ABSTRACT

The purpose of this research is to examine the impact of social media and sports fan engagement and explore whether social media engagement has a mediating effect on the relationship between fan engagement behaviour and fan loyalty. The research employed an explanatory research design to explain the cause-and-effective relationship among fan behaviour and fan loyalty. Self-administered questionnaires were employed in collecting the data. The target population for this study was fans of Accra Hearts of Oak and Kumasi Asante Kotoko, who were active on social media during the sample time frame. After a two and half month period of data collection, three hundred and twenty-five (325) questionnaires were valid for statistical analyses. The Partial Least Square (PLS) method was used to test the hypothesis. The study revealed that social media engagement has a positive and significant influence on fan behaviour and fan loyalty. Sport organisations predominantly use social media to increase their brand visibility and to develop fan relationships. The study found that loyalty in this population was more multifaceted than the unvarying consumer markets. Fans of the two clubs appeared to hold a higher sense of loyalty and control in their devotion to the club. The study contributes to new knowledge regarding the potential and limitations in the use of social media in marketing and relationships. The substantial use of social media seems to be primarily directed towards club’s visibility and relationship development. Social media usage is significant in improving fan loyalty in football clubs. The study provides evidence of how a fan’s behaviour and the club’s effort to engage via social media lead to fan loyalty and commitment.

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION

            Chapter overview

This chapter provides a background to social media and sports fan engagement and presents the concept of social media and how it has evolved to the overall concept of engagement. Furthermore, the research gaps that this study seek to address are stated. The chapter also outlines the objectives and hypothesis of the study, purpose of the study, significance of the study, scope of the study and the chapter disposition.

            Background to the Study

Internet and Web 2.0 technologies have evolved and hence shifted the attention of organisations from outmoded forms of communicating marketing programmes like magazines, television, radio and newspapers to social media in order to better engage with  the public (Mangold & Faulds, 2009; Schulze, Scholer, & Skiera, 2014). Social media has gradually been adopted as an internet marketing tool within business (Michaelidous, Siamagka, & Christodoulides, 2011). Studies have shown and unravelled that Web 2.0 (social media) is a significant marketing tool and as such has continuously evolved over the past two decades (Deloitte, 2018; Hoffman, & Novak, 2012; Patino, Pitta, & Quinones, 2012). According to Eagleman (2013), social media is believed to be one of the fastest and proficient ways of growing a football club, communicating with fans and or national governing bodies of sports. It helps in facilitating, reinforcing consumption, accruing brand loyalty and fan retention (Kozinets, 2002; 2010). Then again, it is proven to be a giant catalyst for the footballing world and fans alike. It represents the easiest and fastest way to circulate information around the globe (PwC, 2018).

Not only has social media evolved, but has also offered a platform for sport clubs and management to interact and engage fans in real time (Meng, Stavros, & Westberg, 2015). As Vivek, Beatty, and Morgan (2012) note, in this day where social media is eminent, engagement has turned out to be the backbone of marketing, allowing consumers to be active members rather than being passive receivers. Based on the aforementioned, social media becomes a treasured marketing instrument, which permits satisfied consumers to make recommendations to prospective consumers (Boateng, 2014; Forbes & Vespoli, 2013). This also allows fans to be loyal and passionate about their teams irrespective of the club’s on- field performance and always recommend their preferred sport club to others.

Building on Keller (2013), social media offers enormous benefits for organisations. Lebel, Loving, and Campbell (2015) state that, sporting clubs utilise social media strategies to augment profit. Social media however offers football clubs with ground-breaking experiences and interactions to build rapport with fans outside the club’s home market (Stavros, Meng, Westberg, & Farrelly, 2014). Given the cumulative commercialisation of sports, it is not astonishing that clubs are impelled into the branding spotlight (Thompson et al., 2018). Therefore, the branding of sport clubs is seen as an essential fragment in guaranteeing achievement and maximising additional financial revenue (Bouchet et al., 2013). This is extremely possible since social media provides fans with the opportunity to find the latest sports information and also network with other fans (Hull & Lewis, 2014). Therefore, it is anticipated that Web 2.0 (social media) can create a chance for football clubs and fans to engage and interact based on the likes, shares, comments, tweets and retweets. Filo, Lock and Karg (2015) state that professional teams invest significant amount of resources and time into nurturing and maintaining fan engagement through social media. Deloitte (2018) asserts that

social media helps football clubs in accruing revenue and acquainting with prospective fans and setting up connections swiftly and smoothly.

