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‘You’ll never tweet alone’: Managing sports brands through social media

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Abstract

The emergence of social media has had a profound impact on the way companies communicate and connect with their customers. Indeed, brands across different industries have started utilizing social media as part of their marketing strategies. However, the way in which businesses using social media for branding purposes has been limited. This study aims to address the abovementioned gap by drawing on the professional sports industry. Employing a case study approach, the study analyzes the use of Twitter by a professional football organization in order to examine brand attributes (both product-related and non-product-related) and their relation to Twitter’s key engagement features (Reply, Retweet, Favorite). The results extend the current knowledge base of social media brand management in the sports industry, while offering significant insights for practitioners as far as the interaction of online followers to the communicated brand attributes is concerned.

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Correspondence to Christos Anagnostopoulos.

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1holds an MBA and a DBA from the Edinburgh Business School, Heriot-Watt University. He is a member of the Sports Unit at the Athens Institute for Education and Research. His research interest falls in the area of sports management and marketing with particular focus on brand management and social media.

3holds the position of Chair in Sport Business Strategy and Marketing at Coventry University Business School, where he is also the founder and director of CIBS (Center for the International Business of Sport). Chadwick’s research and teaching interests lie in the areas of sponsorship, sport marketing and commercial strategy in sport. His academic research has appeared in journals including Sloan Management Review, the Journal of Advertising Research, Thunderbird International Business Review, Management Decision, Marketing Review and Sport Marketing Quarterly.

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Parganas, P., Anagnostopoulos, C. & Chadwick, S. ‘You’ll never tweet alone’: Managing sports brands through social media. J Brand Manag 22, 551–568 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1057/bm.2015.32

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