Literature Review

This page will provide insights and findings from a literature review on the uses and gratifications theory, relationship marketing, fan engagement in relation to sport, and the Importance of social media in a sports marketing campaign. This page refers to research that will help investigate how fan engagement content on social media impacts brand loyalty towards the NFL. To read the full literature review, click here.

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Introduction

Social media has made it easy for sports fans to connect constantly with their favorite teams, brands, athletes, and more. There is an endless stream of content on social media platforms that speaks to niche communities of sports fans. According to research from Deloitte (2020) s that speaks to niche communities of sports fans. According to research from Deloitte (2020), sports fans in the off-season consume (from highest to lowest amount) General team news ( 77%), transactions regarding players and coaches (54%), news on injuries (48%), Video highlights (29%), in-depth analysis of their team’s performance (25%), and community involvement stories (23%). Even though this data is from social media content posted in the off-season, it can be compared to how sports fans interact in season; generally speaking, Deloitte argues their engagement rates across all categories are even higher during the teams’ actual season.The primary goal of any social media sports marketing strategy is to engage fans. Engaging fans should increase the amount of brand-loyal sports fans and ultimately increase fandom levels. Consumers do not have to be the most invested sports fans to be brand loyal or call themselves sports fans. According to Deloitte, “More than 60 percent of fans say a great ‘year-round experience’ would make them more likely to be more engaged with the team in the coming season, and 55 percent say it would make them more likely to purchase a ticket in the future” (Deloitte 2020).

In the literature review, the researchers discuss how the uses and gratifications theory, relationship marketing, social media marketing, and fan engagement tactics all play essential roles in developing brand loyalty between sports entities and sports fans. These concepts all provide context for how sports marketing and social media can impact fan engagement metrics; that ultimately leaves the sports organization with more brand loyalty retention, ROI, and happy sports fans.

How can Fan Engagement on Social Media Impact Brand Loyalty for the NFL?

The uses and gratifications theory can be applied to the sports world to understand how sports fan interact, use, and benefit from the media.

Image from Sport Tomorrow

The uses and gratifications theory pays attention to how media consumers use the media. It can specifically look at "gratification sought" and "gratification obtained" to see the motivations behind media use, and then also looks at the behavioral outcome. The gratification sought refers to why media consumers go to use a specific social platform, or engaging In one brands content over another. Gratification obtained refers to the emotion or safisifcation the media consumer feels once they have found what they were looking for. Researchers have suggested that the uses and gratifications theory can help better understand motives for using a certain type of media or following a certain group (Hambrick, Simmons, Greenhalgh, and Greenwell 2010). This makes the uses and gratification theory beneficial to look at sports fans, because It Is easier to see the approach through common groups, activities, hobbies, or Interests.

Relationship marketing strategies revolve heavily around consistent and constant communication between brands and consumers.

Relationship marketing thrives off brand to consumer communication. The purpose of relationship marketing Is to drive engagement and create relationships that will drive sales through consumer trust and loyalty (Abeza et. al., 2019). A primary tool for creating these relationships is social media. By Interacting with consumers on social media, email marketing, or other communication platforms, It bridges a gap and makes reaching out to brands feel accessible all the time. Consumers like to know they matter, and by brands Interacting with consumers, they will make them feel Important (Williams & Chinn 2010). Relationship Marketing Is a Important tactic when thinking about fan engagement because of how Important the brand to consumer Interaction Is.

Image from Clever Solution

Fan Engagement is a success measure in the sports marketing world used to look at the different ways sports fans interact with the brand.

Image from Data Sport Group

According to Naraine, Bakhsh & Wanless (2022), fan engagement measures the interactive relationship between consumers and brands, which helps foster communities for teams, athletes, brands, etc. When looking at social posts, they made the following observations of the advantages of social media-driven fan engagement: sports used to be limited by location and time. It was not easy to reach fans in different countries when sporting events were not occurring. Social media makes it easier for fans to stay connected to game time updates The researchers argue that some of the most influential content comes from fans themselves, meaning they look to fan comments, posts, likes, or whatever content they are putting out to play with and see how that impacts their brand.

Social Media is an important tool for sports marketing professionals looking to create brand loyalty through fan engagement.

Image from Logo Lynx

Brand Loyalty is one of the biggest goals of a sports marketing professional. Haugh and Watkins (2016) note that sports team brands need to foster emotional attachment from fans that will leave them with an increased sense of loyalty and trust among fans, increasing brand loyalty. According to Hussain, Naz, Shahzad, and Bajwa (2021), sports fans usually turn to social media for updates, play-by-play, and visual content, which makes it easy to enhance the relationship with the consumer by making content more interactive. Brand loyalty and relationship marketing tactics aim to increase fan engagement by bringing consumers together for a common goal (Hussain, Naz, Shahzad, & Bajwa (2021).

Conclusion

Many researchers have alluded to how sports marketing relies heavily on the uses and gratifications theory and relationship marketing to bridge together a cohesive social media strategy that will increase fan engagement. The uses and gratification theory, relationship marketing, and fan engagement all contribute to brand loyalty. Social media use by professional sports teams, organizations and brands look to create maximum interaction between brand and consumer to Increase their fan count and likeability. However, there Is not enough information on how brand loyalty reflects social media content A detailed analysis of the content calling out fan engagement could help sports marketing professionals better understand brand loyalty and customer retention. This research will analyze Instagram content from the NFL to know how their fan engagement tactics using a call to action can impact their brand loyalty and customer retention. To do so, the following research questions and hypotheses will be tested:

R1: Are NFL posts (reels, stories, photo/video posts) on Instagram that include call-to-action messages more likely to have higher user engagement than NFL posts that do not include call-to-action messaging?

R2: What call-to-action messaging does the NFL use most on Instagram posts (reels, stories, photo/video posts)? (buying tickets, watching content, website traffic, sign-ups, etc.)

H1: NFL Instagram posts (reels, stories, photo/video posts) that include call-to-action messaging are more likely to have higher user engagement than NFL Instagram posts (reels, stories, photo/video posts) that do not include call-to-action messaging

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