Kaplan and Haelein (2010) postulate that in differentiating social and traditional media,  social media markers ought to be humble, interesting and honest in communicating with consumers. The evolution of social media has fashioned an opportunity for customers to be heard (i.e. when articulating their grievances), which is a prime component in building trust thereby making the transactional marketing concept obsolete, paving way to relationship building (Andzulis, Panagopoulos, & Rapp, 2012). This affirms the fact that little attention was given to sport fans until the upsurge of social media where fans became powerful and made a lot of contributions to clubs’ decisions. For instance, the manager of English Premier League football club Liverpool FC, Jürgen Klopp, made few of his signings based on fans recommendations. This confirms Meng et al’s. (2015) findings that spot managers ought to strengthen their commitment by engaging fans. Gantz (2013) indicates that social media facilitates fans’ connectivity and supplements other relationships.

All things considered, the term social media is very broad and as such becomes difficult to distinguish what qualifies it (Witktemper, Lim & Waldburger, 2012). Notably, Jaffrey (2011) defined social media as any online platform that heartens interaction, discussion and sense of belongingness. From the above definition, social media could be interpreted as a social networking site (SNS) that involves podcasting, wikis, discussion group, text messaging, forums, photo sharing, content communities, video streaming and blogs that facilitates communication (Kaplan & Haelein, 2010; Kirtis & Karahan, 2011). Chan and Guillet (2011) concur that Web 3.0 technologies facilitates online engagement in real time. Williams and Chinn (2010) also defined Web 2.0 as a podium of collective and user-controlled virtual

platforms that enhance involvement, expertise, capabilities and consumer power. These social media platforms permit internet users to relate, engage and socialise with one another (Kirtis & Karahan, 2011); not only is it utilised by individuals but global organisations at large, of which sport organisations are not exception.

Interestingly, social media has powered users by taking active part in forecasting, designing, dissemination, editing and sharing content that is accessible by everyone (Williams & Chinn, 2010; Abeza et al., 2013; Watanabe, Yan & Soebbing, 2015). Thus, consumers are recently becoming producers and disseminators of knowledge (Abeza et al., 2013), paving way for real time information and easy access to same.

For instance, the former director in charge of social media marketing and strategy for National Hockey League (NHL), Mike DiLorenzo once indicated: “social networks aren’t about websites. They’re about experiences” (Wyshynski, 2009 as cited in Mangold & Faulds, 2009, p.268). If social media enhances the interaction of an individual and over thousand others within a space of time, it explains why social media drives business in which marketers influence consumers (Hanna, Rohm & Crittenden, 2011). With the help of social media, marketers are able to communicate and accrue customer commitment to a firm’s marketing programmes (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2011).

In this modern era, social media has become a strategy used by organisations in communicating their marketing programmes (Jaffrey, 2011) and interestingly, it is used largely by Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), international corporations, governmental agencies and charity organisations (Kaplan & Haenlien, 2010; Kim & Ko, 2012). McCarthy et al. (2014) stated that sport clubs can use social media to engage,

communicate and drive traffic to their website. Miller and Lammas (2010) state that organisations, in adopting social media strategy, should ensure that the strategy is able to resolve the challenges and explore the opportunities related to it.

Primarily, Facebook usage was eminent in the year 2006 by sport clubs for marketing activities (Pronschinske, Groza & Walker, 2012). Nonetheless, as sport organisations desire to remain relevant and noticeable, it is necessary for them to understand how social media will accrue fans’ awareness and interaction. Filo et al. (2015) opine that professional football clubs recently marshal resources towards online engagement and brand awareness. Football clubs such AS Roma, FC Barcelona, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and Real Madrid; mega-events such as the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), World Cup, Confederation of African Football (CAF), Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Champions League, Super Bowl, and Olympics; athletes like Lionel Messi, Christiano Ronaldo, Neymar Jr and other sport retail brands like Adidas and Nike are using myriads of ways to integrate social media into marketing strategies (McCarthy et al., 2014; Garcia, 2011).

