Professional Team Sport and Twitter: Gratifications Sought and Obtained by Followers

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 188-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Gibbs ◽  
Norm O’Reilly ◽  
Michelle Brunette

Without exception, all professional sport teams in North America use social media to communicate with fans. Sport communication professionals use Twitter as one of the strategic tools of engagement, yet there remains a lack of understanding about how users are motivated and gratified in their Twitter use. Drawing on a specific sample from the Twitter followers of the Canadian Football League, the researchers used semistructured in-depth interviews, content analysis, and an online survey to seek an understanding of what motivates and satisfies Twitter followers of professional sport teams, measured through the gratifications sought and the fulfillment of these motives through the perceived gratifications obtained. The results add to the sport communications literature by finding 4 primary gratifications sought by Twitter users: interaction, promotion, live game updates, and news. Professional sport teams can improve strategic fan engagement by better understanding how Twitter followers use and seek gratification in the social-media experience.

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 184797901989974 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmad Adnan Al-Tit ◽  
Anis Omri ◽  
Tarek Bel Hadj

This study investigates the driving factors of the social commerce intention of online communities in Saudi Arabia by building a model that comprises two exogenous variables (social support and social commerce constructs (SCCs)), a mediating variable (trust), and one endogenous variable (social commerce intention). The study population comprises Facebook and Twitter users in the kingdom. A convenience sample of 500 social media users was chosen. Data were gathered via a questionnaire-based online survey. Our findings indicate that social support had a significant relationship with trust and social commerce intention. This relationship was significantly mediated by trust. SCCs also had a significant relationship with emotional as well as informational support and social commerce intention. Unexpectedly, the relationship between SCCs and social support dimensions was significantly mediated by trust. Consequently, it was concluded that social support, trust, and SCCs are key drivers of social commerce intention. These results invite social media retailers to consider such factors to increase social media users’ intention to purchase.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Daniel Weimar ◽  
Brian P. Soebbing ◽  
Pamela Wicker

The identification of relevant effects is challenging in Big Data because larger samples are more likely to yield statistically significant effects. Professional sport teams attempting to identify the core drivers behind their follower numbers on social media also face this challenge. The purposes of this study are to examine the effects of game outcomes on the change rate of followers using big social media data and to assess the relative impact of determinants using dominance analysis. The authors collected data of 644 first division football clubs from Facebook (n = 297,042), Twitter (n = 292,186), and Instagram (n = 312,710) over a 19-month period. Our fixed-effects regressions returned significant findings for game outcomes. Therefore, the authors extracted the relative importance of wins, draws, and losses through dominance analysis, indicating that a victory yielded the highest increase in followers. For practitioners, the findings present opportunities to develop fan engagement, increase the number of followers, and enter new markets.


Author(s):  
Giandomenico Di Domenico ◽  
Annamaria Tuan ◽  
Marco Visentin

AbstractIn the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, unprecedent amounts of fake news and hoax spread on social media. In particular, conspiracy theories argued on the effect of specific new technologies like 5G and misinformation tarnished the reputation of brands like Huawei. Language plays a crucial role in understanding the motivational determinants of social media users in sharing misinformation, as people extract meaning from information based on their discursive resources and their skillset. In this paper, we analyze textual and non-textual cues from a panel of 4923 tweets containing the hashtags #5G and #Huawei during the first week of May 2020, when several countries were still adopting lockdown measures, to determine whether or not a tweet is retweeted and, if so, how much it is retweeted. Overall, through traditional logistic regression and machine learning, we found different effects of the textual and non-textual cues on the retweeting of a tweet and on its ability to accumulate retweets. In particular, the presence of misinformation plays an interesting role in spreading the tweet on the network. More importantly, the relative influence of the cues suggests that Twitter users actually read a tweet but not necessarily they understand or critically evaluate it before deciding to share it on the social media platform.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mehita Iqani

This article explores the role of social media promotions in the marketing of luxury, from the perspectives of both representatives of global brands and the local influencers contracted to promote them online. It provides insights into role of social media in marketing luxury in ‘new’ markets (African cities) and the complexities attendant to the relationship between brand representatives and influencers. It reports on in-depth interviews with brand representatives and social media influencers working in the luxury sector in large anglophone African cities. Empirical findings show the role of social media in how luxury is promoted by those working in the industry. Three key complexities to do with value, trust and authenticity were evident in how global brand representatives and local influencers discussed social media. In terms of value, influencers emphasize strategies for monetizing visibility, while brand managers emphasize the need to get their money’s worth. Regarding trust, influencers express caution about brands trying to exploit them, while brands express scepticism about the extent of influencer’s abilities. On the topic of authenticity, influencers emphasize how the integrity of their personal brands is paramount, while brand representatives are mostly concerned with how genuine the social media posts seem. The article provides original empirical details about the relationships between brand managers and social media influencers, as well as to the nuances of social media luxury marketing in African cities. It contributes to critical theories of branding practice in media economies of the global south.


