CSR communication of Premier League clubs on social media. The impact of winning and revenue

Abstract: Introduction: In recent years, social media communication has significantly affected the way organizations are sharing information. Social media platforms are shown to be one of the most important forms of communication also for the intent of Corporate Social Responsibility. The purpose of this study was to find out how often CSR is shared across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok and if differences exist between those platforms in frequency, choice of topic, and engagement of fans. Furthermore, the influence of being a winning, midfield, and losing team, and high and low revenue was investigated. Methods: A quantitative content analysis study was chosen as the study design. On the four mentioned social media platforms data was manually collected for Premier League clubs and coded into topics of CSR. The engagement of fans was collected with likes, comments, and shares on the relevant platforms. Results: 6879 total posts were investigated including 272 posts related to CSR content. The highest ratio for CSR posts showed Facebook (5,0%), followed by Twitter (3,7%), then Instagram (3,4%), and at last TikTok (0,8%). However, the highest number of posts was shared by Twitter, followed by Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. The topics shared the most on Twitter and Facebook are Public Policy, Safety, and Diversity. On Instagram as well Public Policy, Diversity but also Religion posts were shared the most. TikTok showed only one post related to the topic of Religion. The engagement of fans showed that Twitter has the highest engagement compared to a non-CSR-related post, closely followed by Instagram. An ANOVA analysis showed that winning teams and losing teams share significantly more CSR content than midfield teams. It was also discovered that teams with high revenue post more CSR than teams with low revenue. Discussion/Conclusion: New and major findings of this study suggest that teams in the European market have different factors that can influence the teams sharing behavior than teams from the North American market. The most interesting findings of this study show that revenue and winning may positively influence CSR sharing behavior. These insights should help understand CSR communication in sports organizations and displays the potential new platforms like TikTok and Instagram have.