This notwithstanding, it is quite challenging to measure the impact of social media, but it can be quantified through sales on social media accounts (Jaffrey, 2011). It can be seen that organisations do benefit from social media presence and as such accrued brand exposure, subscribers’ online traffic, reduced cost, trust, customer dedication, more leads, co-operations and new business connections (Jaffrey 2011; Stelzner, 2011). Nonetheless, Hoffman and Fodor (2010) state that organisations can ascertain the number of views, likes, shares, retweets, and comments on social media especially with the right account. Essentially,

organisations can also measure the visits to their official websites and the number of sales generated through social media.

Conversely, it is imperative to empirically examine the role of social media sports fan engagement and loyalty through the use of Facebook and Twitter. Therefore, this current study seeks to examine the role of social media sports fan engagement and loyalty of Accra Hearts of Oak and Kumasi Asante Kotoko, because these two clubs are the traditional clubs in Ghana that have won many laurels and can boast of high branding both online and offline, as compared to other clubs in Ghana.

            Problem Statement

Mullin, Hardy and Sutton (2000) state that football clubs are facing intense competition from other contenders, mainly other entertainment options such as cinemas, theatres, and shopping complex and other online entertainment such as DStv programmes, television-series, Home Box Office (HBO), and Netflix. However, the above entertainment options all vie for consumers’ resources and time; by this virtue, football clubs have stepped up in the game, thereby guiding their territory over arch-rivals and developing strategies to retain their existing customers. Though globalisation has become a threat to live sports, it also permits football clubs to appeal to global fans and attract sponsors to help increase their revenue. Recently, two international brands ‘UMBRO’ and ‘STRIKE’ signed sponsorship deals with Accra Hearts of Oak and Asante Kotoko respectively due to their online presence. That notwithstanding, for clubs to accrue their international fan base, they ought to be active on social media and consistently engage their fan base.

Griffiths (2016) states that most organisations use social media without comprehending the power, influence and reach of the platform. Furthermore, the emergence of social media has seen a lot of organisations struggling to manage, create and implement social media strategies (Miller & Lammas, 2010; Hanna et al., 2011). Thus, social media usage by numerous organisations appears to be “mostly experiential and ad hoc, rather than strategically planned in organisations across myriads of countries” (Macnamara & Zerfass, 2012, p.303). Despite the power and influence of social media, most organisations have not applied a concise and clear social media strategy; most firms display lack of social media monitoring, insufficient coaching and support to employees (Macnamara & Zerfass, 2012). In addendum, social media implementation is often confused with what the firm intended to do (Deloitte, 2018). For instance, a study conducted in 2012 unravelled that only 23 percent of European organisations have specific social media strategies in executing their activities (see PwC, 2018).

Despite the efforts made by sport organisations in engaging their fans on social media, the aftermaths of these exertions have not been sufficiently explored (Mahan, 2011; Meng et al., 2015; Vale & Fernandes, 2018). Most sport firms use social media to expedite fans’ connectivity and nurture other relationships (Gantz, 2013). Hence, sport organisations are anticipated not only to win games but also make their events gratifying and engage fans through social media; online media serves as a community where fans can interact with club and other fans. Ioakimidis (2010) states that social media permits fans to express their personal ideas, experiences and sense of belongingness to the community. Nonetheless, sports organisations cannot rely heavily on their social media traffic alone to gain insight into fan engagement. Interestingly, not everyone on a social media page of a sport organisation, or more specifically a football club, may be a fan. Thus, there is a possibility that some people,

after becoming fans, may never visit the platform again or will leave immediately their favourite player leaves. For instance, some Real Madrid fans left the club’s social media page simply because Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro left the club for Juventus. Juventus’ social media handles gladly gained new followers (PwC, 2018). There is, therefore, the need for investigation to provide the impact of social media on football clubs fan engagement and loyalty.