what should be taken into accountin order to generate a higher level of consumer engagement when brandspublish posts on social media.

Method: This study is conducted with a quantitative research design. It employsa content analysis of brand posts by a selection of worldwide fast foodand beverage brands on the social media platform Instagram. Eightinternational brands are selected based on the size of their businessaround the world and the variation of their brand posts. A total of 287brand posts from the brands’ international accounts are collected andexamined in order to investigate what leads to higher levels of consumerengagement.

Findings: The results of the study reveal that image posts lead to higher levels ofconsumer engagement compared to video posts. However, content type,emotions, source of content, presence of hashtags and posting time donot create significant differences in engagement levels.