Towards understanding a football club’s social media network: an exploratory case study of Manchester United

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this work is to study how different stakeholders of a football club engage with interactions online through Twitter. It analyses the football club’s Twitter network to discover influential actors and the topic of interest in their online communication. Design/methodology/approach The authors analysed the social networks derived from over two million tweets collected during football matches played by Manchester United. The authors applied social network analysis to discover influencers and sub-communities and performed content analysis on the most popular tweets of the prominent influencers. Findings Sub-communities can be formed around current affairs that are irrelevant to football, perhaps due to opportunistic attempts of using the large networks and massive attention during football matches to disseminate information. Furthermore, the popularity of tweets featuring different topics depends on the types of influencers involved. Practical implications The methods can help football clubs develop a deeper understanding of their online social communities. The findings can also inform football clubs on how to optimise their communication strategies by using various influencers. Originality/value Compared to previous research, the authors discovered a wide range of influencers and denser networks characterised by a smaller number of large clusters. Interestingly, this study also found that bots appeared to become influential within the network.

Binge Watching and the Role of Social Media Virality towards promoting Netflix’s Squid Game

“…Our findings are also comparable to Chadwick et al (2021), who found that the Twitter account of a high impact brand (EPL) containing several distinct opinion leaders can lead to the development of a unique amplified network. Another relevant study by Guzmán et al (2021) examined tweets that were collected during Manchester United’s matchdays. The study used SNA to identify influential users within the network.…”

“…Like a mega sporting event, where key social media influencer networks were identified to have consisted of journalists, fans and players, among other related stakeholders (Guzmán et al, 2021), the Squid Game social network showed organized participation of a professional and non-professional fan base, who acted as key influencers or opinion leaders. An in-depth analysis of opinion leader characteristics within the network highlights several citizens, film and TV influencers, and even Netflix’s own different territory accounts that were influential within the network.…”

Who leads the conversation? Influential Twitter users during a niche sporting event

“…Esta red social proporciona una rápida interacción entre los usuarios y contribuye fuertemente a la difusión de información a través de mecanismos virales. En el contexto de la comunicación deportiva, Twitter ayuda a hacerse una idea de los principales temas tratados por los usuarios (González et al, 2021;Huang, Shen & Li, 2018; Méndez-Guzmán, Zhang & Ahmed, 2021). La conversación abierta en Twitter permite explorar cómo se desarrolla la marca de los atletas durante un período de tiempo (Su, Baker, Doyle & Kunkel, 2020) y las diferentes formas en que los equipos pueden construir relaciones sólidas con sus aficionados (Naraine, 2019;Wang, 2021).…”

La influencia en redes sociales durante los eventos deportivos: "Los casos de Twitter en los Mundiales de Ciclismo en Pista de Londres (Reino Unido) 2016, y Apeldoorn (Países Bajos) 2018"

“…This social network provides quick interaction among users, and strongly contributes to the spread of information through viral mechanisms. In the context of sports communication, Twitter helps to get a picture of the main topics discussed by users (González et al, 2021;Guzmán et al, 2021;Huang et al, 2017). The open conversation in Twitter allows us to explore how athlete branding unfolds over a period of time (Su et al, 2020), and the different way teams can build strong relationships with fans (Naraine, 2019;Wang, 2020).…”

“…Although there are already several research works on the ways in which large sport teams and mass sporting events (such as the Olympic games or world soccer championships) leverage social networks (Abeza et al, 2014;Clavio et al, 2013;Guzmán et al, 2021;Jensen et al, 2015;X. Wang, 2015;Yu & Wang, 2015), in the case of niche sports the research is much more limited (Mastromartino et al, 2020;Trivedi et al, 2020).…”