Engaging sports fans in social media : a case study : SC Braga

• Main Author: Cadilhe, Mafalda Isabel de Santos
• Publication Date: 2019
• Format: Master thesis
• Language: eng
• Source: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Download full: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/31056
• topic: Social media; Instagram; Sports; Fan loyalty; Engagement; Redes sociais; Desporto; Lealdade dos fãs; Interação; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Outras Ciências Sociais

The importance of the role of communication in society is unquestionably large. It has been evolving over many years. Nowadays, systems of communication include the telephone, the cellphone, radio, television and social media. Social media is an undeniably growing phenomenon. It is so, whether it be for individuals or companies/institutions alike. Social media platforms are those that gather individuals in online mediums where unregulated information can be shared by all with access to said platforms. This dissertation explores both the dangers and the advantages of such media use, especially how important it can be in a context as large as sports, more specifically soccer. A convenience sampling questionnaire corroborated already existing studies on the use of social media by sports fans, that proved that social media is a very efficient tool for maintain fan loyalty and most team sympathizers do actively use the platforms both to gather information and for personal entertainment. Data collected over a course of about ten months (soccer season 2018/2019) from the SC Braga’s Instagram account also came to some interesting conclusions about content with which people engaged the most and the least over the season. Topics that called out matters of compassion for other individuals proved to have a bigger impact on SC Braga’s Instagram followers and matters related to sponsorships/publicity were the least engaged with topics. Two interesting conclusions are the relative independence of fan reactions to sports results, and the fast reactions to posts significant to club success