Social Media Platforms - The Most Valuable Player? - The role of social media platforms in fostering football fans’ team loyalty

Abstract: With football as an increasing business, alongside the rise and importance of user-generated content on social media, this mixed methodological paper analyzes which roles Twitter, podcasts and e-zines usage have for Swedish football fans’ loyalty towards their favorite teams, by utilizing surveys and semi-structured interviews. This paper provides support for positive relationships between social media usage and behavioral fan loyalty, since social media platforms keep fans updated and generate information, especially when there is a geographical distance between the fans and the team. This leads to a higher level of involvement, and a feeling of team identification, that consequently increases the loyalty towards the team, the fandom, and other fans. The research model therefore functions as a never-ending cycle, acting as a theoretical implication for research on consumer behavior and brand loyalty. The paper further provides evidence for distinctions between attitudinal and behavioral fan loyalty, contributing both theoretically to researchers, and managerially to football clubs when building loyalty. Lastly, the paper offers further managerial implications in that engaging consumers through social media platforms, as a branding strategy, positively affects consumer brand loyalty. This is beneficial for brand managers regardless of industry, but for football clubs particularly.