Investigating the Differences in Twitter Content and Effectiveness Between Individual and Team Sport Athletes

Abstract

While the existing literature has categorized Twitter conversations and examined gender differences in professional athletes’ online self-presentation initiatives, researchers have neglected to examine the differences in Twitter presentation between individual and team sport athletes. This study examined the differences in self-promotional content and effectiveness of Twitter activity between individual and team sport athletes. The authors utilized content analysis to categorize Twitter activity while a comparison not only between different types of athletes but also within categories was conducted by analyzing composite variables. While the findings confirmed the existence of content contrasts in the promotional category, no significant differences were observed in the remaining tweet categories. The analysis of fan perceptions identified team athlete tweets as more effective aside from the promotional category. Independently, the professional category was found to be most effective amongst team athlete tweets, while the athlete exchange category was deemed most effective amongst individual athlete tweets. The current study contributed to the understanding of self-promotional tactics utilized by two categories of athletes (i.e., individual and team) through the investigation of content of tweets and fan perception analysis. Key implications for the academic field and the sport marketing industry and recommendations for future research were discussed.