2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 22 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Shakaib Akram ◽  
Wafi Albalawi

<p>Social media has become a major source of communication and collaboration between individuals and among groups. The current paper investigates the underlying motives of social media adoption. The research identifies various determinants such as perceived connectedness, perceived enjoyment, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use as the major influencers of social media adoption intention. Using the sample from Saudi Arabia an online survey is conducted. Structural equation modeling has been used to test the proposed relationships. The results reveal that individuals’ perceived connectedness and perceived enjoyment act as stimuli for their social media adoption intention. Moreover, perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness mediate these stimuli and the individuals’ social media adoption intention. The paper concludes with the recommendations for the academicians and the social media designers/developers.</p>


2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 516-532 ◽  
Author(s):  
Makayla Hipke ◽  
Frauke Hachtmann

This study used a case-study approach to develop an understanding of how social-media strategy is developed and deployed in Big Ten Conference athletic departments and to explore the issues associated with it. Based on in-depth interviews with department officials, the following 6 themes emerged: connecting with target audiences, varied approaches in coordination of postings, athletic communications as content gatekeepers, desire to incorporate sponsors and generate revenue, focusing on building fan loyalty through engagement, and challenges of negativity and metrics. The social-media strategy in Big Ten Conference athletic departments appears to be driven by athletic communications/sports information departments as opposed to marketing departments. The greatest benefit of social media has been the ease of engagement and instantaneous connection between fans and the teams they love, which can lead to building greater loyalty to a team. Some of the challenges departments face include having to deal with the reality of crises and negative attention around programs more quickly than with traditional media and to measure social-media success accurately.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Riddle ◽  
Jill R D MacKay

The rapid rise of social media in the past decade represents a new space where animals are represented in human society, and this may influence human perceptions. In this study, 211 participants (49% female) between the ages of 18 to 44 were recruited to an online survey where they viewed mock-up pages from a social media site. All participants saw the same image of an animal, but were randomly assigned to a positive or negative narrative condition. When participants were presented with the critical narrative they perceived the animal to be more stressed (χ2=13.99, p&lt;0.001). Participants expressed reservations in face of a narrative they disagreed with in free text comments. Overall, this study found evidence to suggest that people moderate their discussions on human-animal interactions based on the social network they are in, but these relationships are complex and require further research.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 529-544
Author(s):  
Daniel Zomeño ◽  
Rocío Blay-Arráez

Media convergence and the incorporation of new narratives typical of the consumption habits of younger audiences in the social media environment have led to the proliferation of a wide variety of formats and types of content in the media ecosystem through which the editorial content offered to brands is being distributed. This qualitative research, using in-depth interviews with a qualified sample of branded content managers from the main Spanish media, allows us to determine the main characteristics of the native advertising demanded by advertisers. The results corroborate observations that content channelled through more sophisticated consumption experiences, using both multimedia and interactivity with a clear transmedia approach, tends to be better received by the audience and, therefore, in greater demand by brands. It also confirms that both video and social media formats have grown exponentially when it comes to providing an outlet for branded content. Based on the results obtained, a proposed classification of these products, including definitions, has been drawn up so they can be publicised to the professional world, offering the reflection and precision that their rapid development has not allowed until now.


INFORMASI ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 87
Author(s):  
Ika Hariyani

Campaigns nowadays are oftenly carried through social medias, including campaigns concerning the environment. Based on previous studies, effectivity of campaigns through social medias were affected by many factors, such as the activity of the online administrator, additional socialization that were carried off- line, and also the involvement of the active followers in social medias. However, this paper views environmental campaign in social medias could be effective if viewed from another side,that is social network. This study sees how social network can improve the effectivity of environmental campaigns in social medias,therefore it’s safe to say that this study brings an addition to previous studies related tofactors that influenced the effectivity of environmental campaigns that utilized social medias as a channel of communication. The method used for this paper is qualitative method, with case study on Melawan Asap (Fight the Haze) campaign initiated by BEM UI (Executive Board of Students of University of Indonesia) in 2015 to form an alliance consisting several organizations from inside and outside of the university. Collection of data for this study was done with in-depth interviews with certain informants, based on a criteria established previously by the author, beside an observation upon social media accounts that were used for Fight the Haze campaign. The result shows that the involvement of networks in social media affects the effectivity of Fight the Haze campaign. Also, the social relation between organizations that are united under the alliance of Fight the Haze campaign are based on sentimental network.Kampanye kian marak dilakukan dengan menggunakan media sosial, tidak terkecuali kampanye lingkungan. Berdasarkan kajian-kajian sebelumnya, keefektifan kampanye dengan menggunakan media sosial dipengaruhi oleh berbagai faktor seperti adanya administrator online yang aktif, adanya sosialisasi tambahan yang dilakukan secara offline, dan juga terlibatnya pengikut/followers di media sosial secara aktif. Namun, tulisanini melihat kampanye lingkungan di media sosial dapat efektif dari sisi lain yaitu dari jaringan sosial. Kajian ini melihat bagaimana jaringan sosial berperan dalam membuat efektif kampanye lingkungan di media sosial, sehingga dapat dikatakan bahwa kajian ini menambahkan penemuan dari kajian-kajian sebelumnya yang berbicara mengenai faktor yang membuat efektif kampanye lingkungan dengan menggunakan media sosial sebagai media komunikasinya. Metode yang digunakan dalam tulisan ini adalah metode kualitatif dengan studi kasus pada kampanye melawan asap yang diinisiatori oleh BEM UI 2015 untuk membentuk sebuah aliansi dengan menggandeng beberapa organisasi di UI dan juga dari luar UI. Pengambilan data dalam studi ini dilakukan melalui wawancara mendalam dengan informan- informan tertentu berdasarkan kriteria yang penulis tetapkan dan melakukan observasi terhadap akun media sosial yang digunakan untuk menyebarluaskan kampanye melawan asap. Hasil kajian ini menunjukkan bahwa keterlibatan peran jaringan di media sosial mempengaruhi efektifitas kampanye melawan asap, serta hubungan sosial antar organisasi yang tergabung dalam aliansi gerakan melawan asap terbentuk berdasarkan jaringan perasaan/sentiment.


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