Destination Branding Through Digital Storytelling: Analysis of Instagram Content in Tinalah Tourism Village

Abstract

This study examines how digital storytelling contributes to destination branding in a community-based tourism village. Drawing on the Four Dimensions of Brand Storytelling framework, it analyzes @dewitinalah, the official Instagram account of Tinalah Tourism Village, Kulon Progo, Indonesia. A qualitative content analysis was conducted on three purposively selected Instagram posts published in 2025, representing nature, culture, and history themes. Each post was treated as a multimodal unit of analysis consisting of visual content, caption, hashtag, media format, and visible interaction cues. The data were analyzed through theory-driven coding across four dimensions: story, meaning, ritual, and transmedia. The findings show that story and meaning are the strongest dimensions because the posts consistently construct coherent narratives of nature-based experience, cultural philosophy, and historical memory. The ritual dimension appears most strongly in cultural content through symbolic practice, while nature and history content remain more participatory and educational. The transmedia dimension is the weakest because storytelling is still concentrated on Instagram and has not been systematically expanded across platforms. This study demonstrates that digital storytelling functions not only as promotion but also as a strategic mechanism for constructing destination identity, differentiation, and meaningful visitor experience.