Reframing Livestream Marketing: A Netnographic Exploration of Two-Way Communication in TikTok Livestream Agribusiness

The current study has explored an unexpected set-up of TikTok livestream marketing by Kabul Miarso where an initially developed allegedly one-way product promotion turned into an interactive supply surface. A netnographic approach showed how 25 unsolicited offers of supply unraveled in the rural audience that had been turned into the active participant position of the audience as opposed to the passive consumer position. The consequent change in direction of interaction shows how two-way economic involvement in the rural agribusiness scenario is possible using livestreaming platforms. The results indicate that livestream platforms like TikTok are not only promotional media but also an informal micro-market, which allows making contribution to the supply chain by the audience. Television viewers offered materials such as bran, corn and rice products and this was a natural evolution to participatory commerce. These practices support theories of co-creation, conduct through networks, and commerce grounded in community, which show that inventive digitality is also possible in technologically underserved contexts. The way the entire netnography has been applied makes the study a significant contribution to the literature of livestream commerce and to research about rural economic inclusion. It repurposes the concept of the audience as potential partners and not the audience as the passive receivers of input and motivates agribusiness companies to think of livestreaming as not so much a sales tool but a way of building relationships and creating a supply source. Finally, the research proves that technological sophistication is not the only tool that encourages innovation in the rural digital economies; it depends on user innovativeness, local contextualization, and platform re-use. With digital ecosystems ever-changing, the systemic scrutiny of these emergent behaviors via the use of netnography will prove to be an imperative of scholars and practitioners who are committed to evolving dynamic and inclusive, responsive, and participatory digital markets.